No plans this week? Or, ever found yourself with an extra ticket to a concert or sporting event, but didn’t have anyone to go with? In the past, your solution was wading through Craigslist postings or calling all your friends. Well now there are two web-based services that allow you to find others to do things with — Who’s Going and MatchActivity.
Who’s Going is the one that impressed me the most, although it lacks users and activities (they just recently soft-launched). The site is simple and very well thought out. The business model works like this: Posting activities are free and then people that “want to go” to an activity, pay an amount ($1 as of this writing) if they are chosen — if you aren’t chosen, you get your money back. Thus, if I had 1 extra ticket to a concert, I could post (for free) that I have a ticket and ask who wants to go — I might get 4 responders (who each put up $1 to Who’s Going). I then go through their profiles and choose who I want to go with — that person’s $1 goes to Who’s Going and the other 3 people get their $1 back. Note: Your friends can apply/attend for free. The site has social networking features — allowing you to browse profiles, add friends, message people, add people as favorites (to learn of any activities they post), post photos to your profile (people can comment on them if they are a friend), and post photos/comments to actual activities. They also provide widgets that you can embed in your blog or MySpace profile to promote a specific event or all your events.
There’s not much more to say about this site - I love it. It just needs users and activities. I encourage you to go post an activity and use ‘TC’ in the title somewhere, so you can connect with some fellow TechCrunch readers in your area. So go ahead and find a TC activity or post an activity — a poker game, or a happy hour gathering, or fishing. Who’s Going is founded, coded, and designed by John Wehr. He is also the developer of the (now stagnant) Tagalag, which we profiled last year.
MatchActivity has a dating spin to it — focused on finding activity partners for singles (but anyone can respond to any activity, whether they’re seeking a male or female). By becoming a premium member ($7.99/month, but free as of this writing — everyone is a premium member), you achieve 3 things: 1) You are able to post Private Activities that only go out to buddy’s in the system that you select; 2) You can send specific 1-on-1 invites to other members; and 3) You get 3 points added to your Reliability Rating (no other info found on this, but it seems to speak for itself — people likely rate your reliability in actually attending activities).
What I like about MatchActivity is that you can post an activity OR an availability — that way I could say that I’m available Thursday night, list some interests, maybe post a few ideas, and see if someone wants to do something. I also like that it has Activity Ideas — this lists upcoming events in cities (only 3 cities as of this writing - LA, NYC, SF - and about 5 ideas in each; but there’s potential here for an automated system where restaurants/bars/sporting events/concerts could post their own activity and be a featured Activity Idea). To spark some more “activity” on the site (no pun intended), I would integrate more Activity Ideas, possibly from the Eventful API (as Who’s Going is planning to do). I also like their ‘temporary zip code’ function, which allows a user to specify a different city they will be traveling to in the future, and thus open to activities in that location — this is somewhat similar to a feature that Google’s dodgeball.com service has (you switch your city, so that friends in that city know your whereabouts). The one thing that needed some clarification was the search — I wasn’t sure whether to input a zip code or city name, and it only provides listings within 50 miles (no option to change the distance). I also didn’t go through an activity post, but I’m hoping they have their Reliability Rating implemented, allowing users to rate their activity experience with the other person — this lacks in Who’s Going and could likely become an important feature for these sites (much like eBay’s rating system). Who’s Going feels social transactions are much harder to quantify (”I thought he was a dork”), than financial transactions (”He didn’t ship the package”) and is hoping that users will comment on each other’s profiles to demonstrate a relationship — i.e. “Hey, I had a great time!”
It’s tough to say whether either of these sites will make it — they need participation. The widget offerings by Who’s Going could virally spread the word a bit faster. I believe the simplicity and focus of these sites could allow them to take-off — I definitely feel there’s a need for this. It should be noted though that there’s a ton of indirect competition from “social event sites.” Friendster-founder Jonathan Abram’s long-awaited Socializr is a prospective competitor (but still yet to publicly launch). Others in the event space include Yahoo’s Upcoming.org, Zvents, $7.5m funded Eventful, $3m funded Renkoo, Skobee, Involver, Israel-based ILCU, Boston-based HeyLetsGo, Weekendr, MySpace Events, and not so much MeetUp, which typically holds regularly scheduled gatherings on specific topics.
We briefly profiled MatchActivity back in July, along with 12 other online dating sites.
