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Mark Brooks does another Dating Industry CEO interview, this time It’s Cupid.com’s CEO and co-founder. Eric Strauss.
The bit about advertising Cupid on radio is interesting and the Predating deal seems to be working out, but who really knows? Lots of talk about “localism”, yet as we know from the failed Match Events, the event is only as good as the person running it. If your local people are not dedicated, keeping the events database up to date and reaching out to members, they might as well be phoning it in.
RSS feeds for local events is smart. Partnering with CitySearch or TimeOut or MeetUp makes sense at some point.
Speaking of speed dating, 8 Minute Dating seems to be chugging along, CEO Tom Jaffee has been busy with his new company, Networking Match. Think speed dating at business conferences. Great concept.
James Houran, the Chief Psychologist at TRUE.com (enough with the upper caps!) weighs in and Fernando Ardenghi, who always leaves though-provolking comments and insights on dating blogs, hits the nail on the head with his comment. There is nothing in the interview about revenue or the future of online dating.
No love is lost between Strauss and Eharmony:
Scientific matching is total unadulterated b.s. The eharmony concept is, in my view bullshit. Also, because of the perceived value of this scientific matching hocus pocus, they’re able to charge double.
That’s one way to put it.
As I’ve always said, the current generation of dating sites are introduction services. Predetermining compatibility is not the same as working with a couple throughout the lifetime of a relationship.
Someday, dating sites will figure out how to make money working for customers farther along the relationship timeline.
For example, I unsubscribe from a dating site because I’ve met someone. The dating site asks me why I’m leaving, and I say “because I met someone.” Some sites already do this.
Why then, doesn’t the site check in with my in a few months to see how things are going? Where are the 3 and 6-month touchpoints?
Match and Yahoo! have millions of stale profiles. Every time I have approached them about converting inactive members to active members, I’m met with resistance.
Why spend millions on advertising when you have re-activate members for pennies?
Several relationship test companies offer pre-marriage and mid-relationship tests and surveys. Why more dating sites don’t offer these services is beyond me.
Mostly, it’s because dating sites are terrified of their customers. They’re ok when it comes to getting that credit card number, but from there on out you’re on your own.
At ProfileDoctor we offer a 21-day checkup, where we ask customers what they thought of the service, offer some additional value-added products and set the stage for continuing follow-on communication. We establish a level of trust, which leaves the door open for other future opportunities.
Go survey your customers, ask them what they want from you, and especially where you’re not servicing their needs. Forget about traffic ranking for a while and focus on your core values and service differentiators. And don’t forget to have a great 4th of July weekend.
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They might as well choose Astrology for compatibility tests. Using words like “Science” and “Psychology” and “Personality Tests” for Matching implies good theories of mate compatiblity and relationship success, which *we don’t have* at this moment in our understanding of human behavior, especially human mating behavior.
Have you not seen too many “perfect for each other” mates break up in a heartbeat… and too many “uncompatible” people, completely different type of people, do perfectly fine in a marriage lasting for decades? Look closely at the relationships around you.
Compatibility in psychological and scientific circles often is equated to similarity in personality traits (not always, but often). This itself is questionable and is an assumption. Prove it to me that a partner who is very much like me is my ideal mate??? Just because we like snow-boarding, watching movies or doing yoga, and doing 50 other things together, are we compatible?
Love and relationships at this stage of our scientific or psychological understanding of human mating behavior are not much different from trying to understand planetary motion before Newton. We have some empirical data, but very little…. but no sound theories, laws. Any attempt to give it a scientific touch is not right, I believe.
Dating sites are better off sticking to their primary aim of putting single people together. What they call Scientific, Psychologically, or Personality based Matching is an oversimplification of human mating behavior…a very complex phenomenon.
John
http://www.dating-profile.com
Match and Yahoo! have millions of stale profiles. Every time I have approached them about converting inactive members to active members, I’m met with resistance.
**********************
Given that 10-40% of their users were married in the first place, I think they realize that emailing their old member base isn’t a very good idea.
Please see these two papers.
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/psp882304.pdf
and
http://web.media.mit.edu/~atf/papers/chi2004_personals_short.pdf
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
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