True Love is only a search away

April 1, 2006 2:30 AM

Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance. When you think about it, love is just another search problem. And we’ve thought about it. A lot. Google Romance™ is our solution. You might want to start by browsing a few popular profiles, here, here, or here. Enjoy.
posted by nearo (28 comments total)

I had a serious problem. It was April 1, and I expected that the jokers at Google would have several potential jokes spread around the net which I would encounter randomly throughout the day. I got impatient though, and hit I'm Feeling Lucky, which brought me to this post, and they're all here! Now I can flatten the enjoyment curve to have the minimum impact on my day.
posted by dhartung at 2:54 AM on April 1, 2006

Post multiple profiles with a bulk upload file, you sleaze

This is why Google is doing so well. They just cater to what you really want.
posted by jeblis at 2:57 AM on April 1, 2006

our early testers thought that Soulmate Search’s “Did you really mean…?” feature came in very handy.
posted by jeblis at 3:02 AM on April 1, 2006

I love google.....

funny, understated, self depreciating..... bravo
posted by HuronBob at 3:08 AM on April 1, 2006

The Google hats in the last picture are fantastic.
posted by cillit bang at 3:19 AM on April 1, 2006

I'm suing.

April Fools!
posted by rinkjustice at 3:20 AM on April 1, 2006

Hopefully NOT self-depreciating! ;-)
posted by darkstar at 3:24 AM on April 1, 2006

ok...it's 6:30 am, and i can't spell...

oh, wait...no......that was an april fools joke!!!
posted by HuronBob at 3:31 AM on April 1, 2006

Google is brilliant -- this is badass. And the jokes are written well, really. I'm a little overjoyed that a multimega corp would rock so plainly with the hey hey.
posted by undule at 4:15 AM on April 1, 2006

you guys, this seems totally fake. for instance, wouldn't google have used hotter models?
posted by Hat Maui at 4:36 AM on April 1, 2006

All cheek
posted by allen.spaulding at 5:03 AM on April 1, 2006

The real joke is that they're bound to be rolling this out in a few months, minus the humor. Google Personals (or whatever) is an entirely reasonable service to offer.
posted by Galvatron at 5:04 AM on April 1, 2006

I just know that there's a User A out there somewhere for me.
posted by shmegegge at 5:17 AM on April 1, 2006

Sadly, it was not until I read "upload multiple files you sleaze" that I figured out it was a joke. I really thought google was going to go in that direction. :(
posted by narebuc at 5:46 AM on April 1, 2006

Google's goal is to extract information from that cacophonous web and make it available to anyone with a mouse and a modem. Imagine discovering not only alien attempts at communication with Earth...

but finding the intelligent life form you've been dreaming of via their personal at Google Romance.
posted by carsonb at 6:03 AM on April 1, 2006

ooh, dang. Google Gulp! is a data mine. watch out!! and make sure you have your preferences set correctly before you unscrew the cap. it's fuckin' real media all over again, but in 4 tasty flavors!
posted by carsonb at 6:07 AM on April 1, 2006

heh. this is great stuff. I hear Google will be offering some staff the option to write for SNL instead of pursuing their usual pet projects.
posted by carsonb at 6:10 AM on April 1, 2006

Don't forget, GMail came out on April 1st.
posted by furtive at 6:12 AM on April 1, 2006

I totally fell for the joke. I took the tour but started to wonder when I hit step 5 and it said "Your Contextual Date will begin with drinks at a participating upscale neighborhood bistro." I should have gotten a clue on step 1 when it says "User B uploads several different wildly different profiles. Note: those who generally favor the “throw enough stuff at the wall” approach to online dating might find it useful to employ our Batch Profile Uploading option." Too funny!
posted by patcoston at 6:58 AM on April 1, 2006

I am amused, disappointed, and still available.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:04 AM on April 1, 2006

"User B uploads several diffrent wildly divergent profiles"

Lol!

Yes, its a prank. But professional dating sites are basically unoriginal scams. It ain't profitable if customers find mates. You just need a gimmick for attracting new customers: emplying psychologists who think they know about relationships, personality tests, advertising on porn sites, etc. So a serious party, like google, could build a much more effective site.

Here are several very simple dating site ideas:

(1) Exploit existing social networking sites, like MySpace, LiveJournal, Flickr, etc., by allowing/encouraging offsite links. You might even try to track such links, so people'd use your site tab between the same person's pages on multiple sites.

(2) Don't list people, list specific "dates" ebay style. X says they wants a partner dinner, theater, hiking, etc. Others "bid" by writing replies, X chats a bit with all, and picks Y. They both leave feedback after the "date." Just like ebay for dates, but the bids are non-monitary.

(3) A heterosexual only site where men aren't allowed to email a women unless the women emails first. Thus forcing guys to develop more informative profiles, forcing women to be more active, and limiting the interactions of either to the most likely candidates.

Tons more interesting ideas are other there, but such things would disrupt the scam buisness model.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:39 AM on April 1, 2006

jeffburges, you'd probably have a tough time finding enough women willing to do all the initial emailing for your 3rd idea. In general I agree, though, there is a lot of room for new ideas.
posted by MillMan at 8:35 AM on April 1, 2006

Has anyone mentioned the actual, real true rollout of Google Page Creator earlier this week? Didn't seem to be any fanfare associated with it, but it's no April Fools Joke. They really do seem to be always up to something new over there. Which is scary in that 2014 sort of way.

In other news today, the new WoW alliance race are WISPS.
posted by ab3 at 9:27 AM on April 1, 2006

April fools! You will never find love.
posted by dgaicun at 10:12 AM on April 1, 2006

send you both on a Contextual DateTM, which we'll pay for while delivering to you relevant ads that we and our advertising partners think will help produce the dating results you're looking for.

LOL.
posted by delmoi at 11:32 AM on April 1, 2006

This is very funny, however you would think that Match.com or some company would partner with Google to refine personals searching beyond the current state of the art. I've always thought there were a list of, perhaps, 10 or 20 search terms that could filter out the the person I am not looking for...
posted by ParisParamus at 12:51 PM on April 1, 2006

I guess I'm the only one who found it creepy to read Google joking about how inherently creepy what they do is.
posted by poweredbybeard at 6:38 PM on April 1, 2006

Awesome - and should definitely become a reality :-)
posted by Chunder at 2:20 AM on April 3, 2006