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Reverse Matching is the latest feature on Match.com.
From the website:
With one click, we can deliver the members who are looking for you using the personal information you’ve entered in your profile.
That sounds interesting. Let’s try it on my profile. Drumroll…. 50 pages of women! Apparently I’m not as discerning as I thought, or the reverse matching algorithm is not doing it’s job.
Read the fine print, “To get different results, simply update your profile.” I’m casting too wide a net with my current requirements, and I need to narrow down my criteria. I revised my profile, cranking down on my criteria, especially age range, hair color and finances and mark all “selection very important”. I see there is a new interface for editing.
Done. Because I didn’t change my essay, I’m exempt from the 24-72 hour review period. I’ll wait until I get a confirmation and then share my reverse matching results. Hopefully less than 50 pages next time.
I see a new feature for gently letting down people who contact you with a selection of “not interested” emails. I don’t have any emails in my inbox so I can’t vouch for this but I do know that Yahoo! has provided this option for quite some time. Match is starting to play catch-up and matching Yahoo! feature for feature, interesting.
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Serious online daters will always pay more to get access to others like them. Paid access also plays another important role, it separates them from the brunt of the casual daters and predatory kooks.
I just did a quick search for women 25-35 within 25 miles of Boston on each of the sites you mentioned. I’m not going to pick on any of them, but the results were less than appealing overall. I got results from the UK, Canada and most didn’t have photos. Many of those that did have photos were obviously from model sites.
Let’s get one thing straight. Just because a site is free does not mean it’s offering something special. If anything, the free sites are going to play a lesser role in the future. Talk to any major online advertiser, they stay away from free sites. They want high-quality traffic, not just high-quantity. Same goes for serious singles. They want to find people through a reputable site offering great customer service, helpful advice, super profiles and offers links to the offline dating world as well. Most free sites can’t deliver across these important values.
I find it hard to believe that match.com or any other dating site can compete against a company that has unlimited resources and is offering thier service for free and using it as a loss leader. Currently webdate is the high bidder for nearly every dating related term out there on google and yahoo. They are also huge on spyware networks and email spam etc.
Here is a excerpt from one of webdate.com’s Job postings
Large Internet company think-tank with several properties in the Alexa top 100. We are constantly thinking of new concepts to develop Internet properties. Most of our properties are based around online communities. We have a corporate infrastructure on the cutting edge of technology. We hold several patents and copyrights associated with our Internet properties and technology. Some of our Internet properties include webdate.com, learnaboutyourslf.com, cellspot.com, sublimedirectory.com, etc.
(After leafing through the fake domain registrations you find that the contact for cellspot is nastydollars.com)
Match.com itself is bigger then the parent of Webdate … Match.com had US$15m sales in 2003, and more than that is expected for 2004.
Match.com’s parent is IACI, which has a US$17 billion market cap and over US$1 billion of cash sitting in the bank.
So, I think Match.com can compete.
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