Dave Wilkie, CEO Of Weopia

OPW INTERVIEW - Mar 1 - Professor Michael Norton from Harvard tell us that more is less. The more profile information that is collected on dating sites for singles, the less the interest from other singles, according to his research. When singles talk to other singles that they know little about, they tend to imagine as more ideal than they may be. Enter virtual dating. Weopia is a virtual dating service we found intriguing, so I interviewed the CEO, Dave Wilkie, a few days ago. - Mark Brooks

How would you describe Weopia?
We like to call it a companion tool to online dating sites. Users of dating sites can use Weopia to have a virtual date.

What is your background?
My background goes back into advertising. For 18 years I owned an advertising agency in Canada. I’ve taken about 1 year off to build Weopia.

What drew you to the Internet dating space? What inspired you?
Back in my teens a friend of mine mentioned how small our dating pool was in the high school. Then in the advertising business I worked on a program with IBM, which was a resume job matching service like Monster.com. We really got deep into the matching process and so along the way I started to get more interested. A colleague of mine, who was a tech oriented person, just sold his business. He asked if I would consider doing something together and I said how about an online dating site?
He was a big fun of Second Life so that is where the idea popped up back in March 2008.

I took a look at the site and I’m amazed with the graphics, how on earth did you build it?
It was a long process of trying different technologies until we found the right one. We found a Unity platform. At the time they were doing smaller games and various interactive 3D environments but mostly game oriented. So that platform worked quite well for us but it required a lot of back end work.

What is it you like most about the Unity platform over the other offerings?
It’s very progressive.

What would you say were your biggest challenges in building the site?
Our biggest challenge was to limit what we could do. In a virtual world, which mirrors reality, the creativity can just go rampant.

In terms of the user experience, is there any particular user behavior that surprised you that was unusual?
I don’t know if it’s a surprise, we sort of expected it, but many people think that what we’re trying to build another Second Life. But we’ve built an intimate dating environment for 2 people. Second Life is completely different thing, although it’s a virtual world and was the inspiration for our program.

How do you get people?
We tried to get the word out through press releases. I was also happy to see that people are Twittering back and forth about Weopia. We had quite a big flip in traffic and people were passing the word around. We intend to do some advertising once we get Weopia the way we think it should be. Then we intend to start charging at some point.

What sort of price points do you think you’ll come in at?
About $4.95. We tried to price it around the cost of a couple of coffees at Starbucks. But there will be a whole bunch of variations on our pricing.

Would you say your end goal is to show this service off so that you can partner with other internet dating companies? Or do you want to be the end destination?
We would like to offer the service to the online dating industry as a bridge between texting and chatting inside the online dating sites and the meeting in the real life. The researches in the virtual world dating conducted by Professor Michael Nortong, Jeana Frost and Dan Arieli show that if you go on a virtual date prior to meeting in person you’re much more likely to like the person. I think that’s just because people have high expectations over the text chats.

What are your plans for 2010?
We would like to go mobile. We’re looking seriously at the iPad and iPhone. But what we would really like to see happen by 2010 is to be accepted into the online dating industry so people can go and meet more people quicker and find love faster.

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Comments

[Datinginsider]

And so the stage is set: New upstart downloadable standalone application vs. two-year-old flash-based in-browser embeddable avatar-based chat vs apps like IMVU with millions of existing users. Both companies rely on one or two research reports as a primary justification for existing. There are lots of co

The story about virtual avatar-based chat has been played out for several years now. I'm a big fan of virtual environments but both Weopia and OmniDate are missing key features and Q&A/gameplay. Until these issues are addressed, as it has been, there is going to be little movement in this arena.

At least get some in-environment advertisers. I don't understand why Omnidate hasn't done this yet. You worked in advertising, this should be easy.

Going mobile is not worth it at this time. Focus on your core product offering and get some deals in place.

[Dave Wilkie]

Our next couple of releases, over the next few weeks (mid and late March), will have much more activity, relationship quizzes, strategy games, flying games, dating games, a more concentrated space, and live voice chat. You're bang-on, Insider. Next, we'll have a larger avatar selection with customization and optional enhancements and places to decorate and further show off your personality.

We are in Beta and are listening to what our users are interested in. I've always found it best to go to market a bit earlier than when we feel we've hit perfection according to our own design, just to see what people do with it and to hear what people have to say. And, we do have companies coming to us interested in using Weopia in unique ways...ways that we hadn't even considered.

By the way, you can't do what we want to do with Weopia in Flash and a browser. That was a tough decision long ago and we went with maximum experience over easier accessibility in a browser. Now, creativity in Weopia development is limited almost only by our imagination.

Dave @ Weopia.

[Alicja Pawłowska]

I just don't see this idea being wildly popular. Why should I go to another website if I met someone somewhere else and I already have this person phone number?
Everyone would be anxious to meet this person as soon as possible not going to another website to keep dating. Main goal of internet dating is to help meet someone in real life not to extend meeting someone in virtual world.
Your website is definitively for people who are not anxious to meet someone met on line and for me if the guy doesn't want to meet me and invite me to another fantasy land it means that there is something wrong with him and he is running away from reality for some reasons.
Good luck I will be watching your progress:)

[Dave Wilkie]

Thanks Alicja. What makes online dating not so great is that people create such high expectations when chatting via email text, always looking at that great photo in the profile, and taking time to craft that perfect reply. The research shows that, on average, you like the person less when you meet than when you were emailing. So, on average, you are destined to fail. But, if you go into a virtual date, even for a short time, you come out liking the person more at your first date and are 200% more likely to go on a second date. This makes sense as we are people who need to experience. We can't judge on profile attributes like income and education and some text chat. In Weopia, you can cut the emailing down to a few emails, go into the worlds, find out if you click when experiencing beyond crafted text replies and dramatically cut short the time it takes to get together in person. Take someone into Weopia. Wait a few days as a much improved version is about to be released. It really is another dimension to the online dating experience and it cuts it short, not extends it.

[Dave Wilkie]

Also, Alicja, you sound like someone who is confident and willing to meet fairly quickly. I have friends who say the same thing. They like to have a couple of email exchanges and then they meet. But, if you look around at the online dating site complaints, you'll see that a lot of people have difficulty getting past the emails to the date. They complain about poor matches and extended email communications. I'm hoping we can help them. But, I am like you. I'd meet quickly. But having tried Weopia so much myself, I'd definitely go there fast.

[Randoym Randt]

It's a real shame for weopia that you can find the same boring beach sims on Second Life, but with more activities and options, and for free. This is what happens when people create virtual worlds only for the money, with no personal experience in virtual dating, nor understanding of what people do on virtual dates. I would know. I met my real life husband on Second Life.