DateIITians
DateIITians is an online social dating and networking website mainly focused on the social relationship where users can easily express their feelings with unique model of three level dating systems and three level profile validation system. It was founded on 22 January by three IITians – Layak Singh, Kinshuk Bairagi and Nikhil Kaushik. The website has received overwhelming response from the community of India and claims to be making social life easier for geeks, techies, nerds and mostly from the reputed universities in India.
The site currently operates in India with various services and it claims to have more than 7,000+ users from various reputed institutes like IITs, IIMs, Harvard, MIT, AIIMS, NITs, BITS, medical institutes, various regional engineering institutes and working professionals from MNC companies for the last few months. In the last 3 months, there have been more than 1200 flirts, 450+ crushes and 56+ proposals
History
The website was started by the trio from IIT Kharagpur and launched its alpha version on 22 January 2012. It also launched an online competition in February 2012, where it distributed gifts to the winners based on an application ‘Who will be your Valentine?’.
Website
Features
The website offers sharing of photos, videos, links and ideas, live chat, video chat, customised user profiles, notifications, private messaging, a matchmaking suggestions based on an algorithm with the like-minded people, beauty contests, games, mobile based applications, point system, like, dislike, and commenting options and sending gifts to your special ones.
Media Reception
In January 2012, the site got featured in Times of India with some critics saying “It’s ridiculous and a very nerdy thing. It's funny, rather, ridiculous! I'm surprised”, says a guy from IIT and adds “Who will necessarily look for a girl from IIT or IIM to date? We're caught in such stereotypes way too much.”
In January 2012, Ahmedabad Mirror mentioned - “A group of IITians has decided to shake off the image of being geeky, highbrow and haughty individuals. They want to flaunt the livelier and flamboyant side of theirs that is open to relationships and dating.” In May 2012, Firstpost described it as “Divine indeed! Thanks to the combined efforts of Chetan Bhagat and Aamir Khan, surely Indian girls have finally been convinced that the average IITian is” – as another commenter put it – a “heroic combination of Peter Parker (the quintessential geek), Bruce Wayne (shits money) and The Incredible Hulk (‘Amma says make him angry just before bedtime’).” Various other articles were published by online newspapers, blogs and websites.
Criticisms
The philosophy behind dateIITians, their three-level dating system and the name of the dating website as dateIITians has been criticised by the media and many non-media people too. The website allows only those users who provide specific identity proof while registering so as to maintain the authenticity of each profile. According to Hindustan Times and Yahoo! News, dateIITians is going global with another name cogxio.com in different languages and various other features coming soon in the a few months.