My CNET colleague Jeff Sparkman tipped me off to an odd twist in the world of Facebook application acquisitions. As of Wednesday night SpeedDate.com, the purveyor of the Web video-based online dating service snatched up the rights to the Oregon Trail Facebook application, which will soon be replaced with the service's existing speed-dating application.
That's right--instead of trying to cross 15-foot wide rivers and avoid dysentery, you'll be looking for love with your Webcam.
Early Thursday, users of the service got a message: "Next week, Oregon Trail's name and functionality will be changed to SpeedDate. Data entered into the original app won't be used anymore. Soon you'll be able to try SpeedDate, the fastest way to meet new people, so stay tuned! P.S. If you want to opt out of this app, instructions can be found here." Until the change, the Oregon Trail application remains fully accessible.
The change is clearly a move to capture the attention of some of the service's 11,200-plus active monthly users and woo them to use SpeedDate.com. This is a small-time number compared with some of the top applications, like RockYou's Super Wall which has more than 18 million monthly users. However, depending on how much SpeedDate paid for Oregon Trail, this could be far cheaper than spending that money on marketing.
The message Oregon Trail users received telling them the Facebook application would soon be a Webcam dating tool.
(Credit: Jeff Sparkman/CNET Networks)The most interesting aspect of this is that the practice of changing an application's functionality and namesake is completely fair and legal according to Facebook's platform application guidelines and terms of service. Developers are free to make these drastic changes to their applications as long as they stay within Facebook's relatively loose rules. The only gray area is in this tenet:
"You must be honest and accurate about what your application does and how it uses information from Facebook users. Your application cannot falsely represent itself."
To SpeedDate.com's credit there's been a period of warning, and nobody is paying to use the application. The company is also purging the existing user data, and providing opt-out instructions to get them off the application and out of any mailing lists.
In my mind this still doesn't sit right though. People generally do not like using one service then having it switched to something else entirely overnight. A more recent example of this is SpyMac, which in early 2007 went from an artsy Apple computer community and tools service to a Web media host in the course of a day, much to the chagrin of its long-time users. According to Compete.com that change brought in a quick spike of traffic, followed by a slow and steady drop in both visitors and page views, which are now lower than before the change.
I pinged SpeedDate.com's founder Dan Abelon about the acquisition and change, and he notes that the application his company picked up is not the more popular Oregon Trail application, which was renamed Northwest Trail after being picked up by SGN earlier this year. Instead it's a knockoff. SGN's app has nearly seven times the number of monthly users although it has dropped in usage over the past eight months, which may partially be due to Facebook's redesign.
Abelon says they still haven't figured out which features will be added to the new SpeedDate Facebook application, but it's a good bet there won't be any wagon inventory management involved.
Social dating site WooMe has launched a new video service that is so amazingly hard to watch it's bound to be a hit. It's called WooMe.tv, and it takes recordings from the site's speed dates and hosts them for all to see.
Not every video is available. Both users must opt in to have the session shared post-date, and only then does it go into the public directory. What makes it an attractive proposition is that the videos are only 60 seconds long (or less), so you can watch two or three of them in rapid succession. Better yet, each video is linked up to the members' profiles, so if someone catches your eye you can message them, or view some of their other social interactions.
User ratings have been employed to weed out the good from the bad using the same five-star system that's found on YouTube. WooMe's creators are also highlighting especially watch-worthy videos in a special featured section. If you find something you like you can share it with friends either through a direct link or with an embed, which is what I've done below.
I think you'll agree that this has the makings of a really watch-worthy service, however, there are a few things that could make it better. For instance:
• Give me an annotation tool. I spent countless hours watching Blind Date back when it was on TV, and seeing little moving notes on the videos was wonderful. I can imagine that someone, somewhere can do as good a job as that production team, especially if they're limited to just 60 seconds. Better yet, team up with Veeple to do it and make some cash.
• Make inter-network sharing more functional. I just found a video of someone who seems like a good match for my friend. Let me recommend it to him or her with a customized message.
• Let me filter the videos by age group and location. The current system is a good start for exploring, but not as much for meeting other people nearby.
See also WooMe competitor SpeedDate.com, which has made certain member dates public for the sake of promotion.
While the latest trend in online dating has been video with sites like WooMe and SpeedDate.com, Youniverse (pronounced "universe"), which launched Thursday morning, is all about pictures.
Instead of matching you up with people based on a fill-in-the-blanks personality quiz or a impromptu video chat, it attempts to appeal to the visual part of your brain by having you choose from a grid of thumbnails. Each thumbnail determines a various aspect of who you are and what you like and dislike. It's actually kind of fun, and when you've done it will take all that information and stack it together into a ready-made profile.
