Hyper-personalization: Online dating meets real-world matchmaking

While the Internet is great for all kinds of things, there are many sites, including those in travel and retail have decided to employ actual humans to create a hyper-personalization that digital algorithms just can't match. Now that model is coming to online dating. The concept of digital dating is now firmly entrenched in contemporary culture, but that doesn't make people any better at creating relationships. In response, a real-world matchmaker has set up a coffee cart on Wall Street, in Manhattan's Financial District. Matchmaker Cafe encourages patrons to fill out a simple profile and browse through an iPad of profiles of other customers, after which the cafe's owner, author and dating coach Nancy Slotnick, gets personally involved to create possible matches. Time will tell if this particular concept will catch on, but the larger trend of getting humans involved to create more personalized customer service will be with us for the foreseeable future.