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Unlike such dating sites as Match.com or eHarmony, SpeedDate.com, a San Mateo company that debuted last week, uses Web cameras in combining online dating with speed dating. SpeedDate.com allows singles to stay home and interact with others in three-minute "dates," unlike the traditional speed dating, which is built on face-to-face, round-robin meeting-fests where singles chat in a bar or restaurant.
Dan Abelon and Simon Tisminezky developed SpeedDate.com last spring in a graduate class on entrepreneurship at Stanford University. At the online event on Thursday, the service attracted 231 newbies who participated in the 1,151 "dates." (The next SpeedDate.com session for Bay Area singles is at 8 p.m. Thursday.)
Kristin Young, 24, a marketing associate for a real estate firm in San Jose, met 30 men in two hours. She scored six matches, made when she and her dates voted online to digitally stay in contact with one another.
Unlike online sites where users usually must wait for responses, SpeedDate.com rewards its subscribers with the immediacy of meeting people, albeit via video cameras, in real time, she says.
"You don't know if you'll meet your long-term boyfriend or girlfriend," Young says, "but in three minutes you can tell if you don't want to waste your time with them or if you want to continue communicating with them after the date. It's a great way to meet."
Numerous online dating sites offer chat rooms for members with Web cameras. Others have organized telephone speed-dating sessions. However, none has combined speed dating and online dating like SpeedDate.com, Abelon says.
SpeedDate.com's introductory session on Thursday exceeded expectations, Abelon says. What was supposed to be an hourlong opportunity for singles to have up to 15 dates lasted until 2 a.m., with some participants meeting more than 30 singles.
"With other sites, interacting with someone is the very last step after you have invested all this time looking at profiles, sending e-mails and talking on the phone before you meet in person," Abelon says. "Our whole philosophy is that it should be the first step, because once you meet them, you know really quickly if there is any chemistry or attraction."
The service is free, but the company will eventually charge subscribers. New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago also will host future events. Ultimately, SpeedDate.com will become available at any hour rather than during scheduled sessions in specific markets, Abelon says.
Some online competitors have doubts about the SpeedDate.com format.
Spark Networks owns specialized sites such as JDate, which targets Jewish singles, as well as the more traditional speed-dating service HurryDate.com, so the company is familiar with the advantages of both types of services, says spokeswoman Gail Laguna. But in cross-breeding the two formats, online speed-dating events eliminate the intimacy that comes with a face-to-face meeting at conventional speed-dating gatherings.
"There is still a lot to be said for body language and in-person chemistry and interaction," she says. "You can't smell those pheromones over the video chat."
Ian Kerner, a couples therapist and author of "DSI: Date Scene Investigation" (HarperCollins, 2006), says he's "a big believer in technology and how it's revolutionizing dating." Though a service such as SpeedDate.com deserves a chance, he says, he also wonders how the rapport between two people meeting offline could possibly come through a Web cam.
"A lot can be gained through visual cues," he says, "but for me, the whole success of speed dating lies in our ability to thin-slice and make intuitive gut reactions. Without a natural give-and-take that comes through in-person interaction, I think our ability is severely handicapped."
That wasn't the case for BlueIris, the screen name for a 28-year-old Palo Alto woman who works as a product manager at a tech company. She went in a skeptic but - after scoring seven matches out of 20 "dates" - came out a fan.
"Going into it, my thought was if I can't meet someone in person, this is lame," BlueIris says. "But now I see this is just another way to communicate, to meet cool people that you would not get to meet otherwise."
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