Mobile RADAR LOVE… what’s intrinsically wrong about location based dating.
A rather convincing editorial by Zosia Bielski in the Glove and Mail hit my desk this morning with claims that mobiles are already somehow acting like radars that are able to automatically search out available lovers in your vicinity… apparently using GPS the phone can “detect another” “potential” date who is 2 blocks away and vibrate to try and get you to hook up.
“Dick sees Jane. Jane sees Dick. Their phones have tabulated the distance between them, exchanged information about their age, employment status and relationship expectations, and even thoughtfully suggested a local watering hole.GPS has long helped drivers find alternate routes around traffic and construction. Now, it’s helping people find love, with a new frontier of location-based dating.Mobile dating applications such as Skout and Are You Interested? let users download software onto their phones that alerts them when a potential match is within spitting distance. The technology allows people to date spontaneously, but also gives “chance a hand,”
BluePont CEO Alex Bloom (who is claiming his Blackberry based service launched last summer has created nearly 140,000 meet-ups) says: “But I think the odds are vastly improved if you don’t just bump into people who happen to be very close to you but also a person 100, 200 or 300 metres away.”
Word of warning: Daters are going to have to be careful of the commitment phobes a service like this will attract… i mean it can’t be a good sign if “The One” isn’t prepared to travel 400 metres!!!!!
Whilst the possibility of your cell phone letting you know “The One” is ” taking a leak at the same Starbucks” has got to be at least interesting the author lightly covers the huge safety concerns that come with such applications with help from Hal Niedzviecki, Toronto-based author of The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors. Unfortunately he’s a little naive when he suggests that GPS dating stirs “numerous ethical concerns” such as the prospect of it making users unwitting targets of “location-based advertising” from “corporations” and making us “more amenable to surveillance” by the police.
Sorry to dash your conspiracy theories but don’t worry about the police… worry about the rapists, burglars and foreign credit card theives who are keen to use your location and identity to access your bank account/car/house/office… or worse!
