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NAOMI, a 28-year-old single woman from north London, is fed up with online-dating sites after failing to find love in cyberspace.
“They’re awful,” she sighs. “People put their best foot forward on them, putting up the best photo they can find of themselves and the most interesting stuff about them, and you get your hopes up. But when you get to meet them, they turn out to be a bit sad, not that clever and not very good looking – all the reasons they’re single.”
Times Online reports that there are lots of people like Naomi who have become disillusioned with online singles sites. A survey carried out by YouGov earlier this year found that only 25% of people using internet-dating sites were confident of finding what they are looking for via the net.
That percentage may improve with the launch in the of ‘WooMe.com’, a new site that hopes to provide a better experience and help to cut out some of the more dubious claims made by those surfing for love.
The backers of WooMe, who include Niklas Zennstroem, the co-founder of the internet telephony company Skype, now hope to capture a slice of this expanding industry.
Their site is different from more established internet-dating services because it allows members to meet new people in one-minute bursts using webcams before deciding whether they want to follow up. It is an online version of speed dating.
The idea for the site came about when the sister of one of the co-founders, Stephen Stokols, was studying at university in San Diego and became frustrated with how time-consuming it was to meet people she had come across on social-networking sites such as Face-book and MySpace. The original thinking behind WooMe was to cut through that and allow people to connect almost instantly.
The way the new site works is relatively straightforward. Users register their details, and when they log on they join a session that will have no more than 10 participants – five men and five women – or create a new session and invite others to take part.
Once the session starts, you get to chat live, using webcams, for one minute with the other participants and at the end you give feedback on the people you met. If two people match up, then they have the opportunity to pay to get their contact details. The fee will probably be $1. There is also likely to be a system that allows people to get unlimited numbers of contact information in exchange for a monthly fee. All these bells and whistles may not be enough to tempt back those like Naomi who have been turned off the whole concept of internet dating. But even she admits that some of her friends found true love via the web, so maybe there will be a happy ending after all. Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C12%5C13%5Cstory_13-12-2007_pg9_5
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