Startup Offering a Virtual Girlfriend on Facebook

[dfuhriman]

Step 1: Define your perfect girlfriend. Step 2: We bring her into existence. Step 3: Connect and interact with her publicly on your favorite social network Step 4: Enjoy a public long distance relationship with your perfect girl.

[zacharycohn]

I feel like if this is at all successful, it's just going to get shut down by Facebook for creating fake users.

[JonnieCache]

Almost certainly. It'll be hilarious while it lasts though. The name alone cracks me up. Unfortunately they've dropped the ball by not having a painfully trendy logo with a cartoon girlfriend sitting on a cloud or something.

They should open source it when it gets banned so the fun can continue.

EDIT: just realised - this is basically a more benign version of that "sockpuppet management" stuff we've been seeing recently. Is this the start of the rise of the bots within human society?

[ChuckMcM]

Unless of course they don't violate the ToS and instead have a real person be your 'cloud' girlfriend.

If you mechanical turk out the role of the girl friend to a human using the same sort of technology that lets a chicken play tic-tac-toe [1] then presumably you can finesse the ToS.

Next we'll see a new startup for providing plausible deniability for ToS violations, basically you send someone a device with the instructions "When this light goes on push the button, if you keep your average response time under 5 minutes for the month we'll pay you $10."

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-12N3kVh3Q

[nullsub]

right. this is a direct TOS violation, right?

[Cyranix]

If your monthly fee / microtransaction payment is declined, be prepared for a nasty breakup.

[jbooth]

I think this is the first time I've ever seen a story on HN and wished it was on Slashdot for the comments.

[pohl]

Virtual social proof. An ePivot. Pre-selection DHV as a service. I love it.

[eof]

This is clearly the value here.. not the interaction itself, but the social status of having some hot babe liking all your status updates.

[rmason]

I'm willing to bet that a lot of you are only upset because you didn't have the idea first ;<)

[benwerd]

I'm pretty sure this takes outsourcing a step or two too far.

Personally, I'm hoping it's some kind of social experiment, and they're going to come out with some OKCupid-style expository blog posts in a few months.

(If anyone's seriously considering this, do ask yourself if it's really going to make you happy ...)

[larrik]

The idea that you would actually want this for the social interaction never occurred to me. My first reaction was that this was the next generation of

  1) "I have a girlfriend!"
  2) "Great! Can I meet her?"
  3) "Uh no, she lives far away"
  4) "Oh. Then how did you meet?"
  5) "Um, summer camp?"
  6) "Suuurrrre."

Edit: I still don't understand HN's line break formatting.

Edit 2: Thanks

[BillGoates]

Only 8 more days till April 1st

[nhebb]

Great, now when I see those insipid Microsoft ("To the cloud!") commercials, I'll envision some lonely guy with a bottle of lotion, logging into Facebook.

[eof]

My perfect girlfriend can solve the P vs NP problem.

[indytim]

To make it especially realistic, they could offer a physical address to which you could send gifts. As an add-cost feature.

[deffibaugh]

Talk about solving a burning market need..

[kalendae]

if they can pull it off (terms of service violations and what not) this will be brilliant, it is just a viral bomb ready to go off the things that can happen. I see chat roulette like kind of infamy very quickly.

[frb]

It's just the next logical step!

First SaaS then PaaS and now RaaS: Relationship as a Service

[indytim]

Good plug for launchrock - this should get some visibility, surely.

[jaymstr]

Ya, I can't reveal numbers, but they're blowing up.

[akanet]

cloudboyfriend.com suspiciously absent. market opportunity, anyone?

[svrocks]

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/brownie-husband...

can this tide you over until that gets implemented?

[Turing_Machine]

Whatever happened to good old-fashioned sockpuppeting? :-)

[santana]

i'd take a virtual boyfriend as long as he can deliver

[VladRussian]

it seems there is really dry season in your geography to trigger you to make your first comment on HN :).

[royalm]

it won't work