Project Starflash is an, in development, social network for romantic and platonic connections. The twist is that connections are done between people of the opposite gender.
The application is has less emphasis on dating and more on forming a connection between pairs of people by multiple means of connecting. It can be used for "dating" like Tinder/Bumble, but can be used to just find activities to do with people of the other gender. Doing things with another person is the best way to form connections romantic or friendly. Some people just want to connect to other people of the other gender and I think obviously that's platonic.
It's important to have a way to make sure people are verified to make sure people are talking to and meeting with people who are real. There's nothing more crushing than find out you had a sense of connection with a fake. It's why people like meeting people in person. What better way can another be verified. Of course, it also makes sure that they can be dealt with in case they do something illegal on or off the service. There's a big emphasis on verified because I think most people will be on their best behavior when verified unless you are a total complete unaware d**sh*t.
People who meet up should be given some sort of rating similar to an Uber driver. Both sides should be able to do it. This offers a very realistic vector of verification. Pose verification only slightly offers presence verification not really that you are real. ID verification is just like post verification as it needs to be matched against who is on the profile picture. These can be faked especially with Generative AI now. Background checks are not a verification feature but more about history of a person besides how do you know the person you are supposedly doing a background check on didn't just fake it with some stolen information from multiple data dumps?
What is the best way(s) to verify someone? Meet up in person. It's a proximity service, so verification in person is the tested tried true way. Having people say they met and give each other some positive review just like Uber. Verifying that two people met also has to factor into this.
Let's say you have a way to verify people and you show others that they are verified in some way then does that mean people are safe? No. Anyone's state of mind can change at any time. The idea is to get one more data point of behavior. No one is truly safe no matter what you see or hear which is why you stick to the old beaten path of hanging out in public places while you build trust.
Connecting strangers is awesome when things go without a hitch. When it doesn't and results in some law enforcement action that's when it affects of perception of the service. Ideally, you'd think cooperating with law enforcement makes sense, but business-wise and out of short term self-interest a business would not cooperate and see the problem "go away". This only works if it happens once every few years, but if you intend to scale up, this doesn't work every few years becomes every few days since there are many more dice rolls. This is what Travis Kalanick did not understand about Uber, 100%.
Stars Aligne is a community, but a community built on trust and respect. Current incumbents do not have that and expect people to just figure those parts out once they match and/or slap on background checks, video verification, etc. to have some semblance of verification. Asking people to "just trust me bro" is exactly what scammers and abusive people prey on. What I am looking for are ways to seed trust networks within the sub communities. People move around, so as long as they keep their accounts they are essentially stewards to bring on more people.
Not only should people be able to think about safety, but they have to think about their well being. Some metrics will be shown to prospective users, so they can pace themselves and think about if they actually want to spend their time connecting to another person. Some people are careless and some others are very intentional/exclusive with their time. Who would I want to connect to? The person looking to find a good time or the person looking for quality time? A profile can't tell you this, but metrics absolutely can. There's no good reason why existing apps do not display these metrics. People are bad at remembering, so objective metrics over time will help pace and keep your behavior in line. 'Yes, you did in fact connect to 10 other people last week, but you blew all of them off. Don't give us this nonsense about you not being able to connect to people. Work on yourself.' You should be able to figure out which kinds of people are receptive to you with some audience information, so you can take stock that some pattern of people out there do favor you.
There are other metrics which will only be shown to the account owner so they can pace themselves. Figure out when they should slow down and if the metrics validate what they are feeling. Weekly and monthly metrics and statistics will be different, but in the end keeping people in check is the goal. Here is reality vs what you are feeling, which may just be due to your current state of mind.
These are just some of the failings of the careless, trash apps out there Stars Aligne looks to address. Stars Aligne will only be available in the United States within certain regions typically big cities and colleges. Getting started is the hardest part. Over time, the differentiators will show themselves and overtake the market.