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/ By Shanie Phillips /
Ever had a cringe-worthy blind date, or met a ‘handsome, fit mid-twenty year old’ online who ended up being not-so handsome, not-so fit and not-so young? If you or anyone you know has had the unfortunate experience of online-dating-gone-wrong, then you’ll be keen to hear about the upcoming modern addition to the world of online dating: Migo.
Israeli entrepreneurs Shay Bloch and Amit Eldar have created an online app that will enable users to meet single “friends of friends” on social network. The third-party tool will integrate with Facebook and other social media websites, and will show links to other singles, provided that they share a mutual friend. Migo will also allow users to play matchmaker between two single friends.
If you are single and hoping to meet a partner, you will register to the app along with some friends from your social network – these friends will be your connection to potential partners. You will then be able to see lists of all the single friends your registered friends have. Migo will show you pictures and basic information from the social network profiles of these potential partners.
If you find someone you are interested in, you can send a message to the mutual friend you share asking for an introduction. The app will then “work hand in hand with social network privacy rules to ensure that the only information or pictures people will be able to see will be those already uploaded for public use, ” Eldar tells NoCamels.
Playing cupid
But what if you just want to play matchmaker? In that case, you can log in and be presented with two lists side by side – one of all your single female friends, and one their male counterparts. Users will then be able to make the connection between two people who they believe could make for a good match and send one of them a message asking what he or she thinks of the other.
Bloch and Eldar created the idea eight months ago while thinking of possibilities for a new venture. They looked at online dating, and they “saw that nothing had changed in the past ten years” (so they say). Bloch says that the same large companies were still ruling the online dating market, and they were still using the same formula.
“There is a lot of change that needs to happen in the online dating industry, ” Bloch tells NoCamels. “On regular dating sites, you are meeting complete strangers. People post profiles and you have no way of knowing if their information is fake or not. People can and do lie, ” says Bloch.
Based on a true story
Both Bloch and Eldar met their wives through mutual friends. Eldar says: “A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook and I saw a girl commented on it. She looked nice, and I asked my friend if she was single. Fast forward a few years and now we are married with a baby boy.”
“We know [a lot] of people who met their partners through Facebook. But think about it, you’re limited. It was the small chance of me seeing that picture and that comment that led me to my wife, ” says Eldar.
“People today are already using social platforms for dating. The only problem is that these social platforms are not designed for dating, or for meeting singles. Migo is a third-party tool that is part of the platform. It will give people the tools to easily seek out single friends of friends, meet other people and engage in the online dating experience in a comfortable and familiar setting, ” adds Bloch.
Finding their way to heaven
Migo is still currently in beta. The prototype is now being tested by friends of Bloch and Eldar so that they can understand how users will react to the service and establish the best formula and setup, says Eldar. The app’s official release should be within the next few months.
Jewish tradition believes that if you match three couples, you’re guaranteed a place in heaven. “We’ve found our way to heaven!” Eldar tells NoCamels. “We’re creating the opportunity for millions of partnerships through matchmaking.”
