Friday, May 22, 2009    Text size: 

Philip “Pud” Kaplan founded FuckedCompany.com back during the dot-com bust to chronicle the fates of various companies as they fell victim to the bursting bubble. Fittingly, FuckedCompany.com is now defunct.

Kaplan also founded the advertising network AdBrite. He recently launched his latest venture, the Twitter-based flirting and dating website Fast140.com.

The site includes most of the bells and whistles common to dating sites, but it's fully integrated with Twitter and requires a password to view any profiles.

The service is free and lets users search for potential mates by gender, location and keywords. According to Kaplan, his site uses a proprietary algorithm to determine the gender of Twitter users.

One helpful addition is the option to send direct messages to anyone on Twitter, even if a user isn't following that user. Tech pundit Leena Rao of TechCrunch.com noted that Kaplan has the chance to challenge dating king Match.com because of his ready-made user base.

"Kaplan says that because of Twitter’s popularity, Flirt140 could rival the reach of the world’s largest dating site, Match.com," Rao said. "According to its site, Match currently has 15 million single users in 37 countries."

Online estimates places Twitter's user base at anywhere from 4 million to 6 million.