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DoYouDo, Inc. is a Beverly Hills, California company that owns the patent to a unique matchmaking service designed to detect mutual attraction between friends or acquaintances based on confidential lists they create of people they are interested in. In 1999, Israeli businessmen Gil S. Sudai and David J. Blumberg patented the methodology, which represented a radical departure from the approaches employed by conventional online dating services and other dating systems. The key differences were that it focused on matching up people who already had a non-romantic relationship offline, rather than matching up strangers; and that it was designed to help solve the problems associated with unwanted romantic overtures on the one hand, and inhibition resulting from fears of unrequited love on the other. As the patent's description notes:

Human relationships are often fraught with difficulties. In addition, human beings are risk-adverse. Often, even when two people want to initiate first steps in a relationship, neither person takes action because of shyness, fear of rejection, or other societal pressures or constraints. . . What is needed is a safe, simple, confidential, and non-judgmental way for people to reveal their true feelings and interests without risk of embarrassment or rejection.

Demand for the system is based on the fact that there are many situations in which asking a person out might have negative consequences if the feelings are not mutual. For instance, many people may be reluctant to ask out a good friend, for fear that if the answer is No, it will ruin the friendship once the other person knows how they feel. Co-workers may face a similar situation; if the co-worker rejects the romantic overtures, the work situation may become awkward.

Methodology

In Sudai and Blumberg's "Love Detector" system described in their patent, users log in and enter a confidential list of friends and acquaintances who they are attracted to. The system periodically searches for pairs who have indicated a mutual attraction and notifies them, so that they can initiate a romantic relationship without fear of rejection. In the event that a person's feelings are unrequited, the object of their affection is never the wiser. As the patent abstract points out, "No notification occurs unless the system determines that a match in attraction or interests exists. If a first person's feelings or interests are not mirrored by a second person, the system will not notify either person and only the computer system will be aware of the first person's feelings for the second person."

The patent described several variations of the system, including one in which a user can choose to be notified 24 hours later; e.g., to allow time for the man to make the first move. It also provided for different types of attraction, e.g. "love," "like," and "desire." The system could be configured to only match users who shared the same type of attraction.

An example of how the system works is as follows. Tom Brown logs in and enters the following list of people who he is interested in: 

1) Amy Smith
2) Jennifer Farmer
3) Melissa Wright

Later, Amy Smith logs in and enters the following list of people she is interested in: 

1) Tom Brown
2) Joe Fisher
3) John Jones

The system would match up Tom and Amy based on their mutual attraction, and notify them of the match. For instance, the system might send the following email: 

To: Tom Brown
From: The Love Detector
Congratulations. Both you and Amy Smith have indicated mutual attraction. Good luck.

History

DoYouDo, Inc. was incorporated on September 23, 1999, with Sudai serving as chief executive officer and (Spark Networks founder and current CEO) Joe Y. Shapira and (Spark co-founder and former co-chairman) Alon Carmel serving on the board of directors. The firm was acquired by Matchnet.com in September 2000 for an undisclosed sum, dependent on certain success parameters, to be paid completely in MatchNet shares. The item "Acquisition of DoYouDo, Inc. $ − $ 1,820,000" appeared on the company's 2001 financial statements. MatchNet's 2004 Second Quarter Report claimed that its strategic rationale was to "leverage the positioning and membership database of an existing online personals service" and "enhance and extend existing brands." An August 4, 2004, Securities and Exchange Commission filing said that the rationale was to "leverage acquired intellectual property."

MatchNet's 2003 annual report noted that rather than implement the idea, the company is sitting on the patent:

In September 2000, MatchNet acquired DoYouDo, Inc., the owner of both a website based on viral e-mails and a patented business model relating to an automated method for determining mutual interest. In this model, people register on the site to see who has a “crush” on them, by submitting their e-mail addresses. Those people then are e-mailed and referred back to the site to see if there is a match. The acquisition was made primarily for the purpose of acquiring the patent on this business model for future development. At present, MatchNet has kept the DoYou2 site dormant and our DoYouDo, Inc. subsidiary has no operations.

Under U.S. Law, the patent will not expire until 2019. It is likely that such a matching service would necessite less frequent visiting of the website than an online dating site would, due to the nature of the service, which requires no user involvement beyond posting the list of people the user is attracted to and waiting for a notification. Such a system could pose a threat to advertising revenues dependent on banner ads loaded with each visit. This could account for why MatchNet (now Spark Networks) is holding onto the rights but not implementing the idea.

It could also be that Spark, which has been concentrating on acquiring numerous smaller services, is not yet ready for a full-scale roll-out of the idea. The effectiveness of such a system would probably increase proportionately to public awareness and use of the matching service. As eHarmony CEO Greg Forgatch noted in reference to the proliferation of online dating sites, "it still takes a large number of people" to be successful.

References

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