Many of my friends are Internet and Soc Nw. Enthusiast . whenever we sit together ,we spend a lot of time discussing relative merit of every Sc.Nw site in market . some time back we were discussing most primitive form of all social Nw sites, namely DATING sites . Almost every one in group agreed to the fact that Online Dating is a BIG business but none of the company has got it right , specially in India . Most of the participant in discussion agreed that it doesn’t worked for them . adaptation , usage and throughput is not good enough.something is definitely broken somewhere . Our Culture and Conservative society is obviously a reason . but even in upwardly mobile Metro youth, usage of DATING site is not that much .
Some female members of the group were concerned about their Privacy and Fear of any possible abuse by stalker [SIKO is the term they use ] . they were convinced that most of these DATING portal is a fertile ground for abuse . that their security and reputations is at stake if they extend the conversation off line. so they may put up there profile on these site for the heck of it but response rate is very low . Most of them quoted the example of recent case of Mumbai teenager who was killed by his friends whom he meet at Orkut .
I don’t dismiss their fear ,its definitely not without some ground . but i somewhat disagree to the tendency to blame it on service provider .Possibility of stumbling upon some idiot is there but isn’t thats true for every place . Life in metro is a fertile ground for abuse . with thousands of Indian registered at Orkut we have only 2-3 cases of Orkut being used for some illegal activity . does that negate the whole concept ? Is it a case of BAD APPLE OR BAD BARREL ?
How can someone who want to do next orkut or some other dating service can address this concern of User community ,Investor ,Press and of course Moral Police ? Any thoughts ?
- Event Notification: 5th Meetup of Mobile Monday Delhi - December 21, 2007
- Facebook End Game - September 27, 2007
- BAD APPLE OR BAD BARREL ? - September 5, 2007
Satpal: On the contrary I think the customer is extremely discerning and intelligent. IMHO, the problem with dating sites is that “dating” on the web has become a haunt for those who believe it’s a red light area. Putting up photos on such sites is fraught with peril because of the mess it can cause (fake ids with the same photo and so on).
On a completely parallel note: Flirting or dating rarely, if ever, occurs if it is the primary end-goal (even in real life). You usually end up meeting people during some other activity, club, friends, whatever. It might be more efficient to tap those activities (which can be more monetisable too) even if your end goal is to promote inter-mingling of the sexes.
Addressing porn, hatred, harrassment and spam is ok for a small site – but how does one ever scale? One thing that comes to mind: Amazon mechanical turk. Use people as filters, and pay them to approve/reject everythign that ever comes up.
@deepak
I am am ot sure if i get you right here.Do you mean we shuld assume customer an “idiot” who cannot identify differnece between matrimony and dating site ( or shaadi vs flirting)? or you mean indian custumers dont have clear and unique need?
I am wondering why we are much motivated to cut-paste foreign idea in India. If dating concept doesnt exist or if it is not part of culture why not wait for the right time?
Assume you want to address the very very small class of people in metros who may be interested in dating then why not test this with a solution targeted specifically to this audience.But then question will be how you make sure your user is only from delhi or mumbai?
Presently size of moral police wis very big including the mother, father,brother ( sisters dont have equall rights in india :)) of your cutomer who consider dating a foreign idea.You can fight misuse,you can fight privacy concerns but you cannot fight mindset.Ideal solution is to adressing every single concern that may raiseed by users til the next cultural revolution ( not ver far may be next 5 year 🙂 ). Make your self available for discussion,keep porn out, empower user with (options/features related to privacy),and be explicit about your target audience (18 + age).
But still I am not convinced if we have monetizable customer base looking for dating solutions.
@alok: This is not the original post.I am still waiting for my original post to be displayed here .