As you know, we’re working on a completely new way to meet here at Engage. Anyone who’s single can use the site to get handpicked matches, decide who they want to meet, and get introduced. Anyone who’s not here to date can use the site to introduce their fave single friends to new and exciting singles about whom they have a great feeling.
Our introductions are 100% people-powered. That means everyone can cut through the fakey personals shtick, let your hair down, be yourself, and actually meet real people who fit your style and sensibilities. Plus, you get to look for people with friends by your side. So there’s always someone here to give you a much-needed reality check — and to help decide if someone’s both into you and worthy of your affections.
Carving out a whole new approach to meeting and dating is exciting and challenging and, we confess, a lot of work. But you’re worth it, dear readers. We have a friend crush on you and we want to see you with someone just as amazing as you are. So, because we heart you that much, we’re constantly tinkering behind the scenes — listening carefully to your feedback and funneling it into brand new improvements all over the site.
To that end, we recently made some more updates that you’ve been asking for. Here are the highlights… of course, you should really sign in and try them for yourself.
The biggest change we’ve made recently is a whole new way of organizing the site:
- Your matches tab - Where the magic happens for you if you’re single. Handpick matches for yourself, review matches that others have picked for you, decide who you want to meet. And meet them. Simple!
- Play matchmaker tab - You can pick matches for friends, vote & comment on friends’ matches so they can narrow the field, and make quickie intros. What’s next is up to them!
- Profile - We heard what you said about editing your profile, so we’ve corralled all your key personal info and preferences in one place. Edit away!
- Other improvements - Now you can also more easily access your inbox and do searches to find cuties for yourself and others. You can also use our Friend Finder tool to look up pals who are already members of Engage.
So the site’s ready and waiting for ya. We can’t wait to see who you meet!
Thanks to everyone who came out on Monday night to Harlot in San Francisco for our Love 2.0 kickoff for Web 2.0 week. Turnout for the event was astounding. Close to 500 people joined us to get social, talk technology, and mingle with elligible singles and their attached matchmaking friends.
Update: Check out bub.blicio.us for great coverage of the soiree — including photos of many of the lovely single people (and their involved friends!) who turned out to make it such a fun night.
April 10th was the night of our big debut at the “Geek Goes Chic” party we co-hosted with TechCrunch and PopSugar, at the Vanguard in Hollywood. But we weren’t just there to be social butterflies, dear readers!
We were on a mission to introduce the world to the new Engage. Plus, we hoped to help some genial geeks connect with the chic social mavens of their dreams. And vice-versa. (Turns out hotties dream about geeks as great relationship material. Our recent Romancing the Geek survey showed that 82% of women and 72% of men were into geeks — and would even choose silicon valley entrepreneurs over hollywood stars as potential mates!)
Whether you considered yourself a Geek, part of the Chic, or just aren’t into labels, there was something for everyone at this gathering. And Engage staffers were on the loose to Play Matchmaker™ with members of the crowd, bringing people together in the real world the way we do online.
Here’s a clip of TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington interviewing our very own VP of Love Trish McDermott and our CEO Suneet Wadhwa. Don’t they look glam in white?
You can also check out our flickr stream for photos from the event. See if you can spot the Engage staffers as they demo Engage and fix up people in the crowd.
April 10th is our big night out! We’ll be at the Vanguard in Hollywood for “Geek Goes Chic,” a party we’re throwing with the technology bloggers at TechCrunch and the celebrity gossip mavens at PopSugar.
We’ll be showing off the brand new Engage service that we unveiled this week. Have you tried it?
Plus, Alex Michel, the first bachelor from ABC’s “The Bachelor,” and our very own VP of Love, Trish McDermott, will be on hand to help connect the Geeks to the Chic at the event.
Our recent “Romancing the Geek” survey shows that Geeks might inherit the Earth after all, at least in the romantic department. Our survey showed that 82% of people are open to dating a “Geek”, and 72% said they’d be happier in a marriage with a famous Silicon Valley geek than a Hollywood celebrity. Great news for you smart and technology-savvy types!
Our engineering team did all their abracadabra stuff and we’re back up with a brand new version of our service. Sign in now to try all the new social dating goodness.
