Monday, April 25, 2011

Are Dating Reviews the Next Frontier?

We live in a recommendation based society. From finding restaurants, to hair dressers to new jobs, we solicit the advice of others to hedge our bets and make more informed opinions.  Recently I read a term for it called social searching -- which refers to how now search engines are being effected by our social networks. This concept got me wondering: are dates the next logical thing to be reviewed and recommended? I can see it now, Linked In style: "Jewels recommends Mister wonderful: he's charismatic, driven and can really close the deal if you know what I mean..."

Although matchmaking and set-ups have always existed to help provide friends with recommendations while making it all feel a little less random, the proliferation of social media is making it easier and easier for us to weigh in on each others dating lives. Recently two friends of mine connected on an online dating site and realized, through Facebook, that I was their friend in common. I got an email from one asking the scoop on the other and of course I dished. But I began to wonder if maybe I should have kept my personal thoughts out of the public domain.

To see if dating reviews were in fact, the future I chatted with Ross Felix, founder of Dating Revolution, a soon to launch dating site that will enforce dater honesty with community feedback. He shared the following thoughts: "It's a double edged sword in several ways: The reviews you're going to trust the most are ones from your own friends. Reviews from their friends are meaningless. But that would mean that you're either dating your friends friends -- or worse, your friends' exes. Option #2 is more like Yelp -- where you're getting reviews from strangers -- but lets be honest, unless it's one of those odd things -- He was absolutely amazing -- but unfortunately he's developed an allergy to my cat -- why would someone be writing a positive review?"

Although a site to review dates has yet to emerge, a new site called Clique just launched which allows you to search your social networks and date people that are within three degrees of your network. So what's the net? Maybe we're spending too much time social searching and need to spend more time soulful searching, that is, forming are own opinions about what we want. But hey if you really don't have a clue, I guess tapping the wisdom of crowds makes sense. Or better yet, the wisdom of friends.

9 comments:

  1. There were fifty people in my graduating class so you couldn't help but date your friends friends or friends exes. And reviews of dates were always shared openly through the hallway.

    It sounds like what they have invented is a virtual small town!

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  2. Cassie -- you rock my world. That is classic. I love it, social media is meant to expand our world, but instead, shrinks it. FAIL.

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  3. These sorts of sites have been launched before and they don't seem to be around anymore. You could always tells which were the fake reviews and which people were just too crazy to be dating anyway. It just seems like these sites just give people another medium to use to bash others and vent. I've stopped using Yelp completely for this reason. It's pointless. Now people write reviews just trying to seem overly witty or scathing.

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  4. I totally agree, as much as I live for the internet it certainly breeds a culture of hyperbole, people feel like they have to be so extreme in their opinions to get noticed. that being said if i could read reviews my friends wrote about guys (versus the thoughts of complete strangers) it could be helpful in weeding people out.

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  5. Isn't that what the "hottie" hashtag is for? :)
    http://hashtags.org/hottie

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  6. I think some dating sites have started implementing something similar to this. I can't remember if it's okcupid or match but one of them has a place where you can rate certain characteristics on a person or give them a star or something like that. I think they've set it up in a way that after you talk to the person or meet them, you have an opportunity to hand out some kind of reward/star/ribbon and write a comment. I think it's set up in a flirtatious way and then, if you happen to go out with them again or if it doesn't work out, your "rating" will still be on the site. i've personally never rated anyone but i remember someone whose profile I checked out had some comment and rating from another user so I can only assume that it works something like that.

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  7. Hot mess, I live for you and have missed you. Thanks for the comments. I gotta check these out. I can see it now, "gold star for pulling out my chair, voo-doo doll for never asking me out on a second date..."

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  8. I love the idea of being able to date people just out of reach of your social network (I've always wished Facebook had the LinkedIn 'third connection' thing!).

    Speaking of dating reviews, my roommate created an OKCupid profile for me which bluntly states she's screening guys for me because I make terrible choices..she has yet to do any better. Sigh.

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  9. Thanks for the comment Rachel and thanks for visiting! I love the whole idea of your friend writing profiles for you. Funny enough I think there is actually a dating site in the UK where you submit dating profiles on behalf of your friend.

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