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Wednesday Night’s Human Matchmakers Take Some Of The Work Out Of Online Dating

33 points by jmtame 13y ago

ardit33 13y ago
I would be interested on a dating site where the number of weekly active users is the same for both male and female. Most dating sites have too many guys. One way to do this is to have "on-demand" pricing, where the site is priced in a such way that it keeps a gender balance. Too many dudes? raise the price for guys and lower it for girls. If you can't afford it, either don't make enough money or are not serious enough in your search for a relationship. The flat $50 is lame though. It doesn't guarantee equal numbers of guys and girls.
- jmtame 13y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding how it works. The ratio is irrelevant. We have 70,000 users on our internal network already, but we've got more options. Our matchmakers can go through their personal network, find people while they're out, or check other sites. Our theory is that it doesn't matter where the match comes from, as long as we make one that's good that's what is important. Once a matchmaker claims you as their client, they will find you a good match, and if they fail, you pay nothing at all.
  - realdlee 13y ago
    Very cool. 70k users is pretty impressive. Is this including fb friends of users or just people who signed up?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
alaskamiller 13y ago
Skip and a hop away from being an escort agency where you show up with roses as donations.
- shortstuffsushi 13y ago
  Funny, had exactly the same thought. Surprised this is front page material.
- rhizome 13y ago
  Hey come on, I'm sure patronizing prostitutes does take some of the work out of dating!
nawitus 13y ago
"Yay" for enforcing traditional gender roles by essentially making the guys pay for the drinks. There's nothing awkward or difficult about "who pays for the drinks". Adults should pay for their own drinks. It's only "awkward" if you're a woman who expects to get free drinks.
- sp332 13y ago
  Whoever is setting up the date, pays for (some of) the drinks. That seems like pretty normal "let me take you out for a drink" behavior, no?
  - scarmig 13y ago
    Rapidly obsolescent behavior. Maybe one drink. If you're the one asking her out. Maybe. But in modern sexual relationships, both people are choosing to go out because they both hope to have a good time. Bribery shouldn't be part of that. The population of women who are neither high upkeep nor feeling entitled by outdated social norms is rapidly increasing, and you might as well go for those, since they're likely better catches in plenty of other ways. Obviously not all women who are high upkeep or entitled are bad choices, per se. Plenty of good ones are there, in fact! But if you're hunting for fish in the sea, every second spent on a group of fish that's below average in quality is a second not spent on a group of fish that's above average in quality. Edited to add: actually, you're right, there's some hypocrisy in being willing to pay even for a single drink. I retract that lack of follow-through.
    - sp332 13y ago
      Oh, so it's not so much that buying someone a drink is a bad idea, but that it's the only way you can ask them out on this site?
  - nawitus 13y ago
    It's called indirect discrimination. Just because the social concention of "whoever first suggests the date should pay for it" might seem gender-neutral, in practise that leads to men paying for the vast majority of dates since men are the ones who are making most of the propositions. As it's extremely difficult to fix the gender balance of date propositions but a lot easier to fix the paying model of dates, I suggest that everyone should adopt the social convention of "everyone should pay for their own drinks/meals at dates". In fact, here in Finland the norm pretty much is that the bill is split, even though men still make most of the date propositions. The latter gender inbalance is a lot harder problem to fix.
anonymoushn 13y ago
This looks like an interesting and useful service for people who are willing to give all the relevant information to Facebook. It seems like creating a Facebook account with all of this information would be a lot more work than just providing it to the dating site directly, though. > Wednesday Night would like to access your [Name, profile picture, age range, gender, language, country and other public info], friend list, email address, birthday, work history, checkins, education history, hometown, interests, current city, photos, religious and political views, personal description and likes.
- siong1987 13y ago
  Hi anonymoushn, we don't reveal your FB information to anyone publicly, only the matchmaker who is assigned to you will be able to look at your FB information. Obviously, those information are used to help our matchmaker make better match for you.
  - anonymoushn 13y ago
    Right. I'm aware of how your service uses the information, and it is very reasonable. The issue for me and a small number of other users (5-6 billion? not sure) is that FB does not have all of the information your service needs.