Here’s a peek at what we’ve added and improved:
Fresh Faces - These are prospects for you (if you’re single) and/or your single friends (if you’re playing matchmaker for others). Click ‘em, consider ‘em, keep them in your suggestions list, tell friends about them, or decide they’re not right and move on. It’s verrrrry addictive to click through all the faces.
Suggested for you… Shows you people that your friends want you to meet.
Suggestions for friends… Shows you who your single friends are considering. Do they seem worthy of your friends’ attention? You get to add the human intuition ingredient and decide whether people are worth pointing out.
Voting - Everyone likes to get a second opinion about possible matches before they make a move. Now you get to vote on suggested matches for your friends to help them decide what to do next.
Social Feed - In keeping with our extra-social theme, we’ve added a personal news ticker that tells you what your friends are up to on Engage. You can use it to inform your friends about your activities. Just answer “What are you up to?” to write a personalized news feed message.
Social Feed email - To help you catch up with your pals, you’ll get a daily summary of all the stuff your friends have been up to. Who made suggestions? Who got introduced? Who voted Yes on suggestions you made? Keep your eyes peeled for this email to find out.
Social Points - We love to play, so we’ve made Engage even more like a game. Social Points reward you for doing things that make the community more fun for everyone. If you’re already a member of Engage, you already have some points. Sign in to check out your score!
You’ll also notice fewer tabs and more ways to connect with friends sprinkled all over the site.
So go have fun with it and get social! Let us know how it goes.
That means the site’s going to be down for a bit while we unfurl a spiffy new version. We plan to be away until 8:30pm or so. (We’ll update you if that changes.)
Sorry to make you wait — but it’s going to be totally worth it when you see our new ways to get social, Play MatchmakerTM, connect with friends, and meet new people.
Engage made the news today. (Don’t mind if we toot our own horn.) We were featured on Fox’s Morning Show with Mike and Juliet.
M & J ran a great segment that showed how much fun everyone can have when friends and family play matchmaker for each other. The show did a great job showing how friendly matchmakers can weed out fakes and phonies — and make it more fun to connect to new people when you’re single. Well, we knew that. But we love it when others catch on!
Did you see Engage on TV this morning? What did you think?
They’re talking about arranged marriages and matchmaking over at the Huffington Post right now. Wondering if everything old is new again. If we’ve truly gone full cycle, does that mean we’ll see a revival of arranged marriages in our romantic futures? Probably not.
Arranged marriages are a parental pastime in some cultures and often were a financial and familial necessity, especially when women had little or no earning power or financial holdings, not to mention choice. Women today are ready, willing and we would like to thing reasonably able to make good dating choices without mom’s help.
Engage surveyed more than 800 single adults back in 2005 to learn more about the role matchmaking (and romantic meddling) played in their dating lives. Singles mentioned friends, and then mothers, as the two people most likely to want to meddle in their love lives. They resoundingly felt that friends make the best matchmakers and that mothers make the worst. Moms have relationship and marriage agendas that often aren’t aligned with what their children are actually seeking. That’s why every women in America over age 35 isn’t married to a doctor.
Internet “scientists,” convinced arranging marriages may in fact be a scalable enterprise, are peddling their magic compatibility elixirs to singles on leading dating sites today. Singles are matched based on analysis of a personality questionnaire, but ultimately someone decides: Can opposites attract? Do they introduce you to the type of person you are seeking, or the type of person they believe is right for you? What would your mother do?
Look at happy couples you know. How many had to pass a 200-question test to qualify to say “hello” to each other? What you’re likely to find is what we found in our research–half of all marriages are the result of someone first introducing the couple, but that someone was almost never a scientist, compatibility expert or marriage arranger.
Your friends know sides of you your mother never sees and that no “compatibility expert” can cull from a questionnaire. At Engage, you won’t find us behind the scenes arranging your love life. We never presume to know who is right for you. We simply trust that you, your friends and your community will have a lot of fun socializing on the site as you figure it all out.
Here’s hoping your friends find you a find and catch you a catch.
But we love it when others catch on!
