Nauseated by lovey-dovey couples plastering gushy missives on each other’s Facebook walls? Sick of reading all about their wedding plans on Twitter? Fear not: A new brand of social media networks is on the way, designed for couples to celebrate their love privately online.
With names like Snuggle Cloud, Kahnoodle, Tokii and HoneyDo, the websites facilitate diverse matters of the heart: Some help nudge a partner into the bedroom and give him kudos when he takes out the trash. Others let couples barter house chores for sex, straight up, while still others suggest dinner banter plucked from the current news cycle: provincial elections, anyone?
“Whereas Facebook is like party with your friends, Snuggle Cloud is like a candlelit dinner,” reads the tagline for one of the unfortunately named couples’ sites.
“It is a social network designed for two people,” said Emily Marshall, who launched Snuggle Cloud with Kiran Gollu last November in Seattle. (An app version will launch next week.)
Targeting 18- to 36-year-olds, the site offers a handy function that compiles all of your syrupy communiqués in one place, be it e-mails, chats or text messages. There’s a calendar marked with anniversaries, birthdays and other crucial dates, as well as a “couples dashboard” where pairs can post links to coveted gifts, impending nuptials, all-inclusive honeymoon deals or anything they choose. A mood meter lets pairs track and then share their rolling emotions.
Using tech to enhance face-to-face intimacy with a partner is thoroughly modern, says Andrea Syrtash, author of Cheat on your Husband (with your Husband): How to Date your Spouse, publishing next week.
“Couples have interesting ways to communicate their needs and wants, and this is a very 21st-century way to do that,” Ms. Syrtash said.
She compares the sites to sexting and “e-flirting,” tactics employed by cheaters and those in the early, heady days of dating, but in gross decline in longer relationships: “It can inject a little excitement into your day.” Over at Kahnoodle, the buzzword is recognition. When the site launches next month, users will be able to reward each other with “kudos,” little digital pats on the back doled out when their partner does something good, and then tracked weekly or monthly.
“It’s all-around positive affirmation, allowing you to big up your partner for doing the things that you really appreciate. At the end of day you have this gratitude journal of all the great things that you’ve done together,” founder Zuhairah Scott Washington said from New York.
Intended for committed couples over the age of 21, Kahnoodle lets partners administer “love taps” – like Facebook pokes, except they refer to nookie.
“If it’s been a while, you can give your partner a love tap. It’s a subtle hint, without making it heavy,” Ms. Washington said.
Kahnoodle came out of her own desire to ensure that she and her husband “weren’t a statistic on the wrong side of the divorce rate.”
“He used to give me feedback about things he wished I did better and I was like, ‘What do I do with this? Do I write it down in a notebook? Do I put it in my Outlook? … I thought there had to be a way for technology to help that.”
Does the digital exercise unintentionally take away from face time? Not at all, Ms. Washington said: “It’s about using online tools to enhance your offline experiences.”
Tokii has similar aspirations for couples.
“This is targeted at 25- to 35-year-olds who are social media crazy. They’re doing it a lot with their own friends so what we’re trying to do is pull them back and say, do it within your own relationships,” said Al Tolstoy, who founded the site with his wife, Karla Stephens-Tolstoy, in Oakville, Ont.