    - siong1987 13y ago
      We are aware of that. Our matchmaker will get more information from the user if it is necessary.
  - law 13y ago
    For how long do you keep the information?
    - jmtame 13y ago
      You can ask us to delete it and we will, at any time. Our e-mail is hello at wednesdaynight.me.
beachstartup 13y ago
i can't think of a better way to turn a woman off and make her take advantage of you than her knowing you paid for the 'privilege' of taking her out. you might as well show up with the word 'sucker' tattooed on your forehead. guys, it's 2013. if you're buying things like fancy nights out and nice dinners before you even kiss the girl, the joke's on you. also, if you're buying drinks for strangers OUTSIDE the context of an actual "drink date", the joke is also on you.
- blairbeckwith 13y ago
  Is it possible that the joke's not really on anybody? Is it possible that different strokes really ARE for different folks?
- jmtame 13y ago
  Online dating is a huge time sink though. You not only need to setup a profile, you have to actively find and message girls. The finding part is interesting because all dating sites lie to their users--80 years and 400 studies reliably show algorithms cannot predict romantic compatibility. I spent a good 6 months doing this, and the time I put into it wasn't justified. Maybe the joke was on me. I'm now happily dating a girl from an app I created because I was so frustrated with everything else out there. I don't think the girl is going to frame it the way you are thinking about it. She won't be thinking "he paid $50 so he could hang out with me," she's going to be thinking "I am looking for some sign of income/stability (check) and his time must be valuable because he isn't spending it courting girls online." I'm sure it's inevitable and certain types of girls may think about it the way you've described, but when you have identity tied to everything, you can eliminate those matches from the system. You never give or receive feedback on traditional dates, it's just a black box. It goes back to how well the matchmaker does and what the person is looking for. That's how the matchmaker is reviewed by the user.
  - beachstartup 13y ago
    you know, you can ask girls out in real life.
dsugarman 13y ago
Pretty cool take on a working system. Instagram photos should be banned from the invitations though.
ignostic 13y ago
Pay the women half that to go on the date, and you might have something. It wouldn't be a bad service for guys who have a lot more money than charm. The women it would draw would also be more interested in money than charm. It's not my kind of perfect match, but at least there would be a serviceable market.
- evan_ 13y ago
  > Pay the women half that to go on the date, and you might have something. What you have is an escort service.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - jmtame 13y ago
    The grandparent must be joking. We would never pay someone to go out on a date with one of our members. If anything, there's already plenty of incentive for them. Free round of drinks and we've already vetted the guy? Couldn't be any easier.
- gburt 13y ago
  Paying the women will make them go even if they're not interested. This is an unsolved problem still. Edit: it also makes this a business transaction in a way that you really don't want to.
migrantgeek 13y ago
If you're too busy to get a date, you're too busy to go on one. Relationships are hard. Even purely sexual ones take time and effort.
- coolsunglasses 13y ago
  You haven't experienced how time-consuming lining up a date can be on most online services or indirectly through secondary activities lately. You can easily turn lining up dates into a second job - or you can use something like this or Grouper.
- jmtame 13y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. Matchmaking is already going on and successful relationships have been established that way, we just make it more affordable and transparent. Linx Dating charges $30,000 for 11 dates spread out over 2 years, and they charge $500 just for the screening process. Online dating has a higher frequency of use than social networking. If you thought Facebook was a time sink, give online dating a try. It's worse than you'd think.
anotherbadlogin 13y ago
"users connect their Facebook accounts and are then given three recommendations." What a useless service, then. On the typical dating site, you at least have to create a narrative that indicates whether you can string a compelling sentence or two together. WTF am I supposed to get from a Facebook profile? The typical profile doesn't provide any of that; it's just a pile of links, quips, and pictures at best. Not to mention: What if you don't use Facebook? Lame.
mamoswined 13y ago
Maybe try finding matchmakers that seem a bit more diverse? Or something to convince me to trust them? The women on the front page look like they could have come from a sorority.
- jmtame 13y ago
  Would you mind e-mailing me? Would like to talk to you about this. I'm jared at wednesdaynight.me.

