See MobileCrunch’s coverage of mobile dating startup MeetMoi, which just closed a $1.5 million round of financing from Acadia Woods partners.
We’ve covered web dating services before, but MeetMoi takes dating to the streets. The service works a lot like Dodgeball. When you’re available for a date, you broadcast your location by texting the service. Other available daters that fit your search criteria (sex, location) receive an SMS of your profile, consisting of a picture and short description of yourself. If they’re interested they can text you back with their profile by replying to the message and set up a date. It costs 99 cents for 10 reply messages and your phone number is never revealed. The service is available on Cingular, Nextel, Boost, Sprint, T-Mobile, ALLTEL, and CellularOne.
MeetMoi is not GPS enabled. I can easily see mobile friend-finding services like Loopt and Helio integrating a similar GPS version of the system into their applications.
Check out MeetMoi’s full profile.
This was one of my first reviews ( http://www.centernetworks.com/meetmoi-review ) and what’s really interesting is that the concept was my final project in my MBA studies. I called it “mobileHarmony”.
The idea in simple was that you were sitting at a starbucks and if a person was nearby who met your needs, you were alerted via sms and then could text each other to see about meeting up. Could be for friends hookup or dating, etc.
I think there is a huge market here and its nice to see that MeetMoi has updated their site image… Andrew mentioned it was coming but I never heard back on a launch date.
Congrats to the team!
Blah blah
MeetMoi was also just featured in today’s Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....jie/6month
It’s not exactly hard to get into the WSJ these days. No offense.
I think this company at best will end up evolving into something different - either a whole other communications tool, or move to a traditional dating site, or something, in order to be successful.
Sorry.
oh boy … i can see this turn into some type of stalking service … “real easy way to find chicks … just log on your phone and look in your area!”
Darin
@Darin: I think that’s the point. But only with their consent
(so is that *really* stalking?)
We have a similar service for the Gay community. Location based, and Wap based. Hook-up with someone in your local area, read profile, see pictures and text anonymously.
We have a version for the straight community coming very soon.
http://www.mcruising.com
Dear VCs and SMS entrepreneurs,
Please visit Europe or Asia or talk to people who live there and you will MUCH more quickly learn what type of mobile (SMS) based services ACTUALLY succeeded 5-7 years ago and what didn’t. Alternatively you can burn $1.5M to test it, but a simple conversation with someone who has been through the same issues half a decade ago would save a lot of time and effort.
hi,
great concept,can u give me the registration process
@ James, can you elaborate? I’d love to hear this also. I think you’re absolutely right.
James,
While I clearly have issues with MeetMoi (see my blog), I have said many times that you can’t just look at what happened in Europe and Asia when it comes to what will make money in the U.S.
I don’t understand why people keep saying this. SMS is on the upswing here. At the same time, the technology is far more advanced than it was when SMS was getting popular in the UK.
We are also a different culture. There are so many factors that make a one to one comparison irrelevant.
As for MeetMoi, it’s a feature, not a product.
@ Greg, I kind of disagree. I think what’s going on in Europe with internet video is a great example of what will go on here in the future, and the same can be said with some of the user trends in Asia. I don’t think that cultural differences matter nearly as much anymore. We’re much more of a global world now - access is different, the exposure we have to things is WAY different, and the gap between different cultures has definitely closed.
Do I think it means that everything over there is going to be sticky here? No. Is it potentially a safe litmus test of what could work here? Yes.
Hey guys,
I’m the VP of Business Development at Meetmoi. First of all, thank you for your comments. We appreciate all of them, positive and negative. We’re always looking to learn from our users.
James or others - You mention that we should be talking with consumers throughout Europe and Asia. We’re constantly doing so. I’m wondering whether you feel there’s something specific we should looking into.
For the rest of you, we appreciate any and all suggestions. If you’d like, you can reach me at darren@meetmoi.com
Here is my experience with meetmoi. Please encourage me in commenting the article in my blog.
http://www.suggestusability.co.....users.html
mCruising, I wonder if it is easy to have similar services for niche dating sites, like adultfriendfinder, millionairematch.
I agree 200% with James. because the accurate location can never be retrieved unless the phone has GPS or A-GPS ( cell-id does not work because it is not accurate and because it is almost impossible to obtain antenna locations from mobile operator), there is NOTHING in the service that will make truly location based.
I am just amazed of the power of persuassion of somebody who convince a VC to invest 1.5MUSD in such an application !
Besides, because there is NO volume in this service compared to what you can get in myspace or other social network site… it does not represent any interest.
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