Why SocialGrid Must Be Always Free

SocialGrid is not your typical dating or social networking service. Most services will be free until they reach a certain size and start charging. Once they start charging, membership growth slows and these services must advertise to acquire new members.

Finding the "right one" is a numbers game. SocialGrid believes that the longer a company can hold out not charging membership fees, the larger the membership base will be, resulting in an increase the number of quality local matches.

This is why SocialGrid"s technology was designed to be extremely low cost. Because it uses grid computing for complex searches, only minimal amount of money is needed to support a membership base of tens of millions of people. Also, allowing bloggers and home page owners to submit their sites will lower the overall cost.

SocialGrid hopefully will not have the growth problem that other social networking and online dating services have had if ever it reaches the level of millions of members. We do not have to raise money from investors to build the infrastructure or cover cost, so we have no pressure to charge membership fees. By being completely free, we hope membership will reach critical mass in order for most members to find the "right one".

What is the Definition of Free?
Free can mean a lot of things. The word "free" used by other dating and social networking services usually means free to join or free to register. However, you will have to pay to contact a member, use detail search, or search outside your social network. If a dating service is starting off, everything will be free until it reaches a few thousand or million members and will start charging.

SocialGrid"s definition of free means:

• You can join for free
• Contact a member for free
• Use detail searches for free
• Search the entire membership base for free
• Will remain always free

The Temptation to Make Money
Online dating, after pornography, is the largest money maker on the Internet. This is no surprise because sex and love are primary needs of humans. There will always be people willing to pay money to fulfill these needs. Most online dating and social networking sites are not motivated to help people find the "right one". The faster people find the "right one", the faster these people will stop paying for their services. Most of these services are in the business of selling "hope".

Why Does Searching for People Cost So Much?
To handle millions of members, many servers are needed. Below is a simple model to estimate the number of servers needed:

Number of Servers Needed =

Number of members + Number of searches + Number of allowed search criteria + Number of complex searches

Complexes searches are those that require searching for boolean or range criteria. A boolean search is a search that allows for and/or arguments. For example, a member searching for ethnicity may wish to search for everybody who is White and/or Latino. Range criteria are complex forms of boolean searches. Examples of range searches are ranges in age or height. Also, the more criteria a search has, the more server resources are needed to process that search. Two evidences for this argument are listed below:

1. Google allows a limit of 30 keywords and can not process complex boolean or range searches. Still Google has an estimated 10,000-100,000 servers.
2. MySpace, Friendster and other social networking commmunities limited search ability.

Current Models to Cover the Cost
Now imagine a service with millions of visitors visiting on a daily basis to search. This service would require hundreds or thousands of servers to handle the number of search requests. Also, bandwidth cost will increase with membership growth. Who will pay for and maintain these servers and bandwidth costs? Below are typical business models that current services use to address this cost issue:

1. Start charging members as cost increases.
2. Raise money from investors and start charging later.
3. Start charging members for detailed searches or searches outside their social network.

How SocialGrid Will Remain Free
All the above options will limit membership growth. SocialGrid innovative solution provides a 4th option:

1. Create a search engine based on Linux clusters specifically designed to search for people using detailed criteria.
2. Share traffic and shifting cost to other sites with personal pages and blogs.

SocialGrid believe this new decentralized solution will result in the first people search engine. This solution will allow SocialGrid to continue to be always be free. Why do hundreds of millions of people use Google? Because it is free. How did Napster grow to 20 million members in less than 12 months? Because it was free.

By remaining free, membership growth will not be limited and will be able to grow until the practice of finding people using the Internet will be accepted as a social norm.

If SocialGrid succeeds, millions of people will be able to find the "right person" and society will be changed forever, hopefully for the better.

Sign up today and join us in the effort to make searching for people easier.