Suck

for 27 August 1996. Updated every TUESDAY.



	Let your intelligent agent call her
	intelligent agent... on the web!

	The most exciting use of smart technology
	since Star Wars, SpanishFirefly.com turns
	your packets into heat-seeking missives
	of love.

	Swoon and Match webbify the listings of
	love-seekers in the back of your latest
	alternative weekly. But they stop short
	of fully automating the process of
	finding a smoochable and/or significant
	other. Instead of laboriously reading all
	those personals yourself, tediously using
	Netscape's "Find" command to search
	through long pages of attributes, or
	constructing tortuous AltaVista queries,
	SpanishFirefly.com will let your agent do
	the walking.



	Your intelligent agent, infinitely patient
	as you fill out questionnaire after
	questionnaire, learns more about you -
	and about that special one you're looking
	for - than any human being could ever be
	bothered to. Then, your agent drifts out
	to a sort of virtual singles bar to
	cavort with similar electronic
	Cupid-emissaries. After comparing notes,
	and checking to see that the selected
	vixen or hunk is of the appropriate
	gender and sexual preference, your agent
	can return with delectable detail... and
	proffer the email address of your
	as-yet-undiscovered other half, for a
	fee.

	If Agents, Inc. can be brought into the
	deal as an alliance partner, overall cost
	is minimized: just strip away the part of
	technologically similar Firefly that
	recommends music and directly match
	people to people. Indeed, most of the
	matching could be done based on the
	already-existing music/movie preferences,
	as more "important" personal information -
	political and religious views, along
	with drug use and preferred sorts of
	naughtiness - can probably be inferred
	from musical taste. If the partnership
	doesn't fly, the system will have to be
	built from scratch. Quality depends on
	having lots of agents who know a lot, so
	such a system may have to be bootstrapped
	into place with special "Ladies' Night"
	deals. It may also have to be renamed to
	avoid trademark infringement. Still, a
	name that subtly suggests the technology
	(perhaps "Superfly") could be selected.

courtesy of The Internick