match.com couldn't be bothered with i'm in like with you. match.com pulls in 300 million dollars in subscriptions a year from frustrated middle aged people. ilwy is clearly meant for a much much younger audience. college kids certainly won't pay a cent for it and i doubt twenty-somethings would either. it would make the whole thing too creepy.

but, i think the ilwy team has done a good job avoiding creepyness. (that is their primary focus, i think.) but, i can't imagine a great deal of young people using this (or any other web application for dating).

the web is simply not a great medium for this sort of human interaction. there is a lot of crucial physical, chemical and social data that is not communicated through pictures and fragments of text. further, what information is communicated is unreliable. clearly the picture selection will not be without bias and the text is highly premeditated, which confuses the sexual selection for verbal acuity and mental quickness. there isn't enough bandwidth if you will.

i think this is only useful for sex addicts and predatory men (and who wants to compete with craigslist?). clearly everyone involved would be better off just going outside.

although i suspect (some) girls may use this, but only for their egos. this may even skew the female participation towards the more attractive. this would of course attract men who want to 'interact' with them. but, i don't see these attractive young girls actually following through however. so i think the system would be fraudulent and unsustainable.

but that doesn't mean there isn't money to be made.