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Women will still be over messaged and men are still under messaged. People still ignore profiles in favor of photos - what does this change? Aren't you more in
by jmtame 14y ago
Women will still be over messaged and men are still under messaged. People still ignore profiles in favor of photos - what does this change?
Aren't you more interested in reading what somebody's friend has to say about them rather than what they're saying about themselves? Also, we have Facebook accounts (100+ friends required to join) which are not easy to replicate and we can rate limit. On OkCupid, the worst that happens is they ban you for spamming, and then you come back under a different username. Sure, girls might recognize the same photos, but you're fundamentally a free radical in the system.
Now you need your friends to create a profile for you (granted at least it's not of the essay variety) and you need your friends to try and find people for you? I have a hard time seeing anyone doing that considering it's a relatively boring process with little return (the problem with the current sites).
It relies on reciprocity, and it's actually fun when you try it out. If you're commenting on your friends' profiles, they'll naturally want to comment on yours. All of the comments on my profile happened not because I asked my friends to do that, but because I started out by commenting on theirs.
With the stigma, it's largely an issue skewed by age. More women in their 30s using dating sites socially, the sites just aren't designed to be social.
- fossuser 14y agoThe facebook reputation barrier is a good idea - should set a bar for the low end of quality. I see your point about the reciprocity, makes sense and I wouldn't worry about the stigma - if your site catches on the stigma will just die faster. I'm not sure I'd be more receptive to what a friend has to say about someone, but that's generally because what anyone says doesn't matter when the sent/received message ratio is so bad (which is what I tried to fix with the marking idea). Cool though - will definitely keep following it to see how it goes.
- jmtame 14y agoIs there a way I can e-mail you? Don't see your contact info on your blog or HN profile.
- fossuser 14y agoI should probably fix that - sent an email your way.
- nawitus 14y ago>The facebook reputation barrier is a good idea - should set a bar for the low end of quality. Wait, are people with lots friend "high quality people" or "low quality people"?
- fossuser 14y agoI meant quality as a reference to spam and spam like accounts. If you can't easily just create a new account or create multiple accounts then that eliminates those kinds of issues.
- thaumasiotes 14y agoJust as a point of reference, I have 28 facebook friends, and I've been thinking about trimming that number down... but I'm pretty sure I exist.
- mlent 14y agoYeah, I think there should perhaps also be a 'time' factor. Because I know plenty of people who've deleted facebook altogether, returned, and are in the same boat.
- com2kid 14y ago100+ friends required to join? I'd be reluctant to date anyone who has 100+ friends on Facebook, that seems to me to indicate a degree of shallowness. After 7 years I have 59 and I honestly need to pare that way down. (Wow pruning my friends list, amazing how many people have closed their FB account! A good 10% of past "friends" no longer have accounts) But hey, thanks for excluding introverts! Really nice of you. My primary issue is that I only have about 3 or 4 people on Facebook who actually know me well and who interact with me on a regular basis that I'd trust to help fill out my profile. In addition to that, the entire "guys only look at pictures" thing is BS. Yes I look at pictures first, right after that I read the profile. If the woman in question doesn't have indicators that we are a match in ethics and values, then I am not going to bother sending a message. Indeed the primary problem I suspect your dating site has is the same problem sites like match.com have, they really don't allow for filtering by value systems. This is OKCupid's single strength that nearly makes up for everything else that is wrong with it. I really don't care if a woman's friends say she is fun to hang out with. I do care what books she reads and what her feelings on various social and political issues are.
- GFischer 14y agoYou're probably not thinking about all the use cases. My girlfriend has over 400 friends (and she aggresively culled). But she was secretary for a political party, and also has a lot of "friends" from an online game ("My Fishbowl"). It's odd to find a girl with LESS than 100 facebook friends. Men in my social sphere, OTOH, don't have as many facebook friends unless they're actively trying to date through facebook itself.
- com2kid 14y agoI'll grant you that, social networking site usage is well know to differ based on gender. But a heterosexual dating site isn't of much use if members of predominantly of one gender!
- safrolic 14y agoFacebook only was stupid to start with, but 100+ facebook friends requirement is something else, it means the service is only open to a specific kind of profile, the one who add people without thinking. Funny thing is in my online dating profile, I have a requirement similar to yours: that people getting in touch with me have no facebook account.