I have been thinking about the business of online dating a lot recently. As I said on twitter last week, it feels like online dating today is much like car rental 5 years ago. Multiple providers with very little differentiation serving a product an increasing number of people want and are prepared to pay for.
I have been keeping an eye out for a zipcar to come along and mix things up, and am working on a few ideas myself.
One site that has really captured my attention is crazyblinddate. Provide the site with some basic personal info, and then tell it where and when you want a date – they do the rest. CBD is a skunkworks project from OKcupid – good for them for recognizing the value in innovating.
What is smart about the service is that it just removes many of the flaws of traditional online dating - no detailed profile to complete, no pithy intro emails to send and no need to make up your height. On top of that, it lets an algorhthym do all the hard work and it brings back that all important sense of excitement.
As Youngme Moon says, the best services are often those that strip away all the extraneous matter and focus on delivering just the raw essentials their customers need. That is exactly what CBD is doing right. I imagine it is more social experiment than viable business model, but it is a great step in the right direction.
