I just learned about this today. This is the greatest marketing concept since "million dollar homepage." My life is a failure for not having thought of this.
Actually, I did think of this, many times. But my biggest bottleneck was: how will I scale up the replies? I could handle being a "boyfriend" for, say, 10 women. But any bigger, and I'd need help. I considered MTurk, but thought that quality control would be an issue. (What if the MTurk guy really starts hitting on the woman, they exchange numbers and then he starts stalking her?). Anyways: after considering all the messiness, I gave it a pass.
There is a lesson here. "Computer people" have a real aversion to simply scaling up a business by using humans to do things. Sometimes that simple answer (hire a bunch of people to do stuff) is the right answer, provided the economics of the business work.
You look so [appearance adjective], my [affection term].
Hey [affection term], I'll see you at the [social location] tonight.
... and so on
Then enter possible variables:
affection term = [baby, honey, sweetheart]
.. and so on
Then buy 100 stock headshot photos and generate a random list of first/last names for each. Set up a FB/email account for each.
Then integrate with Twilio for SMS sending. Write a little cron script to send 1-2 messages to each user per day.
Done. A week's worth of work to launch.
Despite spending the vast majority of my life on the Internet, every single day I am disappointed by how judgmental and incapable of empathy folks are who say things to other people online.
Jesus, put yourself in someone else's shoes just this once. I wouldn't use this service, and I don't know anyone who would, but to say that Invisible Boyfriend is a net loss to humanity requires a level of hubris that, even today, is stunning to find on the Internet.
This is a life/death thing to some LGBT folks, who if outed face physical harm from their own families and friends. Helping someone like that stay in the closet until they can get to safety is a service Invisible Boyfriend adds to this world. Who the fuck are you to say that's not a value-add?
If they were actually concerned with the safety and wellbeing of LGBT folk they would create something that reflects the needs of communities and it would take into account how complex we are. They would not push something so simplistic on us claiming it's good for us without ever asking themselves if this is true or if their idea is actually a positive contribution to the community. I'm not sorry to say this: LGBT issues are not so simple that they can be solved with such quick fixes because a handful of community members find such fixes momentarily useful. This company might tangentially help a few people but realistically it might also make a lot of scenarios worse. More credibility to closet stories = less people out = less safety due to smaller numbers; more attention drawn to fake SMS relationship = higher chance of forced outing; transaction history on a teenager's bank account = higher chance of forced outing to parents = higher chance of homelessness and/or abuse; only some people can afford $25/mo. = separation of LGB community by class = fragmentation of community; doesn't consider the entire queer community = less solidarity; etc.
Also companies should stop saying LGBT when really they mean "some lesbians & some gays & maybe some bisexuals but not any trans* folk and definitely no one who doesn't have money".
In fact, maybe in some ways it's worse; some people may _never_ get to a point in their life where it is safe to come out. This is sort of like saying to them "you can't have a real SO because it's not safe; but here, have this fake one to tide you over". Similar to "you can't get married, but you can have this civil union".
Pretending like a man in Iran or Russia can come out as gay and be safe isn't going to change the immutable fact that a gay man in either of those two countries is in serious danger simply by being a gay man.
Is there a way to buy an Invisible Boyfriend/Girlfriend as a gift for a friend?
Press is good, profits are better. I'll be interested to see where this is in six months.