More from John Wehr regarding Who’s Going:
Who’s Going was designed from the ground up to help its users meet new people. In comparison, MySpace and Evite events are targeted to friends you already know. Eventful and Upcoming.org are largely event listings - you probably wouldn’t find someone to go to an event with.
Who’s Going’s functionality is more like Craigslist or a dating site. As an aside, MatchActivity.com has a similar model and targets the dating market exclusively.
The (Whosgoing.com) site is designed and tested in an effort to cater to a broad audience and to be nimble enough to meet the demands of its users. The project was bootstrapped and developed with a long term perspective.
Steve Poland is the founder and web strategy consultant for Vested Ventures, a firm specializing in website consulting, internet marketing, and high-end custom web development. He can be reached by email via steve@vestedventures.com.
Comments
so tired with social web, Meet people at your local mate.
Steve, what about http://www.ILCU.com also a great event-sharing network, they’re using the yes,no,maybe method.
Sorry , you did mention it …I missed it.
I saw a very nice segment of MatchActivity on NBC, I really think that is a great concept. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Cp4RG958bCo
FYI, the existing dating sites are also adding this kind of functionality:
http://www.hurrydate.com/index.....stogo.main
Seems like both these sites have a “chicken / egg” problem in gaining initial traction, and although they both exhibit a “usefull feature,” niether one will probably ever be successful unless bundled with another “service” that can attract the masses.
To be breif, from a social perspective, it seems that their are three tiers that individuals fall into. First are individuals who are “Social Centers / Hubs,” individuals who always seem to know what is going on (a very small percentage of the population). Second are individuals who have alligned themselves with one or two or more “Social Center” individuals to serve as the “key” to their own social activities (a large percentage of the population). Finally, there are those who (1) are not “Social Centers” and (2) have yet to find / create their own Network - I’ll be nice and just leave it at that (granted, this group makes up a small but noticable part of the population).
Anyhow, I don’t percieve either of the first two tiers of individuals using either of these services … as it does not facilitate the “job that either group is trying to get done.” (They’ve already developed a “good enough” “infrastructure” and “processes” to do what they are trying to do.) It is only the third group’s “job that needs to get done” that these services cater to / make the most sense. Unfortunately, you need the first two tiers of individuals to make the initial postings in order to make it worthwhile for the group of individuals who fall into the third tier.
(Please don’t hate me for making these “tier classification” as I’m just trying to objectively state my assumptions concerning “social structure” and am in no way making a “personal assessment / statement” on any one individual.)
when a biz idea like this is getting news, the web2.0 bubble is officially in full effect.
One lightweight alternative to these is Pursudo. http://pursudo.com
It seems to be catching on in Toronto.
BayAreaLinkup.com should be added to the list - it is a nice social link up site with a more functional home page (in my opinion).
With all these event/activity-sharing sites popping up everywhere, we need a Meebo-like tool to track all the events/activities.
‘Who’s Going’ is definately a useful tool. The only problem is that it competes directly with Craigslist which took at least 4yrs + to gain critical mass from it’s email roots.
To survive going forward, WG should try to partner with another social/community site vs trying to build a user base from the ground up. There is jsut too much in this space competing for user attention that it will make it very difficult for the site to gain any real traction without an established audience like CL.
isn’t this called meetup.com or craigslist; why would i use this?
I’m going to create a tool that will make you go out and meet people the normal way instead of using these lame social web tools.
There is a mature site of a similar kind that offers
info about meetups and events in Boston.
“Heylet’sgo”:
http://heyletsgo.com/day.php
The site has been around for a couple of years. Lots of real people/users, lots of events and acitivities. Good team behind the site.
