A few years ago I created a simple web page that used a series of icons to depict a person and the type of people they seek. I used simple male and female icons like you find on rest room doors, and various pictures of skinny, medium-build and overweight people to make it easy to self-identify without filling out the same old textfields, drop-down boxes and radio buttons that dating sites rely on during the profile building process.

Imagini Friends has taken this to the next level.

Users are asked to identify which photo best describes their bedroom, idea of fun, whats exciting, gross, favorite drink, etc. After being led through a series of photo galleries, where all you have to do is click on a photo, you are presented with a VisualDNA Report based on your selections.

My Mood: Easy Rider
Fun: Conqueror
Habits: High Time Roller
Love: Love Bug

My VisualDNA:

On the results page you can see how your choices compare to others. This is very cool. the science if imagery. Even if you’re not a visual person, you can pick out a beer over a martini, the beach over the mountains, a messy bedroom over a clean one.

I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. Linking this with Riya, which powers Like.com, would be incredible.

I’ve always like gallery view on dating sites, but why not let me click on the faces i find attractive and have that filter out potential matches? It’s far more fun to click away than visit search results, but may just be me. Anything to bring more interactivity to online dating is a step in the right direction. Unless you just want your matches emailed to you, in which case Chemistry.com or eHarmony
is the way to go.

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Read/WriteWeb has an overview of identity verification services. Having worked with Trufina and Opinity, I am intimately familiar with how they operate and current issues that need to be addressed if these companies hope to succeed.

At first, background checks were a solution looking for a problem. The thinking was along the lines of “We do checks for major corporate HR departments, why not branch out into other (seemingly) logical markets?�

Bzzzt. Wrong answer. None of these companies knew the first think about dating or social networking, and it showed, sometimes painfully, during their pitches to dating site business development teams.

That was two years ago.

Now Sentinel is providing searching capabilities to MySpace’s sex offender alert system. MySpace may use image-analysis software and other means whereby sex offenders using MySpace can be recognized, even if they don’t use their real names in registering. I talked to Riya about using their facial recognition on dating sites for matching purposes, as I understand it talks are underway with most large dating sites although I’m not clear on the status.

Sometimes you need to stare at a problem for a while before the solution becomes apparent. The problem is that others are reacting quicker to changes in the marketplace and launching competitive services for most less cost and overall resources.

I recently heard from Harrison Tang at Spokeo. Spokeo is a content and profile aggregator built by Stanford roommates. No VC, no big development team. Just a few smart people in close proximity learning from the mistakes of others who previously trod down a similar path.

This madness with 20+ profiles is ridiculous and borders on insulting. I can only hope that dating sites will allow for a Master Profile which can be shared among several sites and manageable via a centralized site.

Lots of entrants into the marketplace, everyone is having a hard time monetizing traffic. Either you make money on identity or background checks or advertising. So far, we’re not seeing a lot of either, but it’s early days for identity companies. There are plenty of them in the deadpool. As usual, it’s going to take timing and a unique value proposition to succeed.

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