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Finding Love With Twitter and Netflix

by Amar Toor on October 6, 2009 at 06:31 AM

Successfully navigating the seas of online dating can be a daunting and, some would argue, impossible feat. Sifting through profiles and trying to attach human qualities to otherwise cliched online personas is often arduous enough to deter even the most hardy romantics. A new approach to online matchmaking, featured at NYTimes.com, hopes to revolutionize the game.

Started by divorced entrepreneur Steve Odom, Gelato transforms the online dating convention of carefully manicured, pre-meditated personal profiles into more "real-time" displays that build personalities based on an individual's online activity (check out the "signing up" video after the break). Users create an initial profile by importing data from their Facebook or Twitter accounts. From there, they can then choose to "sync" their account to a variety of other sites, such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, last.fm, or different social networking sites. The Gelato account will then track the user's activity on the selected Web sites, and make that information public. If you buy a book on Amazon, for example, or stream a certain TV show on Hulu, the activity will show up on your Gelato page, supplementing your basic information, and fleshing out otherwise static personal information. Gelato singles also have the option to search for potential partners based on shared interests or tastes.

The Gelato user does retain control over what activity can and cannot be made public, so the service isn't exactly a transparent fossil record of online footprints. It's not too hard, after all, to imagine someone tailoring their published activity to assume a certain persona. But we still think it's a pretty cool idea. As pitiful as it may be, we can give a lot of implicit information about ourselves, just by listing the kinds of sites we frequent, the books we buy, or the movies in our Netflix queue. Okay, it probably doesn't say too much about Sammy H.'s moral compass. Or what Steve G. wants to name his kids. Or that adorable way Sally P. twirls her hair when she talks. And yeah, it might be a little dehumanizing to reduce individuals to their mere portfolios of Internet behavior. But as online consumption occupies an increasing share of our daily lives (and, apparently, becomes increasingly integral to the well-being of relationships), it only makes sense that people would place a higher premium on whether or not a potential mate rents 'American Pie' or 'American Beauty.' At the very least, it's a welcome departure from that suffocatingly limited "Looking for" option on Facebook. [From: NYTimes.com]

Tags: dating, gelato, online dating, OnlineDating, romance, social networking, SocialNetworking, top

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