exactly. The question is, how do you consistently generate enough traffic and get people bidding? Yes, it's 99 cents per bid, but if you're not interested in the girl, it doesn't matter. ie- shes too tall, it wouldn't matter if it were free. A PR burst would be nice for that week of launch, but what about the other 51 weeks in the year? If you can figure out that formula, profit ensues. Step 2: ????? actually exists here.
That's nothing to worry about. You said like woot right? Well, one pre-selected girl, one pre-selected guy per week (You can extend that to same sex matches as well, which makes for 4 contests a week, locally in X amount of cities.)
You put a detailed description of the auctioned on the site, along with the date description, and invite everyone to apply to bid. Auctioned selects those allowed to bid, I suppose you can put auto limiting options here if you want. (So far, no money). Bidding commences with a conveniently placed minimum bet (say 75% of date cost) and is not fixed - bid whatever you want. Since the bidders and auctioned are pre-selected, all we're looking to do here is get that bidding as high over the date cost (assuming only one date, perhaps if it gets really high, say 100% over the cost, the date changes, and so on and so on.) This way, you let the auctioned do your marketing for you - their interest is getting that big free night out, after all, so they keep the pool of allowed bidders large. So long as you keep the auctioned pre-selected for attractiveness/interestingness, you win. Throw a pictureless rss feed up there and don't worry, people will come back.
Hell, what the hell am I doing, I should just go build this thing!
I'd say just start with girls at first. Guys make it more complicated, and they don't have as much of a draw. I could be wrong here.
You'd have to have really in depth profiles of the girl of the week/day. Video intro, multiple pictures, in-depth Q&A, etc. If you're giving the restaurant for the date decent exposure, you may not really need to even pay for anything.
I think once you figure the traffic formula out, it's game over (in a good way). Creating attention and buzz for it will not be hard.
The thing I'm thinking about is, IF the girl is decently attractive enough to warrant such bids and attention, she should have no trouble getting dates. She might actually be wary of displaying herself on a meatmarket full of hungry males with 99 cents to lose.
I had a somewhat similar idea I fleshed out a couple of years ago that also involved local dating, but was more targeted at the 9-5 working crowd and bringing them together on an invite/want basis for quick coffee/lunch dates that brought a couple together long enough to 'get to know' but not so long that it got uncomfortable. What I couldn't figure out was how to monetize it, but your 99 cent 'participation' fee is intriguing me enough to try and resurrect it. I wouldn't mind exchanging a couple of no-strings emails with you if you'd like to discuss.
