OmniDate Virtual Dating

Does the choice of a virtual venue really make a difference?  It appears so.

We took a sample of 10,000 virtual dates and compared the duration of dates across various venues.

Surprisingly, some virtual dating venues appear to be consistently associated with longer “Time on Date” - and the difference can be quite substantial, as much as 40% in some cases - suggesting that the virtual dating ambiance can significantly impact the dating experience.

Also interesting to note that people tend to enjoy their “in-door” dating venues (e.g., a coffee shop) longer than the “out-door” venues (e.g., a park).  Hmmm, I wonder why.

So, where do you like to go on your virtual dates?

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 experiences are sometimes dismissed as unrelated to the real world.  However there is mounting evidence that virtual experiences are actually linked closely with our daily life.

For example, a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience earlier this year illustrates an effect of a virtual experience on people’s choices.  Volunteers who played a simple cycling game learned to favour one team’s jersey and avoid another’s.  Days later, most subjects were subconsciously drawn to one jersey and shunned the other in a real-world test.  Other studies have found that virtual experiences can influence our emotions, help treat post-traumatic stress disorder, and even trigger the same biological pathways as food and cocaine. (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?

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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.

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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…)

Here’s a great post by Matthew, a news writer for Geek.com: OmniDate to replace real first date with virtual one.

Matthew correctly describes the objective of virtual dating: “… to try and remove some of the barriers to going on a first date. Their idea is simple. Replace the first real date with a virtual one … [from] the safety of your own home.” (more…)