33 points by jmtame 13y ago

I would be interested on a dating site where the number of weekly active users is the same for both male and female. Most dating sites have too many guys. One way to do this is to have "on-demand" pricing, where the site is priced in a such way that it keeps a gender balance. Too many dudes? raise the price for guys and lower it for girls. If you can't afford it, either don't make enough money or are not serious enough in your search for a relationship. The flat $50 is lame though. It doesn't guarantee equal numbers of guys and girls.

jmtame 13y ago
I think you're misunderstanding how it works. The ratio is irrelevant. We have 70,000 users on our internal network already, but we've got more options. Our matchmakers can go through their personal network, find people while they're out, or check other sites. Our theory is that it doesn't matter where the match comes from, as long as we make one that's good that's what is important. Once a matchmaker claims you as their client, they will find you a good match, and if they fail, you pay nothing at all.
- realdlee 13y ago
  Very cool. 70k users is pretty impressive. Is this including fb friends of users or just people who signed up?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

alaskamiller 13y ago

Skip and a hop away from being an escort agency where you show up with roses as donations.

shortstuffsushi 13y ago
Funny, had exactly the same thought. Surprised this is front page material.
rhizome 13y ago
Hey come on, I'm sure patronizing prostitutes does take some of the work out of dating!

nawitus 13y ago

"Yay" for enforcing traditional gender roles by essentially making the guys pay for the drinks. There's nothing awkward or difficult about "who pays for the drinks". Adults should pay for their own drinks. It's only "awkward" if you're a woman who expects to get free drinks.

sp332 13y ago
Whoever is setting up the date, pays for (some of) the drinks. That seems like pretty normal "let me take you out for a drink" behavior, no?
- scarmig 13y ago
  Rapidly obsolescent behavior. Maybe one drink. If you're the one asking her out. Maybe. But in modern sexual relationships, both people are choosing to go out because they both hope to have a good time. Bribery shouldn't be part of that. The population of women who are neither high upkeep nor feeling entitled by outdated social norms is rapidly increasing, and you might as well go for those, since they're likely better catches in plenty of other ways. Obviously not all women who are high upkeep or entitled are bad choices, per se. Plenty of good ones are there, in fact! But if you're hunting for fish in the sea, every second spent on a group of fish that's below average in quality is a second not spent on a group of fish that's above average in quality. Edited to add: actually, you're right, there's some hypocrisy in being willing to pay even for a single drink. I retract that lack of follow-through.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Oh, so it's not so much that buying someone a drink is a bad idea, but that it's the only way you can ask them out on this site?
- nawitus 13y ago
  It's called indirect discrimination. Just because the social concention of "whoever first suggests the date should pay for it" might seem gender-neutral, in practise that leads to men paying for the vast majority of dates since men are the ones who are making most of the propositions. As it's extremely difficult to fix the gender balance of date propositions but a lot easier to fix the paying model of dates, I suggest that everyone should adopt the social convention of "everyone should pay for their own drinks/meals at dates". In fact, here in Finland the norm pretty much is that the bill is split, even though men still make most of the date propositions. The latter gender inbalance is a lot harder problem to fix.

anonymoushn 13y ago

This looks like an interesting and useful service for people who are willing to give all the relevant information to Facebook. It seems like creating a Facebook account with all of this information would be a lot more work than just providing it to the dating site directly, though. > Wednesday Night would like to access your [Name, profile picture, age range, gender, language, country and other public info], friend list, email address, birthday, work history, checkins, education history, hometown, interests, current city, photos, religious and political views, personal description and likes.

siong1987 13y ago
Hi anonymoushn, we don't reveal your FB information to anyone publicly, only the matchmaker who is assigned to you will be able to look at your FB information. Obviously, those information are used to help our matchmaker make better match for you.
- anonymoushn 13y ago
  Right. I'm aware of how your service uses the information, and it is very reasonable. The issue for me and a small number of other users (5-6 billion? not sure) is that FB does not have all of the information your service needs.
  - siong1987 13y ago
    We are aware of that. Our matchmaker will get more information from the user if it is necessary.
- law 13y ago
  For how long do you keep the information?
  - jmtame 13y ago
    You can ask us to delete it and we will, at any time. Our e-mail is hello at wednesdaynight.me.

