Airtime, or something like it, has great potential to shake up online dating. I've tried several online dating sites, and it's clear their basic functionality is extremely flawed. I've always felt that you can learn more about your chemistry with someone by talking to them in person in five minutes than through hours of mutual profile gazing or stilted correspondence. Turns out researchers feel the exact same way[1].

Even IM mimics natural conversation far more than long-form messages back and forth. Yet people will spend more time poring over profiles than actually talking to people, and all that filtering is of questionable effectiveness.

It ends up making women more superficial, leaving them to decide more on factors like height, looks, race and income, than they would in person. I say women, because they are the one doing the choosing, at least among younger users. Women get swarmed with attention, and the odds are stacked against individual men. But the men who do get chosen get chosen often, and they are free to conduct several concurrent relationships.

Imagine if employers decided to hire the top 10% of a pool of candidates, and there was lots of overlap in what each employer's chosen 10%. Most importantly, these candidates could hack it so that they could work for multiple employers concurrently, instead of having to choose one, the one with the best fit, salary, benefits, etc. Then the employers, especially the less than spectacular ones, find that their talented employees are always behind on their work, and will quit at a moment’s notice. Still, the employers have tasted the brilliance of this talented tenth, and are unwilling to drop their standards, despite the obvious drawbacks. They keep telling themselves that all the problems with previous hires won’t crop up again, because they’ll uh, be extwuh extwuh careful this time.

That's what online dating promotes. Girls may find themselves getting 'played,' with a man totally unwilling to have a monogamous relationship, because they've priced themselves out of the monogamy market. This whole scenario has some real life parallels. [2]

Of course, this phenomenon is nearly as ubiquitous in the real world – plenty of girls are comfortable sleeping with men who are sleeping with other men. They may not like it, they may try to badger the man into monogamy, but ultimately they chose him, and his ways, because they implicitly prefer him to the men who would agree to monogamy from the outset. They aren’t honest with themselves, so they tell themselves that Mr. Sexy will become Mr. Reliable [2], when reality says not really. If they want to spiral through chaotic relationships and periods of elation and disenchantment, the status quo is great. If they want something a little less rocky and a little more consistent, there’s room for change. Hell, a video solution would increase the ‘truth in advertising,’ so both would stand to benefit. The ‘truthier’ online dating is, the less you have to rifle through people that don’t quite live up to the billing. Lower transaction costs  more transactions.

For something that purports to start new serious relationships, the status quo approach blows. A solution like video gives you more exposure to fewer people, reducing this phenomenon of ‘runaway selection.’ It will always be present though, due to the nature of female sexuality, just as men’s penchant for variety abounds.

It's possible looks could become even more important with video, but personality will likely become a bigger factor than it is now. Video is a great step towards getting strangers past the 'activation energy' needed to meet up in person. And there are girls who honestly desire a real relationship, and don’t get caught up in trying to meet the best man possible – these women find a suitable man quickly and easily, provided they are reasonably attractive. But they are something of an outlier on online dating sites.

The online dating industry is stagnant. There are a couple big players who achieve growth only by buying up other entrants, or plagiarizing a startup like How About We once they see a concept well executed. You have sites like JDate that have 1996-era interfaces, and the speed to match.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/us-internet-dating...
[2] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120514134301.ht...