Astrology Explored

October 28, 2008

When I was in college, some thirty odd years ago, at Syracuse University, the Computer Sciences department promoted a computer dating project where students were matched by “astrology” to other students. On my end it was an unmitigated disaster. In the middle of the freezing Syracusian winter, I put on my bathrobe over my clothes to keep warm in my dorm room. My date came to my door and seeing me in the bathrobe assumed wrongly that I was not ready to go out. He was so unpleasant about the whole thing I told him I was sick and sent him on his way. I don’t remember what his Sun sign was, though I do remember that supposedly his was the best match of the three matches given to me. I never heard from the other two. (Remember, thirty years ago girls weren’t suppose to call the boys.) Only God and the student programmers who came up with the project only knows what criterion was used for matching people, but it was probably based on Sun signs only, and every astrologer worth their salt knows that Sun signs are just one part of the equation. Perhaps this is why we hadn’t seen a successful commercial project based on astrology, though there had been tantalizing whispers.

In May, while at the UAC conference, Monica at Astrology Mundo wrote:

The subject of my interest was a meeting between an astrological software developer and a venture capitalist for an astro matchmaking service that comes with social networking features. I did a quick Google search and it does appear that some dating sites have tried to incorporate astrology, but nothing big-time jumped out at me.

What any of us did not know at the time was that such a service was in development. I found out this new company when they contacted me to write copy for their website.

Kurt Grandis, President and CEO wrote this to me about Starlinked:

“It will be free to join Starlinked and browse your matches (ala Match and eHarmony) and then communication between users requires a subscription.

Astrological compatibility is currently a secret sauce, but essentially based on your traditional planetary interactions through both composite and synastric charts. So the engine runs through and essentially runs the charts between everyone. The result is a compatibility score between 0 and 100.”

As an added plus, you don’t need to fill out endless questionnaires to find your most compatible match.

Kurt was especially concerned that a good explanation was written about why a birth time was needed as well as having a blog piece written that explains relationship astrology techniques. He also explained that eventually he wants astrologers to be involved with an affiliate program so that Starlinked members can obtain the services of an astrologer when they want one. All in all, it seems like a pretty cool and fun way to meet people, that is when there is enough of client base so that there can be local matches for everyone. Since the company is based in North Carolina, they are concentrating their initial efforts there.

Monica, who is more a reporter than I am, sent Kurt a list of interview questions, so maybe we see a post from her soon. In the meantime, Kurt asked me to write some more blog posts, with the next one due up on November 3. Maybe I’ll see you there.

If you have a question you would like answered on these pages, send your question, birth time, birth date and birth place to starrynightastro@aol.com.