beachstartup 13y ago

i can't think of a better way to turn a woman off and make her take advantage of you than her knowing you paid for the 'privilege' of taking her out. you might as well show up with the word 'sucker' tattooed on your forehead. guys, it's 2013. if you're buying things like fancy nights out and nice dinners before you even kiss the girl, the joke's on you. also, if you're buying drinks for strangers OUTSIDE the context of an actual "drink date", the joke is also on you.

blairbeckwith 13y ago
Is it possible that the joke's not really on anybody? Is it possible that different strokes really ARE for different folks?
jmtame 13y ago
Online dating is a huge time sink though. You not only need to setup a profile, you have to actively find and message girls. The finding part is interesting because all dating sites lie to their users--80 years and 400 studies reliably show algorithms cannot predict romantic compatibility. I spent a good 6 months doing this, and the time I put into it wasn't justified. Maybe the joke was on me. I'm now happily dating a girl from an app I created because I was so frustrated with everything else out there. I don't think the girl is going to frame it the way you are thinking about it. She won't be thinking "he paid $50 so he could hang out with me," she's going to be thinking "I am looking for some sign of income/stability (check) and his time must be valuable because he isn't spending it courting girls online." I'm sure it's inevitable and certain types of girls may think about it the way you've described, but when you have identity tied to everything, you can eliminate those matches from the system. You never give or receive feedback on traditional dates, it's just a black box. It goes back to how well the matchmaker does and what the person is looking for. That's how the matchmaker is reviewed by the user.
- beachstartup 13y ago
  you know, you can ask girls out in real life.

dsugarman 13y ago

Pretty cool take on a working system. Instagram photos should be banned from the invitations though.

ignostic 13y ago

Pay the women half that to go on the date, and you might have something. It wouldn't be a bad service for guys who have a lot more money than charm. The women it would draw would also be more interested in money than charm. It's not my kind of perfect match, but at least there would be a serviceable market.

evan_ 13y ago
> Pay the women half that to go on the date, and you might have something. What you have is an escort service.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jmtame 13y ago
  The grandparent must be joking. We would never pay someone to go out on a date with one of our members. If anything, there's already plenty of incentive for them. Free round of drinks and we've already vetted the guy? Couldn't be any easier.
gburt 13y ago
Paying the women will make them go even if they're not interested. This is an unsolved problem still. Edit: it also makes this a business transaction in a way that you really don't want to.

migrantgeek 13y ago

If you're too busy to get a date, you're too busy to go on one. Relationships are hard. Even purely sexual ones take time and effort.

coolsunglasses 13y ago
You haven't experienced how time-consuming lining up a date can be on most online services or indirectly through secondary activities lately. You can easily turn lining up dates into a second job - or you can use something like this or Grouper.
jmtame 13y ago
That's a false dichotomy. Matchmaking is already going on and successful relationships have been established that way, we just make it more affordable and transparent. Linx Dating charges $30,000 for 11 dates spread out over 2 years, and they charge $500 just for the screening process. Online dating has a higher frequency of use than social networking. If you thought Facebook was a time sink, give online dating a try. It's worse than you'd think.

anotherbadlogin 13y ago

"users connect their Facebook accounts and are then given three recommendations." What a useless service, then. On the typical dating site, you at least have to create a narrative that indicates whether you can string a compelling sentence or two together. WTF am I supposed to get from a Facebook profile? The typical profile doesn't provide any of that; it's just a pile of links, quips, and pictures at best. Not to mention: What if you don't use Facebook? Lame.

mamoswined 13y ago

Maybe try finding matchmakers that seem a bit more diverse? Or something to convince me to trust them? The women on the front page look like they could have come from a sorority.

jmtame 13y ago
Would you mind e-mailing me? Would like to talk to you about this. I'm jared at wednesdaynight.me.