Love is in the air at WAYN as it appears the travel social network is planning to unveil a dating service on St Valentine’s Day.
The launch will be revealed at a glitzy party in London on Friday night ahead of the service being switched on this weekend.
Co-founders Peter Ward and Jerome Touze are staying tight-lipped about the extension of the WAYN brand into an area ironically many of its early detractors accused the main networking site of being – a dating service for young travellers.
A new site – WAYNDating.com – is live but has limited functionality, pointing visitors to the launch via a countdown clock.
The company is promoting the service by giving away free membership for 12 months to the first 5,000 users to sign up to the system.
On the WAYN corporate blog, Ward says the following in a wider piece about the company’s recent trip with the Internet Enclave of Entrepreneurs:
“Stay tuned for an update on what’s coming very soon to WAYN and a completely new initiative that we are launching that may take some of you by surprise!  I will update you in a following post!”
When contacted about WAYNDating, Ward says only that full details and strategy for the business will emerge following the party on Friday night in London.
The company clearly has designs on the project being an early success, promising the next 45,000 people to sign up a free membership for three months.
In January 2010, co-founder Touze admitted the company was looking at a number of initiatives, including introducing some kind of gaming element into the main WAYN social network.
The move follows the rapid growth of new, mobile-based and game-led services such as FourSquare.
Related posts:
- WAYN looks over shoulder at FourSquare, ponders gaming strategy
- Non-transactional travel sites are chasing the online agents on unique product hunting – but can it work?
- NY investigates online travel agencies for links to fee-taking discount clubs
- Lufthansa to launch Amadeus Affinity Shopper in UK next week, US before Christmas
- Travelzoo more like a media company every day as it expands ad network
I admire that the owners of WAYN acknowledged how the site was being used and embraced it. If you can’t beat em join em. Right?