The latest product debut from Google will utilize Contextual Dating Technology to help people find a contextually suitable soulmate.
Mountain View, CA (Apr. 1): The arrival of Google Romance delivers the ability to “Pin All Your Romantic Hopes on Google” through its just released Soulmate Search. Users can upload a romantic profile (or multiple profiles if they are desperate losers) similar to the process used with Google Base.
After finding a suitable, or at least ambulatory match, Google (NASD:GOOG) will arrange a Contextual Date, with all expenses paid. Google plans to finance what should be an incredibly popular service with a tertiary stock offering of 5.3 million shares; the company announced yesterday it would price those shares at $389.75, to yield nearly $2.1 billion in proceeds.
Google described the process on the Google Romance site. Here are some key points about the service:
With Google Romance, you can:
• Upload your profile – tell the world who you are, or, more to the point, who you’d like to think you are, or, even more to the point, who you want others to think you are.
• Search for love in all (or at least a statistically significant majority of) the right places with Soulmate Search, our eerily effective psychographic matchmaking software.
• Endure, via our Contextual Dating option, thematically appropriate multimedia advertising throughout the entirety of your free date.
“Our mission, as you might have heard, is to organize the world’s information,” said Jonathan Rosenberg, Google’s senior vice president, product management. “And let’s face it: in what area of life is the world’s information more disorganized than romance? We thought we could use our search technology to help you find that special someone, then send you on a date and use contextual ads to help you, ya know – close the deal.”
“Our internal projections say Contextual Dating is going to be unbelievably huge, just a total cash cow,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
UPDATE! The Google Romance project is in trouble already. Sources tell murdok that the service inadvertently matched the imaginary PR blogger Amanda Chapel of Strumpette fame, and Micro Persuasion and Edelman blogger Steve Rubel.
Considering the rancorous discourse between the two, and the likelihood of messy and very public lawsuits, it is reasonable to believe Google or its PR firm Ogilvy will soon try to sweep the whole mess under the rug by saying Google Romance is an April Fool’s joke. If that happens, Google may change the Romance site’s links to reflect the PR push to promote Google Romance as a joke instead of a serious product debut.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
