Virtual avatar-based dating has always been a curiosity in the online dating industry. Meeting potential dates in a browser-based virtual chat environment is absolutely a great idea. Virtual dating is about as niche as you can get. The usual argument against virtual dating is that the phone is a lot easier to use, you don’t have to download anything, and it just works.
I have plenty of questions about monetizing virtual dating, usability issues, feature enhancements, in-environment advertising, and let’s not forget effectiveness. Are people going out on more dates after participating in virtual ones? There is research, but I’m talking about hearing from dating sites that say that virtual dating was a big hit and had a measurable positive impact on efficiency, site metrics, etc. I’d be all over that, believe me, because virtual dating is a fantastic idea, in certain circumstances.
Personally, I think the lack of interest is partially due to the fact that the environments are not engaging enough. I used to spend a lot of time in SecondLife and was involved with developing virtual worlds back in the 90’s, so I a little about what a compelling interactive environment looks like.
Longtime readers know that I’ve been talking about Omnidate for several years. I’ve hoped they would evolve the service into something more along the lines of what singles are willing to use on a broader scale. Perhaps I’m too extroverted to understand just how important virtual dating could be to that slice of society that feels uncomfortable picking up the phone.
As with any uncontested market, competition tends to make an entrance at some point. Weopia is the most comprehensive competitor to OmniDate I’ve seen. Built by Canadian IT shop Virtucom, the downloadable application (Mac/Windows compatible), mirrors the real world, providing engaging environments and experiential situations where you can further explore compatibility and the likelihood of a positive real-life date.
Throughout the environment are a number of heart-shaped tokens. in the application are clickable, leading to a list of dating advice links, which link to various YouTube videos by dating coaches and seemingly random people. Most of the advice is generic stuff pulled from YouTube, I’d like to see the videos embedded in the environment itself.
The bottom navigation bar performs various system duties, from chat to vehicle selection. I jumped in a hovercraft, which made is much easier to get around quickly.
There are portals that take you to other areas to explore. Basically this is SecondLife, and I wish it ran in Flash in the Browser, because the download and resulting 1/2 gig application runs the risk of turning people off.
Lot’s of people date who met in SecondLife. I know people who are married that met in SL. The question for Weopia is, if SecondLife has millions of people, why would they use a stripped-down clone instead of simply looking for a date in SL and figuring out how to monetize that?
The graphics are fantastic on their maximum setting, but made my laptop fan sound like a jet plane. Speaking of jet planes, nothing says I’m hot like rolling up on someone while driving a cherry-red hovercraft.
I need to invite someone into Weopia and run through the rest of the environment together. Hopefully there are some quizzes, games and other interactive features to explore. Right now the space feels very large, whereas with Omnidate you’re sitting at a bar right across from someone, which feels more intimate and focused and I didn’t have to learn how to drive a hovercraft to impress a woman.
Rebuild in Flash, stick it in the browser, make it more interactive, throw some advertising into the environment and maybe Weopia will have something down the road. Gotta go, my hovercraft is overheating.
