Smiling Hearts: A personal touch to matchmaking
Friday, February 5th, 2010
Founders of Smiling Hearts, Lena Kiopak and Evie Moyet, assessed that there were not many dating services in SL and as Kiopak observed, "The more popular ones tend to focus more on the potential to cross-over to RL rather than exclusively SL relationships." Moyet also offered, "We did lots of research, and they all seem to be just handing out many profile pages."
Kiopak and Moyet determined there was a void in terms of providing an 'SL only' dating agency. Kiopak explained, "If you look at our questionnaire, we ask more SL-related questions. For example, we ask if you would like to find a dating partner in the same RP environment, like neko, Gor, etc. Once we get applications, our goal is to match those SL players who want to participate in the same SL environment."
Currently, and through the month of February, in honor of Valentine's Day, new memberships are free of charge. Each member receives personal one-on-one treatment when they join the agency. Moyet elaborates, "While there is a questionnaire that we provide, we also personally meet with each new member when they join just as a traditional agency does, giving them the personal touch. We want to find out more about them: what they enjoy doing in SL; what they're hoping for out of an SL relationship, etc. "
Kiopak goes further saying, "We do not hand out masses of profiles to members. We match them individually. We plan to introduce the two 'matches,' which is unique from other SL dating services. In other words, once we find a good match, we will ask the two to meet us at the agency or some other location. We don't want our customers to feel lost or just throw an application at them. We want to avoid miscommunications as much as possible."
Events for members will be scheduled at venues throughout SL periodically. To join Smiling Hearts, visit their agency and take a questionnaire provided there. For more information, contact Lena Kiopak or Evie Moyet.
