Pulsate is your new wingman at local bars

Pulsate is a brand new dating app that intends to match people in real time at bars and nightclubs. Other popular dating apps like Tinder and OKcupid rely on the users to decide if, when and where they meet in person. Pulsate makes meeting potential romantic partners as easy as turning your head at the bar to see if the match on your phone is also a match in real life. This is typically a job for a friend known as a "wingman" who is willing to put themselves out there for you to decrease chances of face to face rejection at bars. Your new digital wingman Pulsate is compatible with the iPhone, iPod, and iPad, requires iOS7.1 or later, and is optimized for iPhone 5.

This app is user friendly and the interface is visually appealing. It takes about two minutes to connect to your Facebook and fill out your user profile. You can find venues that are "pulsating" - meaning venues where other users are located. This app is very new so I was unable to find any venues with other users. I could see this becoming a major issue for getting this app off the ground and to the masses. It might be to Pulsate's benefit to hold promotional events at popular bars to get users started. I don't see people signing up on their own and just winging it because with its current state it requires too much attention to find venues and other users.

I do like the idea of meeting instantly in person. If the app can take off in popularity I would be interested in using it regularly because conventional online dating can be extremely disappointing. People usually do not represent themselves accurately and if you take the time to schedule a date to go out of your way to meet a person, you are often setting yourself up for a waste of an evening. With Pulsate, you can instantly decide if you want to spend more than 10 minutes enjoying someone's company. That relieves a lot of pressure from the stress that comes with assessing another person for compatibility.

However, this app is not completely free. A user can only have five free matches and after that they must purchase more. I really don't see people buying into this. Why would anyone buy matches to meet people in bars where they already are? I think Pulsate would be better off embedding advertisements or incorporating some bonus premium user features rather than only allowing a very small number of free matches. People who use dating apps know that five people often does not even crack the surface in finding a match.

I will be very interested in using this app more once the word gets out. Sometimes meeting people in real time can be difficult because you don't know if a person you are attracted to is unavailable or interested in you as well. This could eliminate awkwardness and allow people to connect in person very easily. I would recommend Pulsate to single people who are tired of meeting people online and are ready to connect with a real person in real time.