Last week, while bored in morning class, I had a brainstorm for a humorous personal ad. I wrote it up and posted it on the only worthwhile classified service: Craigslist. Then, I started surfing around the rest of the Pullman section.
I had never visited before.
Unsurprisingly, there were a few postings in the women seeking men. And barely a handful of postings were in the men seeking women personals. But, surprisingly, the casual encounters sections were full of lonely hearts. Or, more accurately, lonely beds.
I have read articles about websites where people hookup. But, I had assumed this was a matter of statistics - there are always a few crazies on the Internet. But, if the tiny Pullman section of Craigslist was so depraved… I checked Seattle and Los Angeles.
Thus my mind was blown.
Every metropolitan area had far more “no strings attached” sex postings than anything of a romantic quality. And, every advertisement was so straight to the point. “I’m blah blah blah. You be somewhere in the range of blah blah blah. Respond with a picture and you’ll get mine.” No beating around the bush.
At this point, I wondered why the heck are people posting these to Craigslist? I googled for the obvious terms of “hookup”, “nsa sex” and “booty call.” Several Google Adwords campaigns later, I realized there were only a few websites catering to this sort of thing. And I also realized they are totally messing up their market.
Every one of these websites wanted a person to sign up, put in a large number of details, and in general put themselves out there before ever having the opportunity to reach out and touch somebody. I didn’t even check the ones that required a credit card. This explained why all these posts were on Craigslist - it’s free and simple.
I know I can beat that.
So, imagine a website that opens up to a sign-up page. It asks for an e-mail address, zip code, and a few body characteristics. After confirming your address, it asks you for what body characteristics you’re looking - an age range, race check-boxes, and height/weight seem good enough for version one. Then, around lunch-time, you receive an e-mail saying “50 matches found, cutie.”
It needs to be “cutie” to let you know the website is hardcore.
A list of profiles, maybe with one sentence taglines, appears. You then can click “OK” or “No Way!” for each one. If two people’s “OK”s match, they’re connected and able to send text and pictures to each other. This gives six hours to arrange a hookup.
At midnight, the coach turns back into a Pumpkin - all profiles you didn’t match up with are cleared. Any matches with communications are then able to be rated: “Call for a Good Time” or “SEXUAL PREDATOR.” Clearly, the votes exist to bias these people in future rounds.
1 Comment
September 27, 2008 at 11:30 pm
You are dead on right. Especially about “put in a large number of details, and in general put themselves out there before ever having the opportunity to reach out and touch somebody” I really think that lots of people are turned off by the intrusiveness of the profile, certainly when they are looking for something as sensitive and potentially explosive (read people loosing their jobs after posting for sex). Also what a lot of these sites are making bank on is the demographics that they are reselling not the subscriptions. Those are a loss leader. Many are not so stupid as to not know that, and are not interested in enriching the site owners with intel. Be careful with the “sex predator” tag. Maybe “hero or zero” would be a better range.
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