In an unlikely hybrid of chain letter and valentine, Silicon Alley start-up Secret Admirer.com wants to stoke the market for online matchmaking by letting the lovelorn mail their anonymous notes electronically. But by pitting users' romantic inclinations against their impatience with random email promotions, the service unfortunately wraps up Cupid in spam's clothing.
"It's the opposite of a dating service because it's not about meeting strangers," says Miles Kronby, a 1996 graduate of New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program who designed the site. "It's about crossing that gap with someone you really like."
Admirers submit their message to the service, which dispatches them via Secret Admirer, addressing them from cupid@secretadmirer.com. The recipient then must surf to the site and, without any indication of who sent the first note, send their own anonymous note. If their note (by random chance) is addressed to the same person who sent the initial one, both people are notified that they successfully "matched."
Eager lovers may have trouble traversing the gap since the notes themselves offer little in the way of personalization. Users aren't allowed to fill in either the subject or text field of the first missive because, says Kronby, "We didn't want people to write 'XXX' or '$$$.'" He offers assurance, however, that some clues about the identity of the secret admirer will be possible in version 2.0.
Kronby admits that if people see these teasing anonymous things in their mailbox they'll simply delete them. "The environment is now justifiably sensitive to anything spam-like," he concedes, "but if people come and see what we're about, they'll know it's genuine."
Though Kronby would not get specific about the number of visitors to the site since the launch last week, he says "the numbers have been encouraging." The site features no advertising, but some is "in the works," says Kronby, who's "eagerly awaiting the first marriage through Secret Admirer."
