There’s a whole new spin on online dating websites. If you haven’t heard about it already, Datecraft.com is a service that aims to pair up people from around the world with each other. A colleague of mine over at Curse has published an interview with Datecraft.com founder, John. Check out this brief excerpt:
TDQ: Where did the idea come from?
Datecraft: In a nutshell, the idea came from a number of different personal experiences, and a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit.
I first got into MMO’s a couple of years back. In the fall of 2001, I was a college freshman trying to figure out how to spend my time between classes, DAoC (which launched October 10th), Xbox (Nov 15th), GameCube (Nov 18th), and a number of other distractions. It was DAoC that grabbed my attention, because it was unlike anything I had played before (and was the first game I was willing to pay a monthly subscription on!). My Uncle’s sister was an actual level/environ designer for Mythic, which made it all the more attractive. I was hooked and MMORPG’s became a steady favorite time-bandit for me. But, I began to wonder “who are these people I’m playing with?†Was that Midgard Dwarf really a short stubby 40-something year old in his mom’s basement? Or was it a really attractive young female that had some extra time on her hands? In any case, my curiosity led me to begin thinking about ways in which I would be able to meet, or at least “seeâ€Â, my fellow guildmates (and the random PUG groups) on or offline. And, to be quite honest, the Elf from Hibernia, was she dateable?
Fast forward 3 or 4 years to November 24th, 2004. World of Warcraft hits the shelves and MMORPG fans rejoiced! My friend got me to sign up after he let me create a t00n on his account and that was it. I was addicted. Over time, I began hearing real life stories of people who had met in game, contacted each other in real life, met each other, dated, and then married! It was an amazing phenomenon, and one that I partly intrigued by and at the same time repulsed. But, it sure was fascinating. Graduating from college, I took my first job in what I would call the “bat caveâ€Â. I was managing Cisco routers for an collocation and ISP working graveyard shifts, and what’s so funny is that even during the day we kept the lights out. What was so interesting is that out of the 8 or 9 of my fellow cave-dwellers 7 of them were married, and of those 7, 6 of them had gotten married to people they met online (2 mail-order brides from Russia, 1 online from Thailand, and 3 stateside). Online dating was real. And more than that, it appeared to be working, as all of them “seemed†pretty satisfied with their marriages!
To be honest, I figured something like this would happen eventually. It was only a matter of time before someone was ballsy enough to try it out. I’m tempted to make an account and explore the interface (I swear, it’s more out of curiosity then anything else). I’m hoping it’s an environment that’s akin to Facebook. But there’s another service out there coming out in the 1st quarter of 2008 specifically for WoW Players that resembles Facebook that GMW wrote about a while back (Read: Rupture.)
Speaking about Curse, they just launched a new design of their entire website. My thoughts about it will come after tonight.
Rupture’s up and running for me, although it may still be in Beta. A little slow though, like a bad Armory day.
So, do we know someone single whose arm you can twist to try this out in the name of scien– I mean, uh, the greater WoW blogging community?
Ah yes, the main page says its coming in 2008. I forgot about the beta part.
*sigh* I guess I’ll take the hit and check out the place. =)