LemonTonic: The Evolution of Online Dating

filed under Online Dating · 4 comments in the original

A friend pointed me to a soon-to-be-launched online dating service that uses MSN Messenger as it's core platform for deployment. This new service, LemonTonic, is truly interesting in many different regards.

Designating itself as the Evolution of Online Dating, the LemonTonic service leverages the IM (Text, Audio, and Video capabilities) of MSN to create a compelling new service that adds both search and privacy to the mix in a meaningful and engaging manner.

As the site describes:

Lemontonic is the evolution of online dating

Ready for a fresh approach to online dating? Powered by Microsoft® Instant Messenger, lemontonic is the most realistic, exciting and enjoyable way to meet new people online!

We developed lemontonic specifically to answer the needs of a growing, global community of singles who are seeking new friendships, love and playful encounters online. Our technology allows people to share the thrills and experiences of dating at their own pace in an attractive, interesting environment.

I've only now signed up for an account to see how things work, but there are a few interesting security/privacy features worth mentioning:

Profile Approval -LemonTonic allows users to enter a fairly robust profile with information that ranks not only their general demographics but also their interests and activities (for the purpose of matching later in the system). Similar to Yahoo! Personals, LemonTonic reviews profile and photo information before approving the profile for use in the system.
Private Keys - This feature allows users to have a special area where content is stored on them. The "Private" section requires that an individual award the user a Private Key that lets them access the content. This is similar, as well, the the Backstage Passes on LavaLife. Unfortunately, the Private area only stores photos, video, and voice messages.
Open to Filtering - This feature allows a member to specify the types of relationships they are "Open" to, with 4 categories provided: New Friends, Fun, Love, Play(the adult kind). A member can opt to participate in any or all of these groups (much as LavaLife does with its categorizations). Similar to LavaLife, a separate "profile" is prepared for each of these groups. Quite different, however, is the segmentation. Smartly, the system allows members to all exist inside the same universe whereas LavaLife tends to have more of a walled-off complex for each of the communities of interest.
My requests - This is really an extension of the Open To feature, though it is not directly entangled. LemonTonic allows the member to setup a Request Filter that marshals requests for the member. This filter, essentially, is a picture of the type of person you would like to have requests from. The user can designate an age range, "open to" choices, matches to the "must have" criteria, and a photo. This is a wonderful step in the right direction of applying a bit of intelligence to the use of profile and other collected data to reduce request-spam.

All in all, this is a very interesting direction for the Online Dating industry and I am looking forward to using the system more to give it a real workout.