I’ve talked to a number of producers and casting agents for online and cable dating reality shows in the last month. Some of the ideas are decent and some of them make me want to curl up into a ball and sob about the sorry state of humanity. This just in, the audio version of Love Broker is Octomom’s new single.
Dating History: First Online Dating Service? While in college, Bill Coughlin created what he believes to be the first digital dating service in 1976. Another important dating industry figure: Patrick O’ Leary founded Matchmaker.com.
I like the distinct design of MyMatchmaker.
MusicPound is an iPhone app gives users deeper insight into those they are compatible with by analyzing their music. Unlike Tastebuds, MusicPound does not require any manual entry, since the app uses a patent-pending process to seamlessly scan the user’s iTunes and extract information about not just the music they listen to, but how they listen. The score generated is supposedly a more true measure of compatibility since the user can not easily configure any entry to achieve a desired result.
I find myself sharing this with clients often, Match Study: Singles In America. Same goes for this, an Analysis of Online Dating From The Perspective of Psychological Science: Another good research article for those interested in the nuts and bolts of online dating. The 64-page analysis reviews more than 400 psychology studies and public interest surveys.
If you don’t trust your personal info to Facebook or dating sites, you might want to look into a Personal Data Locker. But how to search them?
Lots of phone-based private/secure calling and texting apps out there. PrivacyStar is another one, features Do Not Disturb, Call and Text blocking and other functions.
Impressive and somewhat scary facts about the service:
124 Million Calls Blocked
66 Million Unknown Numbers Looked Up
202,000 Complaints Filed Directly to the Federal Trade Commission
Provides real-time complaint filing directly to the FTC
Nearly 1 million registered users
Rachel Greenwald talks about post-date interviews in her book Why He Didn’t Call You Back: 1,000 Guys Reveal What They Really Thought About You After Your Date.
I’m always talking to a few companies trying to create the next great date-rating/feedback service. We’re getting closer to something truly useful by a large amount of people, but I think its going to take a few more years of iterations until the Epinions of dating comes to fruition. Doesn’t something like that need to be baked directly into the site for it to really work?
I don’t think that the reason OkCupid is so great is that it’s programmed in a specific language, but this was funny to come across.
