Well, no single size fits all, and it's easy to dismiss any app if it doesn't hold a personal appeal. However, it's often more difficult to strike up a conversation with a random stranger than if it were enabled with some sort of context. In other words, the pretty girl in the coffee shop might have no interest in talking to me normally, but if we somehow found out that (1) we were both interested in making new friends, and (2) we were both into Dostoyevsky and Phish, then hey -- serendipity enabled!

Of course, the first thing I'd talk about is what a silly way to meet, cellphones and the Internet and such, but hey---it got the job done.