When it comes time to discover people who match up, the site has a built-in tool that will let you see the best compatibility based on how they answered the same questions, as well as sliders that let you hone down the results by age, gender, and location. You can then dig a little deeper by visiting those people's profiles, sending them personal messages, or exploring the people who they're compatible with.
To help promote yourself, the site has a widget that can be put on your blog or social-networking profile (embedded after the break). I'm assuming most people wouldn't want to do this, because it showcases some of your more private personality preferences.
Another Web service that's experimented with the idea of using photos instead of text is Vidoop which lets you sign into secure sites or fill out human-checking security questions with pictures instead of words. We checked it out back in April of last year.
Youniverse lets you figure out your personality with photos instead of words or multiple choice surveys. This screen is just one part of a 15-step evaluation. When you're done you can compare your results with those of other users.
(Credit: CNET Networks)... Read more
WooMe is opening up its doors to everyone this morning after being in private beta for the last few months. They were one of the presenters at the TechCrunch 40 conference back in mid-October and opened up to a little more than 100 folks who wanted to be a part of the dating site. Since then they've been ramping up the site, and have made a few updates, including a change in focus from dating to simply finding other people to interact with.
The underlying idea is that you've got a minute to talk to someone one-on-one via Webcam, and after that minute you move on to someone else. If you connect with someone, you can befriend them on the service, and can opt in to get in touch outside the site for further communication via private message.
Chat with someone like you would in a real-life speed-dating session. The clock on the left is ticking, though, so you've only got one shot at glory.
(Credit: WOO Media Inc.)Instead of one massive pool of users to sort out, the site manages everything through themed sessions that are created by users. Each session has a certain number of spots, and to be a part of them you need to sign up and be there when it starts. If you're not, someone else can take your spot, and potentially your next ex-girlfriend. Session topics range from singles looking to mingle by geographical area, all the way to folks trying to find babysitters or carpool partners. You can also scope out who has signed up to be a part of the session before you throw yourself in the mix. Despite the site advertising a minute per person, the session creator can dial up the time up to 3 minutes.
To help schedule the sessions, users can set a time when they want it to start. In order to aid users in remembering they've signed up, WooMe is launching an alerts system that will give users a heads up when it's time to hop back on the site. Currently users can set up a 10-minute e-mail alert, but there are also plans to add SMS and IM reminders (via a bot) to help users get a ping before a session is about to begin.
In addition to video, users can also opt for voice chat that comes in tandem with whatever picture they've associated with their WooMe account. Interestingly enough, the majority of a profile on WooMe isn't populated by information the user puts in; instead, it comes from other users who can use tags to describe them. Users have their own tag cloud, which gives you a quick snapshot of what others think of them. You can see this on their profiles, as well as while chatting with them in one of the sessions. Besides the big "no thanks" button when you're chatting with someone, this is the only real use of user ratings. Users can also reveal their age, location, and real basic traits like body type and social archetypes.
... Read more
Put romance and Webcams in the same sentence and we're often talking about sites that are neither safe for work, nor a proper replacement for face-to-face human interaction. SpeedDate (formerly known as "SpeedEdate") would like you to think otherwise, with their online speed-dating solution that gives you three minutes a pop with a grouping of daters via Webcam. The site has already setup more than 15,000 virtual dates after making its debut in late October.
Similar to WooMe (which is still in private alpha) dates are short, (hopefully) sweet, and one-on-one. SpeedDate will match you up based on some basic personality and geographical preferences. And starting next week, members will get to check out information about the person they're talking to, in order to get some quick conversation topics. There are also big fat "yes" and "no" buttons to note whether or not you enjoyed your time, and would like to setup a real date. Afterwards you can go back and get in touch with said daters to arrange a real-world meetup if both of you clicked the green yes button. Clicking the no button will end the date and move you on to the next.
Like real speed-dating events, sessions on SpeedDate.com are scheduled for a chunk of time on a weekly basis to maximize your potential dating pool. At all other times, simply keeping the browser window open will continue to match you up with new people as they come online.
While speed dating cuts through some of the red tape of glossing over people's profiles, the other end of that is getting matched up with more undesirables than you might be expecting, which is where SpeedDate's matching algorithm becomes important. It's worth noting that this is clearly a far better system than what's been done with the Dating on Demand service that you watch on your cable box, and potentially easier than sniffing out a local speed dating session on your own. It's also a little different from the competition by offering voice, video, and text as a means of conversation, meaning if you're without a Webcam you're not entirely out of the game--although your chances are probably better with one.
For a broader look at the service, the creators of SpeedDate have put together a video, which despite its news story look and feel, is purely promotional. My favorite part is when it turns into black and white to signify the "old" way of Internet dating, which looks a lot like MySpace. Burn.
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