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Comment by EREFUNDO | Hacker News Reader

This has the potential to go viral. $20 with free drinks is not bad. Initially it might be awkward but I feel that if the matching is good enough connections can start easily. I would add that they send each participant a summary of each other's profile if they haven't already thought about it. This will give all parties some insight and tool to start a productive conversation.

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> I would add that they send each participant a summary of each other's profile

I would be okay if they don't. Privacy matters aside, it lets everyone present themselves at the meet-up as they want to, and not be judged by some small sampling of pictures or posts on their profile.

Nothing too detailed of course. The participant can have it as an option and decide what information can be included. Things like "I'm into rock climbing" or "I like Physics".... maybe nothing more than a few sentences. The key is giving participants the option. This could help "break the ice" because we are letting complete strangers meet. I would not include adding pictures as an option though.

Actually, I think these are both valid approaches and it's a decision the company has to make.

In this case, I can see how not sharing that info would make for a more exciting experience. e.g some magical algorithm paired me and my friends up with random other folks. I'd go along just to see how well it worked.

True. I think the company will figure this out by the time they have enough information from their beta users. It's really difficult to predict how people will react to a new environment because we often assume we know what we will do on certain situations. I have surprised myself a few times on how I reacted to new situations.

Also, the way they're currently doing it would probably attract the more adventurous users anyway (since there are more unknowns). On balance, I think that's likely to be a better approach for them.

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