Nerve Dating launches in Philadelphia, focuses on conversation not matchmaking

Maybe single Philadelphians don’t need more players in their romantic lives, but another player in the online dating scene might not be too bad.

That’s what online dating site Nerve Dating is banking on as it launched its Philadelphia site in beta earlier this week. Nerve Dating, a spin out from romance news site Nerve, launched in New York City in December 2011.

Philadelphia is the ninth city that Nerve Dating has expanded into, joining a list that includes NYC, San Francisco, LA, Austin, Boston, Chicago, DC and Seattle.

“Our readership has always been solid in Philly – it’s such a great cultural city,” said CEO Sean Mills, formerly president at The Onion. “The fact that Philly is  one of the best college towns in the country means that the people are smart, educated, and really culturally active — a perfect reflection of our typical user.”

The site is a newcomer to the online dating scene that boasts that it focuses on starting conversations between people, not matchmaking.

“As long as you’re interested in starting conversations and sharing your interests and opinions, you’ll do fine,” said Mills. “Nerve’s not a sterile, static platform where people confess what they’re looking for in a soul mate.”

To start those elusive conversation, members can check in to local hotspots or answer questions about what they’re into. Other users can respond to these updates or answers, and perhaps two people will hit it off.

Mills told Technically Philly that users are 30 percent more likely to get a response if they respond to something specific compared to another member who messages without any context. He added that a member responding to another member’s checkin is 45 percent more likely to receive a response than if they had simply sent a message.

“We found that in the context of online dating, starting a conversation with ‘context’ – a comment, opinions question, checkin – is vastly more powerful than directly messaging a potential date,” said Mills.

Nerve Dating has been doing it’s homework to understand what types of people might find love on the site. Mills shared some of the user stats Nerve has accumulated about its members since its official launch:

• 51% Female, 49% Male
• Median age: 29 years old
• Well-educated: 97% of users indicated they had a college or above education
• Culturally active and huge consumers of music, film, books, and fashion
• Most popular films discussed/checked in for the month of February: “The Artist”, “Shame,” “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”
• Most popular TV checkin for February: “Breaking Bad,” closely followed by “Downton Abbey”

The site raised about $1 million in its latest round from investors including Lerer Ventures, Firstmark Capital, and Steven Johnson, said spokeswoman Marina Cukeric.

If you’re looking to test out a new dating site where you can talk about Chase Utley’s knee problems or who’s playing at the Electric Factory, instead of hoping to be matched with someone who’s into those things, Nerve Dating is available for frexe for a short time.