Show HN: Dating app focused on chatting and gamification

29 54 6 years ago

bszupnick• 6 years ago

I'm definitely not in the dating scene, but I just love the novel approach to what feels like a dead horse. Awesome job!

grabball• 6 years ago

That man on the hero is a bit creepy

tyleo• 6 years ago

This was also my first thought. The impression I get is that the app is for older men to date younger women.

Even after reading the rest of the text I feel this thought pervading my mind for no sensible reason.

sneak3• 6 years ago

After reading the OKCupid founder’s data book, I am of the belief that any dating app that is designed effectively to make a decent profit (IAPs and the like) is mostly just a platform for older men to date younger women.

cstechofficial6• 6 years ago

I totally agree :D Thank you for the feedback.

zabana• 6 years ago

Unrelated to the post but I have a question: for those of you who actively use dating apps, what advantages do you find over approaching women (or men) in real life ? I ask because yesterday I played around with tinder on my friend's phone and I felt a bit off after half an hour of dismissing people based on just their looks and a couple of lines on their profile.

smt882• 6 years ago

Dating apps are primarily a filter. The value is supposed to be that you never waste time chatting with someone who's uninterested in you or not looking for a relationship.

Filters are also useful.

For women, there are also some safety issues that dating apps can mitigate. If you reject someone and they get angry, they can't insult, stalk, or otherwise harm you. You just unmatch.

Your experience is typical, though. Dating apps are in some ways uncomfortable and dystopian.

You may be interested in Aziz Ansari's book Modern Love for a quick, readable explanation of how we got to this point in dating culture.

Kaze4042• 6 years ago

they can't do insult, stalk, or otherwise harm you. You just unmatch.

They absolutely can. I used Tinder for a good while (met my current girlfriend of 1 year there) and a common theme throughout most people that I met is that they were stalked at least once. Even I was, though admittedly to a not very serious degree.

techterrier• 6 years ago

You don't get cancelled.

raziel2p2• 6 years ago

There are no advantages, but many people (myself included) just don't end up in situations where it feels appropriate to randomly approach strangers in a romantic or sexual pursuit. There's the fear of rejection, but mostly not wanting to behave inappropriately (this might just be a northern/central european thing). There's no way for me to know who around me at a party/concert/whatever are single and interested in meeting, I'm not the most self-confident (even when people have come to my place after a date I've been hesitant), I'm not very good at picking up social cues (I've missed several hints in the past), I'm not attractive enough to have women just randomly stare at me like you might see in the movies, so dating apps at least get you over that hump.

You're absolutely right that it feels off though, to some extent it's dehumanizing. Then again, think about how often you subconciously dismiss people based on looks or first impressions in real life. However, unless you use the app purely to have one night stands you also get the chance to meet great people - many of the nicest people I've met in life have been through apps.

ChuckNorris893• 6 years ago

There's no way for me to know who around me at a party/concert/whatever are single and interested in meeting

Ummm, you just ask. Not as in "Hey, are you single?" but "You seem interesting, how about a coffee next week?". The answer will tell you everything to know.

Seriously guys, women aren't some strange alien creatures, they're human beings and they appreciate it when you're direct and take initiative and hate men who beat it around the bush waiting for the girl to make the first move.

I'm not attractive enough[...] so dating apps at least get you over that hump

In my experience it's the opposite, you use live dating if you're not attractive enough for dating apps as those favor only the top percentile of attractive men and being average gets you nowhere.

arvinsim• 6 years ago

It's just another avenue to meet people. IME, real life meetups is still better.

dutchCourage• 6 years ago

what advantages do you find over approaching women (or men) in real life ?

I've always clicked the most with people I met through friends. But if you move to a new city you might not get to do that.

An app sounds better to me than approaching someone I don't know just because I find them attractive. You get to see if you have common interests and have a little chat before actually meeting up. Plus you know the interest is mutual.

I have a hard time connecting with people I know nothing about, and I'd be worried about bothering someone who's just minding their own business.

So I'd say if you can't find your match through your social life dating apps are helpful.

MogwaiAllOnYou• 6 years ago

I used to think Tinder and the like put too much weighting on looks, but Aziz Ansari in his book asks how that is any different to approaching someone in person? You wouldn't approach someone you didn't find attractive, and you can't get to know someone before you've approached them.

