That said, I think there's only so many people interested in actually meeting new people, at least of a certain age, and even those who are, are only interested in getting to know a small amount of new people.
Still, I quite like the idea. I don't even think you need to group people based on interests (though of course the subject of a group allows people to self-select); just being open to meeting new people can probably go a long way.
Then again maybe that WOULD solve our problems.
(Disclaimer- I recognize this wasn't a serious proposition, and actually think it's a pretty cool idea)
But who knows, maybe enough people end up in a position where they want to make new friends (I'm thinking failed marriages, lonely elderly people, etc.) that there's a steady enough flow of new members.
It's possible that the next big wave of social networks will be less "Facebook" and more "Spacebook."
I 100% agree with your second statement, though, that the future of social networks will focus more on the social and less on the spam & social signaling.
"the problem of putting together complete strangers with shared interests and coincident physical locality really hasn't even been attacked except in very constrained use cases (i.e., dating services)."
When clearly Meetup have both attacked and been very successful in "putting together complete strangers with shared interests and coincident physical locality". That's exactly what they do, would you not agree?
Here's how I envision it:
- A user joins and provides a materials used to perform a background check.
- People with accounts sign in and are automatically grouped based on distance, interests, etc.
- Users cannot see who is in groups until they join one. This should help prevent people from backing out of matching because being lazy and skip over lots of people they don't like for minor superficial reasons. In other words, if you don't like fat people, guys who aren't cute, women who aren't hot, etc., you can't game the system without being punished. If a person really doesn't like someone they've met, they can set it to never put them in a group with that person again.
- Once a sufficiently-sized group has been formed(let's say between 6 and 8 people), they are given a time-limited choice between a list of activities. These activities can be autogenerated and evergreen(e.g. go see a movie, bowling, eat dinner, etc.) or be brought in from a list of actual events happening in the area(e.g. comedy shows, local bands, group painting classes, etc.). If consensus is not reached in 10 minutes, a random activity is picked.
- Once a group has formed, you can still back out but it will drastically deprioritize you in future meetups until you have actually attended enough of them that you appear reliable.
- When a group meets up, the app pops up with a unique QR code for the user. Each person in the group should scan each other's QR codes to verify that not only they showed up but that others showed up. This can be cross-checked with GPS proximity and motion, in case a user ever claims that the QR scan "doesn't work". By having your QR code scanned, you make yourself more likely to be grouped faster in the future, be given more interesting events, and be grouped with fewer flaky individuals.
I feel like there must be a reason why nobody has done something like this yet, especially since there's already an algorithmic model for this in games like Halo. Maybe autogeneration of meetups exposes a company to liability?
One thing I want to avoid, which is a part of your idea, is the notion of having users rate each other. I think that can lead to a lot of abuse and isn't really fair. I can only picture people downrating others because they are Jews or "she wasn't that hot". It would be much better to have a system where people are only judged on whether they show up(people are flakes) and if they have been reported for being creepy or worse.
I'd worry more about being rejected in person, than beforehand. Ideally I'd want to never know I was rejected. Instead I'd like to notice when I wasn't (i.e., I'd rather never know there was an event of which I was never invited).
Also: the biggest challenge must be to prevent the whole system becoming impopular because of commercial abuse, i.e. "I went to one of those once for mountain biking, and of the 8 people there, 5 were bike salesmen pretending to socialize but constantly trying to advertise new bikes".
Don't worry about QR codes, it kills the vibe of an "organic" meeting. Just do it via GPS.
I wouldn't worry about liability, look at the physical contact Tinder is promoting :)
I think the rating should be on the group overall, and not on an individual level.
Negative individual ratings should only be done with consensus, if everyone says Bob was a bully. Then Bob's a bully. But if only Debbie says Bob was a bully, then maybe Debbie just overreacts.
If Debbie constantly negatively rates against the consensus, then Debbie probably isn't a good fit for group situations.
No one's going to use QR codes, and people are already shitty and shallow; you're fooling yourself if you think an app's going to stop them.
There were a couple group-dating apps that were tried out for a short bit; Grouper is the one I remember from 2016 but there were others.
lunchclub.ai
So far I've found it to be a lot of fun
No profiles, no media uploads, no digital showboating. The best relationships I have with other people fall in this category. Real life,common interests,no digital uploads.
Just add attributes of your geolocation and hobbies [biking, yoga,tensorflow,etc] or let it crawl your digital profile(s) to autobuild your attributes identity. The system will group people with similar personalities/attributes. Every once in a while, "the system" it sends you a text "Free at 9am? Mountain biking at X park for an hour with beer after with 3 new people? Text yes to opt-in"
Get revenue by having businesses bid on being the beer spot. Refine the algorithm by having an anonymous rating system after the fact.
I like Meetup but it must be taxing to always manage the organization/logistics of a meeting.
Yes. I just realized I blended the show Betas,an episode of Black Mirror, and the 2016 movie Nerve together.
Edit: Grammar