In my travels around cyberspace I ran into a company called Speeddate.com that caught my attention. Now there’ s nothing particularly novel about online dating, with a plethora of sites like LavaLife, Match.com etc. out there.
I don’t claim to have made an exhaustive assessment of the various online dating options, but this is certainly the first site that I am aware of that features video interaction. I think that this will make all the difference and should propel this model to the forefront sooner than later.
What is so great about video interaction? There is one problem that I have noticed that is common to most, if not all, online dating sites; the absence of the ability to really trust the information that you receive. In short, when I review a profile, how can I know whether the information that I am viewing is an actual representation of the person that placed the profile?
The issue of trust is not a new problem and companies like Amazon have made famous third party methods of trust development. Amazon has introduced the third party review, where others in the community review the book, CD, etc. Ebay does something similar allowing customers to review the various vendors. If 99.9% of the reviews are positive, you can feel pretty good about your choice.
The problem is that third party reviews do not work to provide us with the sort of information that is sufficient to know whether you want to date someone or not. In short, Sally may have been a great date for Joe, but this doesn’t mean she will be a great date for me.
Furthermore, if Joe really likes Sally, he hardly has any incentive to promote this on a dating site!!
Now its important to note that third party endorsements do help to build the sort of trust that can serve to assist in developing ones social networks. This has a lot to do with how the social networking model works – why Facebook is as powerful a model as it is. There is a some likelihood that if you are friends with Joe and Joe is friends with Sally, that you can be friends with Sally (if not date Sally!).
So, how can the next level of trust be developed? The sort of trust that can be the source of a more intimate relationship can be developed via face-to-face interaction. This is why when we use online dating services, the next step is to meet for coffee! Meeting for coffee allows us to observe each other in a manner that results in us gathering further information about each other, the purpose of which is to increase our level of trust of the other person.
It’s important to note that what enables us, when we are interacting face-to-face, to gather the sorts of information that can increase our trust of the other persons is our ability to view Implicit forms of Communication (forms of communication that are not necessarily intended by the other person). You can view what the other person looks like, how they dress, their body language etc.
So what does all of this have to do with Speeddating.com? Well, by making video interaction the basis for their model, they are jumping to a form of contact that immediately enables us to gather the sorts of evidence about the other person that can provide us with the basis for determining whether the other person is someone that we might be able to trust. It will eliminate a lot of the time that is wasted on other online dating services.
I predict that this model will be the future of online dating!!
(This is not an endorsement to invest in the company. It only represents the first impression of the authour of this piece and was written without any contact with the company.)
Suresh Fernando
Also check out the Technology And Social Change Wiki
SCREEN CAPTURE OF SPEEDDATING.COM
Reflections and Insights on Transformation 
I Agree, Suresh – I think that video interaction/dialougue can (and probably will) play a huge role in building relationships between people online – also in the self organizing movements that are arising because of the internet.
The combination of new approaches to collective (organizational) change like Appreciative inquiry and its use of video interviews, the visibility and rating features offered by sites like youtube and facebook and the fact that a lot of us (at least us mac users) have a webcam readily available leads us to a point where all we need is the right story or impulse and soon a lot of us earthlings might be building collective visions, momentum and action plans through online videos.
Dont you think that holds a great potential for community building? or in your terms building massive mobilization?