Price Harry Out With Some Princesses

I’m sorry. When did Prince Harry become a man? Did I miss something? Like a decade? These pictures are actually confusing me. How old am I? Better yet, how old is HE? And how ODD it is to watch Prince Harry come out of Mahiki nightclub in London alongside Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. In [...]

Can WooMe rock the online dating industry?

WooMe is an exciting dating site. With investment from one of Skype´s founders WooMe aims to woo the dating industry. Frostfire spoke to their founder to learn a little more.

Where did your idea come from?

Stephen was hanging out with his 23 year old sister and her friends who were all complaining about how lame online dating sites were, but how much fun speed dating was. Stephen, who was looking at nascent in-browser voice and video technologies for British Telecom as its youngest VP, put two and two together and created a cutting edge speed introduction platform where people could have fun meeting others without the overhead of lengthy profiles or dating stigma.

 

What is your elevator pitch?

WooMe is an introduction platform where you can meet five people in five minutes in live video speed sessions.

There are no long forms or lengthy profile descriptions, simply find a session that interests you and meet 5 people in 5 minutes. Or, create your own sessions based on your interests - such as "Tech lovers in San Francisco." -Invite friends or strangers to play with you and immediately decide if you are woo'd by someone. WooMe's cutting edge in-browser video and voice capability delivers a live interactive experience.

 

How is your proposition different from competitors? Who do you see as your main competition?

1) it is a completely innovative user proposition based on topical speed sessions (vs profiles) that replicates the offline speed dating model (users meet five people in five minutes live)
2) leverages cutting edge in-browser voice and video technology, ie no client downloads or clunky user experience
3) users can create their own session topics and leverage viral tools to invite people

 

Why will you succeed?

We have a great team and a great idea.  The technology itself is cutting edge with over 15,000 man hours of optimization that has gone into it.

WooMe takes social networking, online dating and online gaming into new territory bridging the gap between offline and online worlds.

 

What are your biggest successes so far?

User side - have had over 1000 speed sessions with over 30,000 introductions made within those sessions. of the 30,000 people who have met, over 7000 have mutaully "woo'd" each other (both said they connect with other person).

Technology side - in-browser communication aspects optimized to point that is better than skype quality (to point where Skype founders have invested)

How will/do you make money?

In a session, if both parties select "I was woo'd" vs "no thanks" it is a successful woo and they have the opportunity to pay $1 for the person's contact info.

How do you market your site?

Social media, facebook, PR, targeted campus campaigns, sem.

 

Have you received funding? If so, how much and from whom?

$2m from Nikkalas Zennstrom (Skype founder), Klaus Hommels (Venture Partner at Benchmark) and Mangrove Capital

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Online dating for gloves

 

Jennifer Gooch, who is pursuing her master of fine arts degree at Carnegie Mellon University, has started onecoldhand.com, a website that is like an online dating service for lost gloves.

One of her first ones was a moist, lambskin glove that someone had propped up on a ledge on campus. She was worried about taking it at first. What if the owner came back to claim it?

In its place, she left a small rectangular sticker. A drawing of a black glove is scrawled on it and says, "Missing a glove? onecoldhand.com."

Gooch displays the gloves on the wall in her basement art studio at the university. There are 21 so far, each tacked up with push pins. Small yellow Post-it notes and slips of scrap paper hang there, too, chronicling where each was found.

Gooch would love to see One Cold Hand projects sprout up in other cities. She's working with two women in New York to start a similar effort there. They hope to have onecoldhand-nyc.com up and running soon.

Gooch is even talking with local businesses about creating glove dropboxes all over the city where people can leave their fabric finds.

What is amazing about this website is the popularity it has recevied from the press: The New York Times, Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette and Tribune-Review, USA Today, and the original Associated Press article picked up by 128 papers/sites and counting.

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