September 19, 2007
Hot dates for VCs and start-ups
For a conference that is all about wooing investors, panellists and the media, TechCrunch40 could really have benefited from the technology demonstrated by WooMe in the last session of the two-day start-up auditions.
WooMe brings speed dating online, allowing users to set up video chat sessions where they can meet five people in five minutes, or other combinations.
Judges, including 80s rap artist MC Hammer, were confronted with the sight of Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström posing on-screen as Nicole from West London. But he spent his minute talking about why he had invested in the company rather than trying to be a hot date from Sweden.
In a pre-TechCrunch demo at our offices, WooMe showed off the high-quality flash video conferencing within a browser and how users could add one-word tags of their impressions as they spoke to potential dates, creating tag clouds for that person.
After accelerating through all the dates, users select “I’m wooed” or “No thanks” for each one. If one of the dates matches their “I’m wooed”, they can connect for a $1 charge, with WooMe providing their email contact details.
In alpha testing, WooMe has encouraged college fraternities to compete with one another in “I’m wooed” league tables and has even used the technology itself to interview prospective staff, with its own team voting on whether they are wowed by the interviewee.
The Techcrunch panelists could equally have used WooMe to vote on the 40 start-ups they have speed-dated for the past two days.
It looks a promising service for everything from dating to finding flatmates or travelling companions, but it does have competition in SpeedDate.com.
Luckily, WooMe wooed the TechCrunch selection panel, who said “No thanks” to SpeedDate – condemning it to the DemoPit at the conference of 100 jilted also-rans.
Overall winner of hearts and minds over the two days, as well as the $50,000 cash prize, was Mint, a personal finance application.











I’m definitely a potential user… i can’t wait for my WooMe access. I think it will be huge.
Posted by: Haley | September 19th, 2007 at 5:32 pm | Report this commentI saw WooMe present live at TC40 - it was one of the more impressive companies in the consumer space. It has potential to be huge - who else has invested beside Zennstrom?
Posted by: Greg Willaims | September 19th, 2007 at 10:29 pm | Report this commentI’ve done the match.com thing and speed dating thing for a long time, and believe me, actually getting to see/talk to the person without having to read through endless profiles or having to spend a whole evening at a speed dating session, would be a welcomed novelty. And if nothing else, it does sound like something new/fun to do on the computer. But, the proof is in the pudding - I went to their site and signed up, and nothing has happened since. Hope they get their launch going quick, or perhaps match.com will do it for them…
Posted by: Kaley Pollard | September 20th, 2007 at 2:08 am | Report this commentI’m with Kaley. I’ve been pre-registered for a month now, and I really want to try this out! I’ve heard they’re sending out finally invitations at random starting next week. Sweet! This is definitely one of the more innovative ideas for internet dating… if I could only count the number of times I’ve been excited about meeting a person through match.com, only to find out they’re a complete dork. Launch the site already!
Posted by: Kevin | October 19th, 2007 at 2:01 am | Report this commentI’ve used this service and I would have to say that I was quite pleased. The live interaction really helps you to determine if a person is the right match for you.
Posted by: Cliff B | January 17th, 2008 at 1:35 am | Report this comment