Ideas The World Needs That I’ll Never Do #5: Video Tinder
Before you read this story, note that I haven’t dated since 1995.
However, I did build or work with some of the Web’s biggest (older) dating services, including Yahoo! Personals, JDate and others. I’ve been obsessed with dating apps for about 2 decades. And I’ve been a wingman for friends while they play with Tinder, so I get the basics (even if I swipe the wrong way sometimes by accident — does right or left mean you like?).
I had an idea almost a decade ago, and I even began work on it — video dating via an app. We called it Hello. The idea was simple, almost a throwback to 1980’s video dating. You’d fire up your app, and instead of seeing photos of a potential date, you’d be able to watch them interact and talk. You can Facetune the shit out of a photo, but manicuring a video is harder and hearing someone’s voice is surprisingly helpful in deciding if you could stand hearing it for an evening…or the rest of your life. We thought about requiring the post-match conversation to be video too. We had lots of silly ideas.
But then we got busy, and we never finished the app. We struggled with one issue — while it’s fun to watch videos of others, what incentive could we offer to get you to talk? It’s sorta painful when someone sticks a mic in your face and says “Go”. Perhaps we could present provoking questions or karaoke or something else that would be easy for you to respond to. In 2010, this seemed like an issue, although these days everyone wants to be on camera all the time, so maybe this issue isn’t really a big deal. And now that every human on the planet has Airpods perpetually stuck in their ears, they could listen to the videos in public.
Lots of folks have tried versions of video dating apps, but no one ever did it right. I find TikTok to provide the best video browsing experience, although it’s not a dating app (at least not officially). Are there others out there that I’m just too lazy to Google? In my cursory searches, I found:
- Cougar Mature Adult Dating
- Flirt Hookup
…and other similarly bad-sounding apps, most of which are focused on live video (which I can guarantee you will be 100% dick pix) or just plain sex (which will also be 100% dick pix). I’m not sure live video is the right platform? We all know how Chatroulette ended up (one last time, folks — dick pix).
Also, if you were remotely successful, I’d guess that Tinder and Bumble would just add video to their larger platforms and crush you. But still…it would be fun as hell to build.
So, I ain’t gonna build a video dating app, but someone should. And then maybe Tinder can buy you. :)
