Coral Tree Wine Bar - you have to be kidding me

Posted by writer | Is Yahoo Buzz all Fuzz? »

When I read this in upcoming.yahoo.com I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“You see someone you are attracted to on the other side of the restaurant. You want to approach that person but what do you say? Now its all about a simple click and hello. At our mixer, EVERYONE will have a device with their personality embedded in it. You approach someone you want to meet, press a button and point it to each other. The next thing you know is you are talking! Great ice breaker.”

No, really!. They claim to have an audience comprising of late 20s to early 40s. A mature age. An age when starting conversations or breaking ice isn’t always such a big issue. Or is it?

Even if it is, two valid issues:

1- the idea of pointing devices at people at a real event in the real world, and waiting for them to quickly read your “profile” and then decide how to react to your introduction is rather silly. This can work in virtual worlds, but not in real life - not in this way atleast. Perhaps they could have built devices that track people of similar interest for you - that would’ve worked better.

2- “device with personality embedded in it.” - Um, your entire personality embedded on a tiny screen that people can read from afar? Are we really that shallow?

Its good to see that people are trying to bring technology and social media into their events, but its not always so interesting to see how they fail to bring the right value out of it.

No offence to any excited attendees.

| Social Marketing