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Saturday, October 21, 2006

Kizmeet: Find Missed Connections

RB- The vodka tonics were so friggin strong last night- were you trying to get me drunk? Thanks for the drink and conversation. I liked talking to you.- LD
The post is marked W4W, meaning woman looking for woman. Date and location of encounter are also listed (October 18, 2006, Normandie Room). This is a random posting I fished out of the fairly small pool right now at Kizmeet, a site billed as helping users find missed connections. One example is a brief glance at someone across a bar. Someone you don't know, but want to find again.

Registered in May, Kizmeet is a novel service. It's one of those ideas that's only feasible because the Internet exists. Missed connections are common, and as far as I know, Kizmeet is the only player in this rather narrow subspace of social networking sites. Eight cities are currently supported with more to come. Detail is important; every piece of information in a post narrows down the search space by large swathes.

If the site gets popular, the UI might need reworking so users can easily scan or search through posts that are at best vague descriptions. One factor working against this is the one month life of a post. Older posts drop off as they should since memories of brief encounters fade quickly so finding a missed connection becomes less important.

Kizmeet has the feel of a dating or social networking site, but it's neither, which could be a disadvantage. The appeal is somewhat limited at the beginning since a large number of users is needed to make the service work. Network effects don't kick in unless the site becomes mainstream enough. As more users join or read the postings, the chance of actually making a missed connection increases. I'd be interested in getting statistics on successful connections as time passes.

On a side note, I love this FAQ question: Of the 4 million Starbucks in my city, how do I know I'm searching the right one for my missed connection?


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