The question that I've got is what is your surrogate going to tell the girl in order to get you a date? You know the only way they can go viral is to start getting men dates.
What happens when the girl finds out that you're not Tom Cruise's younger brother who just sold his startup to Google? This makes much better sense as a reality TV show. Poor Allen Funt would be horrified.
Not sure if this is the way to win the hearts of prospective partners: caring little about the approach as to outsource personal interactions.
I imagine there's room for improvement in online dating, and can see professional help being a viable service (tips on profiles, photographer, suggesting people to contact or automating some initial contact) but I don't know if this would appeal to people?
There's a market because online dating is a funnel process. In large markets, there are thousands of potential female matches and tens of thousands of potential female matches.
The funnel from initial message to reply is brutal. The funnel from conversation to date is also brutal. Relying on mass messaging has a terrible conversion rate. So you need relatively specific messages, and lot of them, to get as far in the funnel as "first date".
Some people feel that they don't have time for that nonsense. Along comes an English lit grad who needs some extra cash ...
Dating is not a "solvable" problem because asymmetric information and asymmetric supply/demand meaning that the solutions to the Stable Marriage Problem aren't applicable.
It might be nice if the picture of the couple at the beginning actually rotated/fade-in/out between "traditional" image of a couple, interracial, same-sex, etc.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 40.3 ms ] threadWhat happens when the girl finds out that you're not Tom Cruise's younger brother who just sold his startup to Google? This makes much better sense as a reality TV show. Poor Allen Funt would be horrified.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Funt
I imagine there's room for improvement in online dating, and can see professional help being a viable service (tips on profiles, photographer, suggesting people to contact or automating some initial contact) but I don't know if this would appeal to people?
The funnel from initial message to reply is brutal. The funnel from conversation to date is also brutal. Relying on mass messaging has a terrible conversion rate. So you need relatively specific messages, and lot of them, to get as far in the funnel as "first date".
Some people feel that they don't have time for that nonsense. Along comes an English lit grad who needs some extra cash ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem
"Outsourcing" just makes the informational asymmetry worse. It's a negative-sum strategy. Hooray.