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One of the things that I've noticed when researching this myself is that the majority of the time, people generally dont fill out their profiles too well - whic

by froo 18y ago

One of the things that I've noticed when researching this myself is that the majority of the time, people generally dont fill out their profiles too well - which I would suggest lessens their chances of someone finding them. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel regarding dating sites, why not create a webapp that helps people create good custom profiles for themselves to increase their chances at finding someone? Perhaps have it so that it can export the blocks of information which are customised for the main dating sites - to make it an easier process, and also allow for data portability across multiple dating sites. That would be one of the ways I'd approach this kind of problem.

HeyLaughingBoy 18y ago
I think help with profiles is an excellent idea. Before I was married (met my wife on yahoo personals way back when it was still free), I dated a lot of people I met online and a couple of women showed me the "typical" profile of a guy who approached them and they were <b>terrible</b>. It was easy to see why women were turned off. I'm sure if the guys realized how desperate and needy they came across, they'd be able to do a better job of hooking up.
- froo 18y ago
  exactly It was easy to see why women were turned off. I'm sure if the guys realized how desperate and needy they came across, they'd be able to do a better job of hooking up. I think there is still a stigma attached to online dating that people are scraping the bottom of the barrel- amongst women especially. In fact, while researching dating sites (I was thinking about building a competitive dating site for Australia in 06/07) I've often come across the phrase "I cant believe I'm doing this" as the first sentence in a female's profile. You can have the best dating technology in the world, but the reality is that there are a significant number of people just dont have profiles that are any good or a real judge of a person's character. I think this problem is compounded when you consider that often people dont have very descriptive profiles when writing something about themselves and often write about tastes that are seemingly universal but non specific. EG, if I wrote I liked movies, as opposed to writing I liked Tarantino and Kubrick films. Often I seen profiles (of both men and women, so this problem is not gender specific) where people are just trying to meet minimum word counts. Any kind of matching technology based off keyword matching in this kind of situation simply fails. I think for a technology like this to have any decent chance, there would need to be a couple of core components. 1) Point and click profile writing, where people can click on hobbies and it can attempt to write something for them. You would also have to ensure that profile's dont look like canned responses. 2) Photo touching up - Often when I've touched up photo's in photoshop for others, I find myself using the same techniques, with often very similar settings on the sliders - if there was a way you could automatically detect and touch up photos, then it would be fantastic. I'm not sure if there are any sites out there that currently have this feature, but it would make a great standalone site too, especially with photo sharing sites and social networking sites being popular. 3) Profile exporting. If I've written a profile for say match.com and I want to goto eharmony.com, I dont want have to rewrite significant chunks of it to match the new format, especially given a large number of people have trouble writing even one profile.

by froo 18y ago

HeyLaughingBoy 18y ago

I think help with profiles is an excellent idea. Before I was married (met my wife on yahoo personals way back when it was still free), I dated a lot of people I met online and a couple of women showed me the "typical" profile of a guy who approached them and they were <b>terrible</b>. It was easy to see why women were turned off. I'm sure if the guys realized how desperate and needy they came across, they'd be able to do a better job of hooking up.

froo 18y ago
exactly It was easy to see why women were turned off. I'm sure if the guys realized how desperate and needy they came across, they'd be able to do a better job of hooking up. I think there is still a stigma attached to online dating that people are scraping the bottom of the barrel- amongst women especially. In fact, while researching dating sites (I was thinking about building a competitive dating site for Australia in 06/07) I've often come across the phrase "I cant believe I'm doing this" as the first sentence in a female's profile. You can have the best dating technology in the world, but the reality is that there are a significant number of people just dont have profiles that are any good or a real judge of a person's character. I think this problem is compounded when you consider that often people dont have very descriptive profiles when writing something about themselves and often write about tastes that are seemingly universal but non specific. EG, if I wrote I liked movies, as opposed to writing I liked Tarantino and Kubrick films. Often I seen profiles (of both men and women, so this problem is not gender specific) where people are just trying to meet minimum word counts. Any kind of matching technology based off keyword matching in this kind of situation simply fails. I think for a technology like this to have any decent chance, there would need to be a couple of core components. 1) Point and click profile writing, where people can click on hobbies and it can attempt to write something for them. You would also have to ensure that profile's dont look like canned responses. 2) Photo touching up - Often when I've touched up photo's in photoshop for others, I find myself using the same techniques, with often very similar settings on the sliders - if there was a way you could automatically detect and touch up photos, then it would be fantastic. I'm not sure if there are any sites out there that currently have this feature, but it would make a great standalone site too, especially with photo sharing sites and social networking sites being popular. 3) Profile exporting. If I've written a profile for say match.com and I want to goto eharmony.com, I dont want have to rewrite significant chunks of it to match the new format, especially given a large number of people have trouble writing even one profile.