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.

Also: See our flickr stream for more pics.

Engage has been busy this week with the exciting Web 2.0 conference in SF! After a fantastic turnout on Monday night for Love 2.0, we were out last night sharing T-shirt love to all the conference attendees hopping in the South Park Crawl. We handed out Engage t-shirts to folks as they were hopping in between ZoomProspector @ Gallery 16, IBM @ Jack Falstaff, Leverage Software, Federated Media Publishing @ Nova, Yahoo! Brickhouse, Adaptive Path, ESVCA @ Andrea Schwartz Gallery. We had a blast connecting with everyone and the shirts seemed to be a hit. Not one left!

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!

We’ll share pictures and more party news soon!

Hugs and kisses,

Engage

We’re getting attention for the new version of Engage that we unveiled yesterday.

Kristen Nicole on Mashable noticed:

“Engage is one of those sites seeking better recommendation tools for hooking you up in a genuine, non-contrived manner…”

Thanks Kristen! Read her complete article about our new site and our fun approach to social dating.

You can also check our press release about the launch.

Updated: Read what the Silicon Valley/San Jose BusinessJournal said about us today.

Another update: We also made the Silicon Valley Wire. Read it here.

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.

Hugs and kisses,

Engage

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 Matchmaker^TM, connect with friends, and meet new people.

See you later tonight? It’s a date!

Hi friends!

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?

xo,

Engage

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.

Trish McDermott

VP of Love, Engage

Sometimes it’s a good idea to get involved in your friends’ social lives. Here’s why:

Social dating is a new name for an age-old practice: friends helping friends connect.

That means anyone can hand-pick people for their friends to date — and then watch what happens when they meet!

When you play wingwoman or wingman for your pals you can help them break the ice, offer dating advice, share their excitement when they meet someone new, and gab together about all the possibilities.

Whether you’re involved and you want to give your single friends a nudge to meet new people and see what happens — or you’re single and want a low-pressure, fun way to connect to new people — we think social dating makes finding a relationship fun, real, and like no other online experience.

When you Play Matchmaker^TM you get to connect your friends to people who are worthy of their attention. Plus — let’s be honest — it’s fun to see who your friends are thinking about dating.

Picture yourself at a party. You see a guy or gal across the room. S/he has a quirky grin that makes you think, “Perfect for my best friend M____.”

What’s your next step? Start chatting. Suss out whether this person merits your best pal’s affection. If what you hear sounds promising, you’ll casually mention your super-amazing, brilliant BFF who just happens to be available…

Then, when your BFF happens to walk by, you’ll introduce them. You all start talking. They start laughing. And then at some point you slip away and leave those two wrapped up in engaging conversation.

What happens next is up to them. But you’ll definitely be hearing about it. We get goosebumps just thinking about the possibilities!

Engage’s “Play Matchmaker^TM” features work just the same as this real world scenario, only the fun is multiplied across your entire social network.

With social dating, friends connect through friends they already know.

Today’s busy single people meet new people when they least expect it - at dinner parties, professional events, and friends’ weddings. And more often than not, these chance encounters start with a casual introduction from a mutual friend.

Social dating on Engage brings this playful way of making connections to the Web, together with all of the enjoyment that comes with a friend’s advice, suggestions, good judgment, and experience — so you can have fun exploring an attraction before you move to meeting offline.

Single people multiply their chances to meet someone new.

Engage makes it easy to connect to new people who are once or twice removed from your immediate social circle. That means you’re casting a wider net, but staying within a chain of people who trust each other’s recommendations and taste.

Engage also lets you connect to completely new people that your friends deem worthy for you. You or your matchmaking pals can consult another single person’s matchmaking wingpeople to find out what you have in common. If it seems like you two would be a dynamic duo, your friends can make an introduction that you’ll both welcome!

Everyone has more fun and single people get better results.

Because social dating introductions happen through real people, singles are more likely to hear back from people they’re introduced to — so they can see where an attraction goes and get a definitive outcome, instead of waiting for an email reply that never comes. Engage members are 80% more likely to reply to an email from someone they’ve met through their community, as compared to a stranger. That means less time wasted, more people to discover, and more opportunities for fun.

Social context keep things real.

Whether you meet through friends at a dinner party, connect through an old co-worker, or rediscover each other at a reunion, meeting socially gives you a preview of what someone is really like before you spend any time with that person one-on-one. Why should meeting online be any different?

With social dating on Engage you can get someone’s back story, find out what their friends love about them, and get a full picture of who they are before you decide to introduce them to someone you know or to try to connect to them yourself! Overall it’s more fun for the people who Play Matchmaker^TM and way less pressure for the people who want to date.

So in our humble opinion, it’s all good!

Hugs and kisses,
Engage