Additionally, I would argue that you can tell quite a lot about someone provided they've made an effort with their profile. You tend to know music taste, career, where they're from, and interests.

sneak3• 6 years ago

I have a lot of disqualifiers; most people I meet in the normal course of life aren’t really my type of people. Being able to search through a large number of eligible people to find the small fraction with whom I may be compatible is the only way that has worked well for me.

Additionally, as someone else wrote down-thread, I meet approximately zero new people most typical weeks for me. I’m a shut-in.

Mountain_Skies• 6 years ago

Stranger Danger is strong these days. Might as well stick with a subset of the public you know is receptive to starting a conversation in a context meant to lead to a romantic relationship. Doing so in "real life" comes with many social and possibly even legal consequences that were much less likely in decades past.

non-entity• 6 years ago

On the occasion I am out in a place I can be openly social (maybe once or twice a week), everyone I meet irl tends to be a decade or two older than me. Sometimes they also serve as a good way to filter people who you would not get along with.

I felt a bit off after half an hour of dismissing people based on just their looks and a couple of lines on their profile.

I agree and many profiles are particularly bad (I wager maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of tinder profiles I see either want to get married right away or are just looking for IG followers / validation) but I feel that, particularly if you're young, they're the standard for finding people.

joadha• 6 years ago

The "a bit off" feeling you described fades after a few more sessions.

When I meet people in real life, it's usually at a bar or club. It's not healthy to go out drinking every weekend, so there's one major advantage. Also, I get to meet people who don't go to bars and clubs (or, those that don't go to the ones that I frequent).

Avoiding rejection isn't really that much of a "plus" for me. But avoiding the BS of the occasional girl who plays you for free drinks, gets pulled away by a friend, etc. is a definite plus.

Another thing; I haven't had great luck with "being set up" with friends-of-friends. In my experience, it has never been a good match. Like, not even close.

ipnon• 6 years ago

I find that the more appropriate it becomes to meet people through dating apps the less appropriate it becomes to meet people through traditional means.

Saying hello to a stranger just because you want to date them has become anachronistic (borderline chauvinistic) in large NA metros.

borumpilot• 6 years ago

For me it is that I am looking for a very specific subset of people that has nothing to do with looks or places. The dating app I use give me the possibility to filter on these attributes and foremost: let me express mine.

neya• 6 years ago

I don't know if it's just me, the background image of the app just gave me a paedophile-ish vibe

tacticaldev• 6 years ago

it certainly sets a tone for the intended audience.

StavrosK4• 6 years ago

The lady doesn't look underage at all, though.

krapp2• 6 years ago

Legally, no.

Socially, though, yes. The generally accepted limit on age differential in romantic relationships is ten years - 50 year olds shouldn't date younger than 40, 40 than 30, etc. While it's perfectly legal and possible to have a healthy relationship with a wider age gap, it's not socially acceptable.

abc-xyz• 6 years ago

Hopefully it's just you, because that's absurd.

cstechofficial6• 6 years ago

Thank you for the feedback. I agree that the guy is creepy but disagree about the paedophile-ish vibe you get. As a result we need to change it anyway :)

tlackemann2• 6 years ago

Gamification is not a selling point.

Users do not care about gamifying the experience. Users care about the experience. Does this solve interesting and new problems in the dating space? That's the selling point.

The goal of gamification is to act in parallel to an already existing and positive feedback loop in your app. It rewards what users do. It doesn't drive what they do.

erikbye• 6 years ago

I agree gamification should not be used as a selling point, even though, of course, it is hugely important it seems to keep your users hooked.

But are you sure gamification does not sometimes also drive users' behavior on e.g., Facebook and Instagram?

tlackemann2• 6 years ago

If you're going to look at gamification as the primary motivator, I think a better examples to look at are Untappd and Foursquare. Both of these apps have very clear and positive feedback loops and use gamification well.

