Unlike dating in the real world where friends and family provide introductions and serve as wingmen, online dating is usually a very solitary experience. Singles browse through profile after profile (perhaps in addition to filling out tedious questionnaires and compatibility tests) in hopes that they’ll stumble upon someone with a mutual attraction.
Engage is a next generation dating site striving to make online dating a more social (and consequently more effective) experience. The service is officially announcing the second major version of its site at our LA party tonight. (Disclosure: Engage is a sponsor of the party).
Engage differentiates itself from traditional dating sites (Match, eHarmony, PlentyofFish, etc) by getting friends involved in the process of finding you that perfect guy or gal. If you are looking for love (and Engage is certainly geared towards those looking to land serious relationships, not set up transitory encounters), you can invite your real-life friends to become friends on Engage. Once onboard, they sit in a friends list that stays with you on the left-hand side of the site wherever you go.
These friends are there to help you break the ice and determine who’s worth your time. They can suggest people they find on the site for you, they can write recommendations and introductory notes, and they can provide their 2 cents when others have made recommendations. And if they happen to find someone not quite right for you but good for someone else they know, they can suggest that person by providing the other friend’s email address (which helps distribute Engage through viral marketing).
Engage has worked to make it generally very easy and rewarding for friends to get involved. Quick suggestions can be made throughout the site with minimal clicks of the mouse, and users get points every time they behave in a supportive manner. The site is designed much like a social network, which should make it accessible to those familiar with Facebook, et al.
This idea of “social dating” certainly has its merits. People are more likely to respond to inquiries when they see that their pursuers have friends who think highly of them. And friend recommendations could lead a user to discover desirable singles who they wouldn’t have contacted otherwise.
That said, I have my doubts about Engage’s model, such as whether or not there are enough eager matchmakers in the world to make the system work. It’s also unclear to me whether a substantial number of people will feel comfortable getting their friends and family so involved in the courting process, especially when using the still-taboo method of online dating.
This is a site I’d like to see work, especially since the online dating industry needs some kicks of innovation. Whether it catches on will depend primarily on sociology not technology, since the site has certainly been designed well enough.
Engage raised $5M in Series A from Advanced Tech Ventures in 2006. The site will remain free until Q4 2008, at which point it will cost around $20/mo.
haha nice idea
Most blind dates are a personal and private matter. Why publicize something that could totally backfire. Why would you set your self up for failure in front of your REAL friends?
My thought exactly Zach. Lets say you have a date that totally sucks. Instead of keeping it between you and another person, you’ve now broadcasted that horrid experience to a wide variety of people. There goes a chance at a future date with someone else. I’ll pass.
$5m even isn’t enough to make it possible for people with a UK postcode to sign up. Big deal. Can’t even bash them if you don’t fake your profile.
I agree with Zach- no one wants to admit to having a bad date, let alone a bad date that you set up online. It just makes you sound like a loser although I suppose if your friends on Engage really are your friends, they wouldn’t pass judgment on your dating experience.
didn’t you already cover this site? or maybe it was some other blog that thought it was a stupid idea….I think Venture beat
This is so awkward - I suppose VCs just toss around $5M for any idea these days “just in case.” This whole site looks like an invitation for drama and awkward relationships. I can see it now: “your father and your neighbor Bob think you should take Hilda Fishbreath from down the street for a night on the town tonight! Your past 3 girlfriends also agree and have already given Hilda some ‘tips’ for her date!”
did they even consider cock blocking bitches??? seriously these are the worst, girls don’t really want the best match for their friends, they secretly want their friends to suffer along with them.
This is a great idea… if this site ends up being like other social networking sites, having complete strangers telling you dating advice is about as involved as sticking a nail in your head and asking others if it looks good.
Jon
http://woodmarvels.com - Create Unique Memories!
Oh! About time someone got smarter about dating.
Look for another startup to announce something fun in this space later this year.
Where is that guy who would write “Fail!” on the startup’s logo for ideas like this?
I actually tell my close friends how blind dates go. It’s actually a part of the fun, especially if someone else hooked you up. It kind of takes the pressure out of having to do all the connecting and probably will encourage more success. Like CrazyBlindDate, it eliminates alot of the back and forth by having others help be your online wingman.
However, if this was a facebook app, maybe, but as a standalone site…my friends, as close as they are to me, are not going to sign up on this cheesy looking site just to help me find dates. They gotta get something else out of it.
We have what I believe is a similar yet better site here in Australia
http://www.meetmymate.com.au
Friends acting as references, helping find dates etc.
The design and UI are much nicer as well. Worth a look.
Pretty cool idea, beats checking out your friends’ Facebook/Myspace/Friendster buddies and asking them to hook you up
http://www.feedbacksecrets.com
is that providing anything that facebook doesn’t already offer ?
