Find Love In Your Browser With 'Tab'
Contributed by: ElyseRomano on Tuesday, June 23 2015 @ 06:40 am
Last modified on
Online dating sites have long wrestled with replicating the experience of dating in real life.
Offline, the love of your life may find you at any moment. You could be standing in the produce section of the grocery store, wondering how to tell if a cantaloupe is ripe, when suddenly an attractive stranger appears to help you pick. It's all about serendipity.
Online, dating feels calculated. You'll never randomly bump into The One. But if U.K.-based Tab has anything to say about it, serendipitous meetings could soon be a part of your digital dating life.
Tab isn't a dating website. It's not a trendy new mobile app. In fact, it's a browser extension for Chrome. Every time a user opens a new tab, they're shown a potential match. If they're not intrigued by what they see, they simply carry on with business as usual. If they do feel a spark, they click a heart button. Mutual “hearts” are connected.
"Imagine you could bump into the love of your life on any corner of the Internet, just like in real life," Shib Hussain, one of Tab's co-founders, told[*1] Fast Company. "It was a light bulb moment. We were discussing how online dating is actually pretty time consuming, regardless of what platform."
“You have to actively look for people, switching from ‘not looking’ to ‘I am looking.’ And this isn’t how it is in real life," he said. "You just bump into people and it just happens."
Tab works its magic based on the profile users fill out during sign-up. The fledgling company is also testing out a more intriguing concept: matching people based on the types of sites they visit. It sounds ripe for a debate about online privacy, but the idea is interesting nonetheless.
Productivity gurus may also find fault with the extension. Tab is aimed at users over 25 who are trying to find a healthy work-life balance, but it may be hard to focus on the work part if life interrupts every time you open a new tab.
Hussain says Tab is trying to combat that issue with a simple, clean aesthetic. The design is intended to give users information quickly, with minimal annoyance or distraction, so they can get back to their busy days (and all the other tabs they have open).
So far Tab has launched in beta in the UK, and hopes to go live in the US later this year. A mobile version could also be on its way in the future.