LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE ONLINE PLACES

By: Jennie L. Phipps NYToday.com Promotes New Personals Section





"Now is your chance to select the dot-babe of your dreams."



Just go to www.nytoday.com/kissing and vote for the "Most Kissable" contestant.



Dan Jasper, marketing manager for NYToday, said the site, which just launched online personals, is looking to differentiate itself from its more staid sister, NYTimes.com.



So if you had them confused, get it straight right now. The only policy analysis found on NYToday.com is a vague statement about the licentiousness allowable in posting those online ads.



The contest features 20 of Silicon Alley's least-publicity shy - 10 boys and 10 girls, as they're identified - competing to be the "Most Kissable" as judged by an online referendum. It's hot and heavy competition with no clear winners yet and nearly two weeks to go.



If you think all of this sounds too corny for the sophisticated New York market, you are wrong, wrong, wrong.



The contest launched late Wednesday, Oct. 11. About 45 minutes into it, there were already 850 votes. By Friday afternoon, 25,000 votes had been cast. And the pace isn't slowing down, Jasper said. He's hoping for millions by the time the contest ends Nov. 3.



Contestant Peter Shankman, president of The Geek Factory, a high-tech PR firm in Silicon Alley, said he brought in votes by appealing to the PRForum and SmallShopPR discussion lists ... and telling his mother. "My mother would love to see me have a date," he said. "I have a cat. That pacified her for awhile, but it's starting to wear thin."



Contestant Syl Tang, president and founder of HipGuide - "A guide like CitySearch if CitySearch were cool," she said - sent out more than 3,000 e-mails to all of her closest friends and was convinced that she was going to be a winner, but another contestant pulled way ahead. Tang wonders whether electronic manipulation is possible, but dismisses the suspicion. "Anyway you can get votes is good."



Meanwhile, NYToday.com is milking the good PR online and off. Hardest to miss is Heart Man, a 7-foot tall and 5-foot wide "Alley Worker Looking for Love" who's has been hired to stroll up and down Park Avenue South handing out dating kits. In real life he's a graduate student in drama from New York University.



Jasper said the campaign appears to be paying off. Click-throughs to the personals sign-up page have been in the thousands. "We've been pleased."



As Shankman said, "I only associate with people who have e-mail. It's incestuous. I might as well be sleeping with them too."







Jennie L. Phipps (jennielp@bignet.net) is an independent writer and editor based in Farmington Hills, Mich. She hasn't yet decided how to cast her vote.







Copright 2000, Editor & Publisher.