Are you Worthy of Calisto100?

by David Evans on January 5, 2009 in Dating Sites

Roger Limon, Calisto100 CEO, emailed to let us know about Calisto100.

What are the criteria by which people are selected? We are looking for singles with something special to offer more than skin deep. Confident, ambitious, adventurous, honest, humorous singles with a positive outlook on life are the core qualities we focus on; however, it simply depends on the person. It is no secret that dating/quality is subjective, but Calisto100 aims to filter out the vast majority of singles online who aren’t focused on substance. There are plenty of singles out there looking for quality, and we want to offer them a place on the web where quality actually matters.

Who does the selecting? The company reviews all applications. All decisions are unanimous in order to make the list.

Why 100 people? It felt better than 99 or 101. We are offering a platform for singles to be featured, and it is just too easy to get lost in the crowd on all the other dating sites. We wanted a simple interface where users could simply click a city and see the top 100 all at once. No searching, no filtering, we do that for you.

What is your revenue model? We are subscription based. Calisto100 members who make the list pay a monthly subscription. The first month is free as of now.

What makes you think people are going to apply? In one word…quality. The web is saturated with online dating, but there seems to be no filter. Free sites bombard members with senseless ads, and paid sites will accept anyone who pays. Where do users go to find a quality single online? That is the gap we are trying to fulfill.

We believe that once Calisto100 develops its presence on the web focusing on quality, singles will then take the time to apply. And remember, the application is FREE. This is not going to be easy, and we know it. Users are used to signing up within seconds, and joining free communities; however, that is part of the problem. There is no filter in the dating world, and we believe that there is a need for quality. Calisto100 also offers an extremely different model. Anyone, member or non-member, can contact a Calisto100 member. This is free for non-members. All of those singles who want to online date without joining a community now can. Calisto100 members are able to control who contacts them, so this is a very unique spin to the standard online model.

I talked to someone about this exact idea a few months ago. Screening is a good idea, but people seem to have a problem with the arbitrary notion of what makes someone worthy.

There are several sites that only accept beautiful people, which means classically good looking. If you are that shallow, go right ahead and join and good luck to you.

First they say it’s subscription based, then it says it’s free. Perhaps they are talking about a social networking application. I’m concerned that people are not going to want to pay a subscription fee for Calisto100. I definitely wouldn’t pay until I was approved.

Calisto100 would be better if acceptance process was crowdsourced from the membership instead of relying a group of dudes sitting in a room looking at profiles. Can you imaging those meetings? Reviewing thousands of profiles every week? I would go numb and just start picking the hottest people, who has time to read profiles?

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