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'GoodCrush' Social Network Asks, 'If He Likes You, Would You Like Him?'

by Amar Toor on March 30, 2010 at 02:10 PM

No one ever said being in college was easy. What with the demands of drinking, drugs, and the occasional exam, the average 20-something faces a schedule jam packed with rigorous activity. Luckily, though, a new site can help students save time when it comes to at least one major item on the syllabus: hooking up.

Created by Josh Weinstein, GoodCrush is a dating service exclusively aimed at helping busy college kids get action. Drawing on a common chain mail theme, the site works in a pretty straightforward way; users sign up, list the e-mail addresses of five of their "crushes," and then sit back and wait. Each of the crushes will be notified that someone prowling around campus has a crush on them, but won't be able to see the crusher's name. The real magic happens, though, when the stars align, and two people list each other as crushes. Whenever this happens, both parties are notified, identities are revealed, and, well... y'know.


Ever since launching the original version of the site in 2007, Weinstein has seen GoodCrush spread to more than 20 college campuses, and thousands of students. As BusinessInsider reports, much of GoodCrush's appeal seems to stem from its ability to subvert many of the social stigmas normally ascribed to online dating. Since identities are anonymous until a match is made, students feel less embarrassed about marketing themselves online, and because it's restricted to a relatively small community, it doesn't seem quite as bold a step as jumping out into the sea of public singles sites.

Essentially, then, GoodCrush serves as another reminder that social networking is becoming an increasingly specialized market. As Chatroulette has proven, the online social universe, like the real universe, is still very much expanding. But this outward expansion has also been accompanied by a curious, reactionary pull inward, to smaller, more intimate online galaxies, like GoodCrush. In the same way that organic and specialty food stores have sprouted up in response to a more acute consumer demand, new forms of social media now cater to the more sophisticated user palette. Ultimately, this oscillating pattern of development is a good thing, insofar as it creates greater product variety for the discerning consumer. We just hope that, as social networking sites look further inward, they won't erect new barriers instead of brushing up against new frontiers. [From: BusinessInsider]

Tags: college, dating, DatingSites, goodcrush, HookingUp, nyc, romance, SocialNetworking, web

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