Check out our new product website at http://corp.omnidate.com. It explains in greater details what virtual dating is and how to get it up-and-running on your dating or social networking site. We are trying to make it super easy for sites to plug-in our virtual dating technology … btw, the last integration took less than 2 hrs start to finish!
Please visit our new site and let us know what you think.
The NY Daily News reports that giving people too many choices can backfire. Users of online dating Web sites actually experience a “cognitive overload” and make poorer decisions as a result. The article concludes that “Yet there is hope — at least in the online dating world. A new start-up company, called OmniDate, offers users the chance to interact with 3-D avatars in a virtual world, revealing information about themselves that may only come out through conversation.”
We agree: Virtual dating addresses a big gap in the online dating process and can effectively neutralize “cognitive overload.” (more…)
Virtual dating is proving to be a highly effective tool for improving online user experience and real life success, as well as increasing user activity, time on site, etc.
As this technology continues to evolve, an interesting question arises: How “real” should virtual dating be?
How does one compete successfully in the hyper-competitive online dating space?
A couple of books provide a valuable perspective: The future of online dating belongs to Visionaries, not Historian.
The first book, “Blue Ocean” by Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne views the world from the business strategy perspective. It uses the metaphor of red and blue oceans to describe the market universe. (more…)
Who do you think is drawn to Virtual Dating? If you guessed “young males” - you’d be wrong.
Take a look at the demographics for OmniDate, which has developed a virtual dating application that it licenses to dating sites. The company also maintains a small virtual dating site for the purpose of testing and refining its product.
According to Quantcast, a leading provider of internet metrics, OmniDate appeals to Women and people in the 35-49 age range.
Recently I had an interesting conversation with someone about why it makes sense to bring certain “virtual world” elements into the online dating space. We talked about how in virtual worlds there is much to do, but little purpose for being there … while in the online dating space, the opposite is true: a clear purpose for being there (i.e., to find a mate), but little to do (other than flipping through profiles and sending emails). So, giving users with a purpose a better virtual experience should keep them engaged longer … and, thus, should result in longer “time on site.”
So, today, I wanted to see if real-world data would lend support to this thinking. I pulled up Alexa (an online analytics tool) and compared “time on site” for several “virtual world” sites and OmniDate, which is a proxy for a “virtual dating” site. (more…)
We won the Red Herring Top 100 Global Companies Award, recognizing most promising technology companies in the world that will lead the next wave of disruption and innovation. Past winners of this prestigious award included Google, Yahoo!, Skype, Salesforce.com, and YouTube. This is a terrific validation of our technology and business concept.
Just came across this funny video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ8fLA53W6A&feature=related. It manages to capture the bizarre reality of online dating in 2 minutes.
It appears virtual dating gets people to stay on the site MUCH longer than webcam dating. Here are some stats on how the two compare in terms of Avg Stay Per Visit (min): (more…)