Consumating,  made Austin, TX, is the latest in dating websites -  I discovered this the other month thanks to Adaptive Path’s Janice Fraser.

It is still in its beta phase (ie still being tested) but it’s certainly more fun than any other dating sites I’ve seen! Not that I have actually seen that many but…

What makes it so fun? The site utilises "tags" - keywords*- to help you find your (consum)mate. 

For instance: "If you’re looking for an “untrustworthy, Lothario, harem-keeper,” you’ll find Lane Becker (He’s a funny guy). Follow the tags “California, girls, and artist,” and you find Lane’s wife, Courtney Skott. Lane and Courtney were early beta testers."  

It is also a great example of applying new technology, in this case social tagging, to an (relatively) old concept - internet dating!

I am not sure what my tags for myself would be but most of my friends know the three I am looking for (after the obvious smart and funny)  "_ _ _ _" "_ _ _ _ _ _ _" "_ _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _"**

*I’ll post more on tags here on on my work site but basically "tags" are keywords. If you have ever done a keyword search on a database, or when you type certain keywords into google, what you are looking for is metatags/the way the person has ‘tagged’ their information.

The concept was then adapted by photo sharing sites like Flickr or Iciclelanding but this is the first dating site that uses them - that I know of.

Adding a tag/s means adding keywords that you believe best describe you/the information you are uploading. They are especially perfect for people like me who have problems filing because things fit into sooooo many categories in our head…because tags mean you can put the same piece of information (your profile, a photo etc) under many headings, which is a little how the brain works. You don’t store things in only one place in your head, so why should you online?

Attaching tags to things also makes information much easier to find when you search. It also means that you are not limiting the ways that people can get to you…

Ok, you may be more confused now…but I hope also intrigued and curious. I’ll write a more succinct and clear post on tagging soon. Promise!

** Ten points for those who can fill in the blanks

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 7th, 2005 at 6:37 am and is filed under change, creativity, think, walk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.