OfficiallyDating.com Launches, "Going Steady" Goes Digital

Business Wire,  May 14, 2008  

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LOS ANGELES -- Newly launched OfficiallyDating.com enables couples to declare their love online. What Facebook does for singles, OfficiallyDating does for couples.

Most couples have the natural, human compulsion to let the world know that they're in love. This phenomenon of announcing relationships crosses cultures and spans millennia.

- Ancient ancestors painted walls and chiseled stone.

- 20th Century couples carved their initials on trees.

- In the 1980s & 1990s kids used graffiti.

However, culture always evolves. Modern young women no longer wear their boyfriends' "pins" and "varsity jackets." So, other than seeing a wedding ring, it can be tough to know if someone is available. OfficiallyDating.com stakes its claim to be the 21st century solution.

Users can find out if the object of their affection is already "officially dating" someone else and not worry about asking someone out who is already "taken." There's also the current common curiosity to simply know who's seeing whom.

Nearly every couple eventually has to have "the talk" to answer the big questions. Are they dating or officially dating? Are they going to be exclusive? If it's a workplace affair is it going to be made public? OfficiallyDating.com is the central site for the responses.

Previously, the upside of connecting via social network meant enduring a potential flood of pesky requests from random people. On other social networks, there are 3 basic settings:

1) anyone can bother you

2) only those who already know your email address can contact you

3) contacts/friends in common make the link

Now there's a new way, the "Question Filter," which will surely be copied by all the major social networks. This innovation enables users to set up questions as barriers that keep the unwanted out and let those with correct responses connect. For example, a couple seeking another couple to carpool with for a local game can use the Question Filter to ask for information only another fan would know.

Dan Abrams, OfficiallyDating.com's founder, explains the company's motivation: "When you're truly in love you want the world to know it's authentic. Our site helps people do that."

OfficiallyDating.com is a new "proclamation site / social network."

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