WooMe - a website for “speed introductions” that presented at TechCrunch40 but is still in private beta - is giving out one thousand invitations to our readers (redeem yours here).
You would be excused for mistaking WooMe for a speed dating website like SpeedDate.com (covered here). WooMe users are put into one minute-long webcam sessions with one another to decide quickly whether or not they are compatible. After five subsequent sessions, you indicate which of the people “woo’d” you or not. If they were woo’d by you too, then you can choose to contact them for $1. This obviously lends itself to speed dating, and indeed 75% of the 30,000 total sessions conducted in private beta have been for dating purposes.
However, the company is insisting that the service has many non-romantic uses. You can leverage WooMe to find a travel partner or someone to babysit your kids (hopefully you’ll make that decision after more than a 1-minute long face-to-face). You can also just use it to find people with similar interests to you. Last night, WooMe hosted an event for UC Berkeley that got students together to meet over topics such as “I still love Cal football”.
CEO Stephen Stokols says that almost 7,500 people have mutually woo’d each other on the service so far. On Friday, WooMe will add the ability to tag the people you meet over webcam. These tags will stay in people’s profiles so new introductions come loaded with some basic information about a person.
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they need to work on their session timing - not everyone is interested in being woo’d at 1am eastern or 6am uk.
Woohoo to WooMe!
$1 is it? Can this really bring in enough money to sustain itself as a business? How about if I just give the person my phone number over the webcam… then we can chat off the website anyway.
It’d be interesting to see different categories for speed networking - if I want a tutor in math, I can use WooMe.
If I’m thinking of phone sex, I might as well use webcam. I’ll go to WooMe. (jk, duh)
YIKES:
In firefox on some resolutions - the cruchbase DIV is taking up half the homepage - blocking out the content with a white background.
tusk-tusk… is this nice to frustrate your readers like that
Actually pretty interesting, but it is going to be a pain in the arse to market. They’ll need to grab a niche if you ask me.
I just set up my beta account. looks like a very cool site - kind of a cross between social networking and dating but with the more laid back focus on meeting people real time in topical speed sessions.
One cool feature i just explored is the ability to create your own session with up to 8 people. I just created one called “People who don’t have a costume for tonight.”
This is a great idea if done correctly. i like the idea of topical sessions akin to facebook groups. Letting users create their own sessions is key. But, doesn’t matter what WooMe wants people to use the platform used for - user will end up dictating that answer by the sessions they create.
Registration process was a breeze and got my profile setup in about 30 seconds. Never really knew that an entire business could be dedicated to introductions but when you think about it, almost everything that we do requires an initial introduction, doesn’t it? I have a few parties to attend to tonight, but will check out a sessions when I get back. Maybe even meet some people with some funny looking costumes !
I like the idea, sounds like fun.
HOWEVER, TechCrunch40 people, the conference was over a month ago…wasn’t the point to have companies that could LAUNCH at the conference? You expanded by 20 companies for a reason didn’t you? For all the companies that are currently live whose applications were rejected I’m sorry.
On the Conference note though Mint rocks good selection.
And for what it’s worth I like this service too, am just annoyed that it was billed as launch conference.
What can one person say in ~30 seconds that would someone decide so quickly? What happens if someone completely dominates the minute talking about their cat, or has the camera focused exclusively on their unmentionables?
I’m not sure I’d want to webcam with strangers for a few of those reasons… speed-dating works better in real life where you can reach out and smack someone for being a jerk.
But, this could really take off if enough mature non-insane people use the service.
Too juvenile! Nobody’s gonna woo me …
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
This looks like a lot of fun, and I registered as an alpha user.
However, I agree with #6: what is to stop users from giving out their contact information over the video chat (i.e. “It was nice talking to you. If we end up matching, my screenname is…”)? That’s a lot easier than entering my payment information, despite the fact that $1 is very cheap.
Perhaps diligent users could report other users who attempt to thwart payment? That doesn’t seem likely, given that it is in the interest of both users to do so.
I just played 2 “speed sessions” each with 6 people total (i met three per session) on the beta tonight. it’s pretty fun when the video works correctly (which was about 75% of the time). Video quality surprisingly high, although had one issue where i couldn’t see the other person.
Overall liked it - chat with different people, no heavy dating overtones, and beta users have unlimited “woo credits” so the price not an issue now (although probably would have paid $1 for one of the intros).
No one wants to date chicks who own webcams. Thats the inherent problem with this thing. Relatively normal techie dudes can rock the webcam every now and then, but I’ll go out on a limb and say the only chicks who have webcams are either:
1. Porn Stars
2. Talking to their boyfriends overseas
3. 50+ overweight singles from the midwest eating mayonnaise sandwiches and really hurting for something new.
Am I wrong? Would love your insight.
I sure hope WooMe gave 1000 invites to some female-dominated site, as well–or they’re doing it wrong.
left out - I didn’t play one, but, WooMe has voice-only sessions for those without webcams (what “normal person” doesn’t have a webcam these days though)…
Jim, hey! I’m not a porn star, have an overseas bf or am 50+/obese and I own a webcam. I needed to talk to the rents when I studied abroad. I didn’t realize how much more communication transfers by seeing facial expressions. Yeah, what’s up with the stereotypes of webcams though? I def. head that before.
Oooh, and I did see quite a bit of people in costumes on Halloween. Cool beans!
I attended SpeedDate.com’s event tonight and it was a blast. This online speed dating thing is such a good idea - especially for women.
WOOO ME… really a cool name
and am registering there 
a nice dating site i assume and this looks like one 
hey.. i am not here to comment, just looking for guys who have time to chat…
here’ my msn and ym
sophia_venez@hotmail.com
sophia_venez20@yahoo.com
thank you for having me here