Dating sites are not about making things difficult to get started. They’re about looking at pictures and sending email, with the site attempting to squeeze money out of the users by making these two activities incrementally more difficult (a.k.a. “value add”).
you guys obviously have missed the whole point of their site. if you date among your community the likelyhood of you having a failed date is much lower than cold calling on another dating site. this site is essentially mimicing real life dating.
as for the other site listed? meet my mate.com? what a rip off that is…the entire trade dress look and feel is a hybrid of skype, i’m in like with you and okcupid (bogus rip off)
the look and feel on engage is obviously geared toward women. chocolate and wine colors, or makeup colors. so is the mental model of the site girls sharing feedback about boys and dating.
the functionality of the site is pretty cool too it does all the searching for you based on your preferences on the people page. all my matches pre picked and in a queue for me to peruse. they take the work out of searching. i believe that is a value add.
it’s pretty obvious the people dissing the site and making comments here:
1. haven’t used the site…
2. don’t know what a target market is…
3. or what personas are…
4. and don’t design websites themselves.
I’ve tried the friend of a friend matching thing, it never really worked.
1. 30% turn over in members a month on any dating site.
2. Very high percentage of users don’t want all their friends to know they are on a dating site.
3. Lots of users preferences are dramatically different than what they tell their friends.
Something like this might work in India where marriages are arranged.
you don’t publicize the actual date on the site, do you? the whole point is to get your friends to suggest a decent match without too much effort on their part. or just rib around with your buddies and comment on girls/guys.
the old dating sites were so e-commerce - browse thru the aisles, make some picks, checkout (i.e. write an email to the prospect). so much pressure and feels like work.
i think it takes the pressure off online dating. you go in for a few minutes, have some fun with your real friends, and if you get a date out of it, even better.
I think users need to be careful when selecting their friends for this. The last thing you want when developing a new relationship with someone online are your friends taking about how well endowed the person is you are trying to get to know.
Not sure but more likely it looks like good for single rather than the people who are looking for short term relationship.
Ummm, this is news?
I suppose so, but in the UK “My Single Friend” (www.mysinglefriend.com) started this concept 2 years ago.
It’s worth checking out if you are interested in this sector as it has nicely filled this viral dating/meddling matchmaker model over here. the site is known for having lots of high-quality female profiles. girls trying to set up their girlfriends, I guess…
…and because it is “fronted” (image search on “Sara Beeny” and you’ll get the clever irony I’ve used) by a popular property show presenter.
Happy matchmaking
I personally like the http://www.lovifieds.com approach. The Love classifieds approach has a unique feel to it.
Liam-
you sound a little too “invested” in your post…
it appears to me that a site like this is trying to help make connections for those of us who find it difficult to reach out on our own… and while i see the merit in having a friend sing your praises, this site fails for me for 2 reasons (at least 2 reasons).
1. Zach mentioned above–I don’t need everybody in my business. It’s bad enough my mother calls me every other day wanting to know if i’m getting married yet. And if I do get hooked up, now I got to field constant calls about how it’s going and as Zach said–what if it didn’t go so well? No I gotta start telling everyone about all my failed dates??
2. Supposing there’s a girl that i see that i might be interested in… all of the sudden my buddy asks me to make a comment on his behalf. but wait, i wanted her! too much drama! you’re right–this site is like real life dating–and that’s precisely what i DON’T want!
http://www.cupidslab.com/ is doing something similar with the “match maker” idea
Yeah I’ve been on cupidslab.com for a few months now and like it. Got introduced to some nice ladies. Is there room in this space for more than one?
I think this certainly could work. Its just about ease of use and functionality and of course marketing to attractive women and their friends. That always helps.
I know several people who use Eharmony in this way. They let family and friends log in to their accounts and review potential matches.
“this site is essentially mimicing real life dating.”
So it duplicates something that already exists in an older, time-tested form offline? OK. But how does it improve on it? I’m not seeing that here.
Engage still looks and feels like traditional online dating. The fact that you can “search” defeats the whole purpose of leveraging friends and family for introductions. If you can search then the site will suffer from the same predictable pitfalls of subjective evaluation based upon outdated photos and embellished profiles. Isn’t the idea of letting your friends and family meddle in your love life that they’ll save you from dating “train wrecks?”
Call me crazy, but I found a site that meets the table stakes I mention: see http://www.sparkbliss.com
good
Something like this might work in India where marriages are arranged.
Whether or not it’s a good or bad idea doesn’t matter. The problem is that it’s nothing more than a small feature for a full blown matchmaking site.
I would like to point out, that they are closing registration for some countries…
I am personally from Russia and I cannt register in it, I think that hulariouce that they are incriminating larg population…