For most startups, it’s Thursday. But just in case some of you out there are looking forward to a bit of two timing, there’s plenty of help. No. We don’t mean the escort services, the porn peddlers or the marriage portals. We are talking about startups that help you find a real date or maybe just a Fraand (sic).
Pairbuddy: Pairbuddy just launched its public version. People find it difficult to make the first move to begin a relationship because they fear losing their good friend and getting rejected. On PairBuddy, people can add a friend to their secret crush list. If their friend also adds them to his/her secret crush list, both of them will be notified. It makes online dating extremely simple, fun and risk free.
StepOut.com: This site first started in 2008 in New York as Ignighter.com. It calls itself India’s number 1 place to meet new people and says that it has more than 4 million registered users. The company claims that over 40 % of users are women. Google India’s chief Rajan Anandan and a few others have together invested $3 million in the company which was first founded in the US and then moved to India as its founders noticed major traction from this part of the world. Besides features like Free chat, the site offers some premium features and virtual goods.
Floh: This Bangalore based site is taking a totally different route to dating. Fact is, its not even a traditional dating site. Floh is a platform to bring single people together at awesome events with the objective of meeting like minded people and is an invite only network. We’d written about Floh sometime back when it was about 1 year old and had several hundreds paying members. Its hard to imagine a premium service which charges a membership fee of Rs 7,500 for 3 months having hundreds of paying customers and a long queue of people waiting to sign up. Read more about Floh here.
QuackQuack.in: These guys launched last year. The idea is to keep it real and clean i.e. the site focuses on bringing ‘real/genuine’ users (and not fake profiles) and is solely aimed at Indian users. We are told that it’s truly a hassle for an Indian single to go online and find someone genuine to date with. They either end up in the arms of bots, porn peddlers or the matchmakers. Once you register on QuackQuack, you can send blinks, waves or short messages that are templatized and chat with others. The site has premium offering which enables users to send personalized waves among other things. Read more about QuackQuack here.
Twomangoes is an Indian site which proclaims “No stalkers, No Creeps” on its front page. Clearly, they understand the problems of single people on the Internet. Give it a shot and see if you get lucky.
Ditto is another option for you. The site seems to be doing pretty good. Its is a platform for single people to form “meaningful connections with those who share similar interests, tastes, passions, ideologies and points of view.” Well don’t we all love these meaningful platforms.
DateIITians: Supposing you are one of the folks believe that IITian’s have an extra whatever, you should log on to DateIITians.com. Its a social dating site founded by three IITians last year. Oh wait, that site is down. Well so much for loving an IITian.
Enough with dating services. Lets look at a couple of other things.
Send voice greetings to your cupid this Valentine’s day using GreetZAP App: The Android app introduces concept of voice cards and enables users to record their feelings and emotions and send it to their loved ones through physical voice cards delivered at recipient’s doorstep. A similar iPhone app is on the way. For those who don’t have an Android phone, try out their website (link) or their mobile site (link).
Also, don’t forget to check out some of the Valentine’s day apps for Android and OVI that we covered last year. There’s Valentine Radio which has a list of shoutcast and icecast radio stations that play romantic music non-stop all the time (link). Nubes should check out some dating tips on this Android app.