One app encourages me to share various beers I've had with friends. Badges are a way to have fun while doing that but the willingness for me to share in the first place was the driving motivator, not the badges. The badges are what keep me hooked however because I want to collect as many as my friends. Independent of sharing, badges mean nothing to me as an end user and were never the motivator for using the app. Sharing was.

cstechofficial6• 6 years ago

It certainly is not a selling point. The reason I pointed it out in the title was to get professional feedbacks in addition to user feedbacks. You do not have to follow all gamification scheme to use the application, you can think of them as extras.

lr4444lr• 6 years ago

A dating service where you can't view pictures up front? Reminds me of the late 1990s, early 00s...

xxpor• 6 years ago

Folks, if you're going to write an app (ESPECIALLY a dating app, which has tons of sensitive info), please hire a native English speaker to write the strings and the website for you. I know this is not how it's supposed to work, but this site gives off a strong "creepy foreign company that's going to leak all your data" vibe.

Some things I noticed:

Using a period instead of a comma as a thousands separator.

Putting the % before the number rather than after.

And the prose in general is just awkward has hell.

StavrosK4• 6 years ago

Maybe it gives off a "foreign company" vibe, but the "creepy" and "is going to leak all your data" is you, I think.

I certainly have never heard anyone say "oh thank God it's Facebook, my data is safe".

qnsi• 6 years ago

Tbh I trust FB way more with my data than some show HN

cstechofficial6• 6 years ago

We got that feedback before, thank you again :) You are right. We will fix it real soon.

sigio• 6 years ago

This reminds me of paiq(.nl) ... which has been around for 15 years or so ? .... You chatted with randomly selected matches, and the more you chatted, the less blurry the pictures became.

ftio• 6 years ago

The premise is good, I think (I'm not the target audience), but the copy and positioning need a lot of work.

The positioning reads to me like: "Look at all the awesome features we've built!" Gems! Coins! Filters! Profile details! I have no idea what any of those things are, and frankly it's a lot to take in before even downloading something like this.

I'd look at those features through another lens: "Ever feel like the connections you make on other dating sites are shallow? Use Blurrychat to connect on a deeper level. [Then references science that shows how hiding images produces better outcomes in relationships.]" The focus should be on how this is better than what's come before — how it produces better outcomes, not on how people can get Gems or whatever. They'll figure that out later.

Totally subjective impression: the image at the top of the page is creepy to me. It's something about the guy. The way he looks at the much younger woman does not give me the warm and fuzzies. Quite the contrary, actually.

Last thing: I think the brand in general is very techy. It'd be great for a Slack plugin or a hip new CRM, but I think it's too clinical/cold for a dating app. Check out other dating apps' sites — they're filled with images of couples hugging, etc. Again, they focus on outcomes, not on the app. (If you want something edgier, check out OkCupid's site, which to me strikes a nice balance between edge and warmth.)

cstechofficial6• 6 years ago

Thank you for the great feedback. I guess we need to get some advice from a product vision guy to fix this. We'll fix it soon, I hope :)

tyfon• 6 years ago

I'm married so I'm not really in the target audience, however when I see things like this my first question is always data and privacy.

In fact, I have a question, is there any privacy focused dating apps that have been externally audited etc? It might be an opportunity.

Back to this app.

How does it store data?

How does it use analytics?

How do they make money? Especially since they seem to _give_ money to use it:

"No Need To Pay, Earn Coins By Watching Videos

You don't need to pay us to get boosted. You can watch videos and earn Blurcoins to use for gems. It's not over, we also give you Blurcoins for each day of usage."

davidajackson• 6 years ago

I thought most people want a visual filter first? And if this is a product for another part of the market, how does this their experience more efficient? Doesn't blurring an image just decrease the efficiency of the filter? (i.e. one side feels they have 'wasted' time chatting that they wouldn't have initiated shown the non-blurred images first). Eager to be proven wrong, and would love to hear other thoughts.

cstechofficial6• 6 years ago

Thanks for the feedback. In other platforms it is really hard to find a match because the biggest reason to be able to match is your appearance. For example; even the good-looking guys cannot get match in Tinder lately. Even the appearance isn't enough to get to talk to people. In Blurry Chat you need to have a good conversation to reveal the person you talk to. The conversation you have will be the key point to your journey. Blurring isn't decreasing the efficiency of the filter, you can still filter the gender, age and most importantly location. If you don't want to waste your time on talking, you can reveal people's photos using reveal or blurdrop gems. While we are offering this, we are offering privacy on your photos too. You can use shield gem to be immune to reveal and blurdrop gems as well. In addition, guys might be looking for rapid results but the ladies aren't the same :)

Show HN: Dating app focused on chatting and gamification

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