Interview with Alex Bloom, BluePont.com
What do you know about location based dating? Probably, not too much. Alex Bloom, Founder of BluePont.com service, puts BluePont as “a groundbreaking software makeover for your phone that makes it automatically discover other BluePont-enhanced phones around.” When two BluePont phones discover each other in a close proximity, they compare the matching preferences, and alert both sides if it’s a hit. We decided to speak with Alex and find out a little bit more about this mobile dating environment.
Q: How did you come up with an idea of BluePont.com?
A: We had this fantasy of an ideal natural meeting that’s spontaneous and unpredictable. You enter a coffee-shop, your eyes meet, a conversation begins to flow. You are intrigued by the person before you know much about them and you are acutely aware of the role of chance. We wondered as to how we can make meetings like this happen more frequently for people and, perhaps, more smoothly. So the idea was born…
Q: You’ve recently served a milestone 100,000 mobile meeting. What’s so special about your service and who is a typical client of BluePont.com?
A: Just about everybody can recall a number of instances when someone sparked your interest, but nothing happened and you’ll never see that person again. In addition to the few people whom you did notice, just imagine how many were two blocks away, walked by you on the street, sat in a cafe next door – people you could have met right then and there, if you only knew. With BluePont, the odds of that spontaneous exciting meeting are suddenly amplified like never before and they come with a smooth “Mobile Meeting alert” introduction. Let’s say, normally you’d have a meeting like this once a month or you’d have to go to a place like a bar to meet people in real life, off-line, but now even as you simply go about your usual routine, you can have such meetings regularly happen to you. That’s what’s special. Most BluePonters are in their 20’s and 30’s, but the 40+ contingent is growing rapidly. BluePonters are largely professionals, but there are people from all walks of life.
Q: Which platforms and territories do you currently support?
A: BluePont works on all phones that have Internet access, but how it works exactly varies by phone. Phone-specific instructions and recommendations are provided upon registration. Currently we support all major English-speaking markets (the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia).
Q: Do you have any solutions for dating webmasters? Is it possible to integrate your service into dating site?
A: Absolutely, anyone interested in integration should visit this page, sign up and see a variety of methods including offering it on your site, co-branded with your name. We pay out 50% of all gross fees contributed by your users, in perpetuity, forever. BluePont is a service that’s uniquely sensitive to the number of users and their geo-density. So the more users join through each channel (site, etc.), the higher the revenue per each user becomes. Integrating BluePont can be a source of instant incremental revenue for dating webmasters.
Q: How do you see your service evolving in 2009?
A: We have a number of highly innovative enhancements in the pipeline, all aimed at making users ever more enthusiastic about BluePont.