YASISOAP
(Yet Another Solution In Search Of A Problem)
from what i understand, meetup.com kills these by offering those interested the ability to express interest for *free* - why on earth would somebody pay anything or more specifically, go through the tedious payment/confirmation process, just to express interest? that’s absurd….upcoming.org, now part of yahoo, is also a killer site that beats meetup in terms of simplicity, and kills the potential for matchactivity and others via yahoo’s dating site…
another dating site? another online social planner tool? another me-too? please, show me somebody doing something truly unique in this area…
btw, you forgot about matchtag.com, yet another one of these sites…
what about a website that lists all of these websites? I bet I could get $2MM in VC funding for such an idea……
MatchActivity is all about creating real context for first time meetings. So I guess, Dave, if you are comparing us to either Yahoo Personals or to Upcoming.org (social activities site) you probably did not fully understand how our site works. MatchActivity has a very unique methodology that lets people skip browsing profiles and allows the users to post whatever activity they like to do, and the time(s) in which they are available to do them. By posting an activity, a user is notifying everyone with similar shared interest about their activity. Each activity has a time sensitive component which makes the site more dynamic and real. It’s a very unique approach that has never really been done before and protected by strong patent pending. MatchActivity was developed to attract a young hip demographic of active singles, who go out regularly and actually want to hook up with real people, not read through endless profiles.
Well written, Steve.
This is a great idea.
Yoni, i can do the same thing with Craigslist only with a lot less hassle and commitment.
well, patent pending is a bit like saying ‘revenue pending’ imho….not sure how one will patent the concept of ’system for meeting people with similar interests in an expiry based system’ etc…on the other hand, isn’t meetup (or upcoming) built around impending events, events that transpire and by definition also ‘create urgency’? i see the dating bent, but it looks like a tag system on top of a bulletin board from the outside (with some 2.0 utilities to boot)…clever approach to reinventing the wheel i think, creative, but creative is not original, creative is only about knowing how to hide your sources
i do like the call to action approach, it’s very appealing, but in the end the site operates by encouraging dismissal of a cognitive filter (no, not putting down the superficial stuff, that’s fine), and without any shred of user vouching or testimonial, it’s effectively very blind dating…my understanding is that your paying customers (at matchactivity) are able to invite people privately to events, and so in that sense you are simply reinventing the dating site (browse, select) but underpricing by roughly 60 percent (circa 9 dollars, correct?)
MatchActivity’s model is not dismissive of cognitive filters - quoting Yoni - “A user is notifying everyone with similar shared interest about their activity.” The act of defining an activity in combination with traditional profiles gives their members more information upon which to make a decision, not less.
There’s a trend in online dating to add endless quantitative measures in the name of compatibility analysis. But this doesn’t provide the most important part of a new relationship - context. Lots of people meet in grocery stores without the help of a questionnaire. We don’t need more analysis, we need more grocery stores.
sorry, you do need more of those grocery stores, but you can NOT automate serendipity, and that’s exactly what you’re talking about doing…
You can’t automate serendipity, but you can provide a venue. This is why we have nightclubs and speed dating, church groups and blind dates. MatchActivity is a new way of finding that context.
Hey what’s ya’ll
In case anyone is interested, I have an interview with the founder of Weekendr here:
http://www.centernetworks.com/.....h-weekendr
I think his site is fun and its nice to see a fun site sometimes.
I just googled MatchActivity.com and came across this blog. After reading all the comments and post, I registered today for MatchActivity and as a single woman this concept seems refreshing, because you are actually going to meet this person who post an activity (but for the record - I haven’t gone out with anyone just yet). I have however, been messaging with people instantly. Which is really nice, because the men on the site look very attractive. Just my thoughts!
it’ll be worth to mention this website : http://wecheese.com. it’s doing the same like macthactivity but with a far great design and user experience.
these new websites are really better than traditional matching websites
I’ve been using wecheese.com these last 8 months since i moved to Paris. it helped me to connect to local people based on activity sharing.
People are serious and open minded to strangers like me.
I host get togethers at my house and I pay for everything. It seems to work better than Match etc. because I just invite high quality people. People seem to like the idea of not having to pay and not having to deal with low quality people.
You should have a look at tilllate.ch
It is a big success story here spreading around europe now.
Their great idea? They have photographs (young students) in all the trendy events, then they publish the pictures.
Now you can tag the pictures so that you can “track” hot people.
It is not a typical web2.0 designed website with all the typical features, but it works as if it had them…
Only issue: they need a few Gb of bandwidth per month.
As of December 6, Weekendr is for sale (via live.hackr).
these guys have hit on something interesting.. a completely location based mobile dating service.. you text your address in and it give you hits of people who are close to you.. much more spontaneous than match or eharmony
MeetMoi.com
i want to get to know any body6 in the house just to have a friend for short
thanks to the great internet, dont even need activities to meet new people these days. check out how you can meet new people on sites like speeddate, stickam and WooMe, meet people
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