Ask HN: Clever ways of implementing "invite" mechanic in dating sites?
What are some ways to get people to invite friends to dating sites? Generally, there is not much incentive to do so, and people often don't advertise with friends that they are on a dating site. Any clever ideas? What about recommending a potential matchup to your friends? I don't use dating sites, so this might be out there already. In short, what if I'm looking at a profile and think, "hey, this would be a good match for my friend XYZ." The mechanics of it could allow me to set my friend up with someone, basically allowing me to act as an agent on behalf of my friend (initially). Alternatively, you could do a take on the double-date idea. Have people with friends post a double date, where your user fills in the 3rd/4th person depending on the calculated compatability of friends (for this, you would need to answer a few questions about your friends... which would make their signup seem slicker and faster). the matchmaking idea was tried by a company called thread.com http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/01/threadcom-raises-12-million... ... they could never find traction, but again its about execution. Interesting ideas. Will add this to my doc :) whats your site ? it's a new site to meet people with similar interests. http://www.GetToLike,me - it's not explicitly a dating site, but I figure the environment will be similar. i created a very similar site, it would statistically matchup people based on all kinds of things likes, location, photos, sharing, frequency of updates.. etc. I wouldn't focus on the dating aspect but more of a viral aspect, similar to other facebook viral apps like people for sale, the quiz ones you see a lot on there. good luck.