Today’s guest post is by Matthias Galica, Product Manager @WooMe.com.
What do you call something that’s never existed before? Remember rolling your eyes at the first mention of “social networking”, “social bookmarking”, or “micro-blogging” – only to see them end up in the popular lexicon?
That’s sometimes the difficult flipside to facilitating an entirely new and exciting behavior online: you have to give it a name. Even worse, you may need to stick with it for weeks, months, maybe years – during which time no one has the slightest idea what you’re talking about.
But it’s incredibly validating when that strangely-named baby becomes the popular new kid on the block.
WooMe is currently the slightly awkward adolescent: we’ve just had a couple growth spurts, it’s the summer before high school, and girls are starting to pay attention to us.
Internally, we’ve been using the term “introductions platform” because our community has outgrown the online dating label. The lion’s share of visitors still come looking to meet and interact with potential love interests in real-time, but WooMe has also become a valuable tool for engaging new people in a fun way online.
People are screening new roommates, challenging each other in spirited discussions on news and politics, even vying for the attention of their favorite celebrities. With hundreds of thousands of live sessions, chats, and video chats at any given time, the number of different ways our users interact is increasing exponentially. Calling ourselves purely a dating site would be limiting and might neglect the myriad activities for which our users have appropriated the technology.
Essentially, we’re recreating in the virtual space all the things that relative strangers can do in reality, and it’s an amazing to watch. (See for yourself on WooMe TV).
So does it make sense to publicize the term Introductions Platform? No matter how hard you try and coin a term, sometimes it just doesn’t stick. Even mighty Facebook has had little traction with “social utility” and there’s a veritable graveyard of Web 2.0 buzzwords that now inspire little more than a chuckle (heck, “Web 2.0″ might be one of them). Sometimes you risk completely missing the target with “e-tailing”, “life caching“, or “hypertasking“.
Our current tagline is “Introducing the World”, but we’re planning on trying out a more simple and straightforward “Meet People LIVE” in the coming weeks.
Which do you think does a better job of getting the idea across?
Photo is of Matthias at TechCrunch 50 in 2009.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I like “Meet people Live” – i get it. and like the site, just watched a video of Carolina Liar.
Good read Matt, interested in hearing what others in the industry think…
Anthony – glad you enjoyed the site. We’ve been really impressed with the way artists/celebs have been using the site.. lots of new ideas and concepts popping up around video technology, thanks for the kudos and the tagline feedback!
-Veronica (WooMe Community Manager)
I’ve used WooMe a bit, and I like it. Just not sure if “Introductions Platform” even covers, really. It’s a lot more than that.
pretty funny article considering i only checked it out when stephanie pratt was on it months ago, had no idea it was for dating!
i signed up and have been bombarded with spam/fraud non stop. every single person sends me the same message. Literally like 20 of them in a minute
“care to chat?? if you have yahoo messeng…”
They need to clean up and block the spam
Cool functionality though.
jn-
Thanks for your feedback, we’re painfully aware of the issue that you brought up. While it’s not normally as bad as you described, there are times we get hit pretty hard. We’re rolling out a few solutions soon that will eliminate much of what you experienced.
And thanks for the ups on our platform :]
Can you please explain how this is different from Facebook? Can you explain why someone would need another social site? I am so tired of having to sign up for so many different services when someone sends me an invite. In fact its one of my biggest pet peeves. When someone emails me to join – I’m like – just say what you want to say to me in the goddamn email you just sent me inviting me to join. If I were u guys I would drop the idea of never talking about facebook and just face the dragon – why should I sign up for you when I am aready on FB? Make that clear and maybe I will join. And Online dating is super lame. If you can’t meet pretty girls in the real world – then mother nature never intended you to.
One is videoconferencing and the other is not.
One is a social platform, the other is video-based group introductions based on topic.
One knows how to use celebrities to drive visitors, one does not.
One doesn’t have much porn and spam, the other does.
Got it?
Online dating isn’t super lame, you’re just too awesome for it (snicker).
As for mother nature, I was going to donate my swimmers to a clinic and reproduce through technology and science! I want to set a record for births in a year, from my seed! I’ll let the computer find which women want to be fertilized, sort of like how Michael Jaxson did for his third kid (or maybe all of them).
I do think that technology is being used to over-lap to real life, but also communication technology has improved that people can meet others even if they live in rural and remote areas, or even urban areas. Its just up to the person’s access to a computer and time on their hands. But activities and niche sites are important if they can blend with real-world activities like going to church, sports, etc.
Solo: “if you can’t meet pretty girls in the real world-mother nature never intended you to.”-What a pathetic thing to say. Online dating exists for a reason and to say that Moher ature never intended you to” find love has got to be one of the most rediculous statements I’ve ever had to consider. How can you be s rude? To deny a person love? Shame…a real pity, biased uncaring arguments like said.
People like you might as well cease to exist for bashing people who cannot find love? Even though I do sway the notion, i would never agree to it.
Solo: “I do think that technology is being used to over-lap real life…”-I like you used the word “think” to clarify it as your own thought. However, technology I don’t think is trying to do that, poeple who don’t like the idea may be more inclined to say so to validate their argument as to how it can “interfer” with real life. It IS real life if one knows how to use it properly. I don’t think it’s trying to “take over real life” in too many means, but it can make criminals more hidden!
Everyone to their own opinion. What I don’t like is how peole so often try to orce their opinions on others, like mind control.