A recent commenter said that all the world needs is a single dating site. On this blog, you should back that assertion up. Why only one service?
“People that complain about Match obviously don’t understand how to use it properly” is an uninformed opinion. You are putting the responsibility for the user experience on the user, which is not how sites should be developed. Part of this is on the shoulders of the designers at dating sites.
If I had a big bag of VC money and I put together a one-page business plan and flew to each major dating company and cherry-picked the smartest people, which I think would be pretty easy at this point, and said we’re starting from scratch, we could probably build a single best of breed site in a few months.
It would show total number of users in your area.
It would allow you to tag yourself, and others, to make searching easier.
Perhaps a personality test, integrated with search and results pages.
Subscriptions- $500 for six months.
Pay for promotion- maybe. More on this later, it’s a hot topic right now.
I would bring in social networking guru’s, business model or not, they tend to understand the dynamics of bringing people together at a much deeper level than most dating sites.
I would also borrow search from Yahoo and tags from Consumating.com.
What features would you add to your site?
[tags: dating sites, user+interface]
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Umm, isn’t this what True.com kinda tried to do? They’ve spent who-knows-how-many-multiple-millions-of $$, with profitability an impossible dream, a year or so out. I think Herb Vest’s idea was to “show Match.com how it’s done” (and the rest of us yahoo’s out there).
So much for all that.
More True.com bashing?!! Hmm…I’ve heard of True.com and am a member, like many of my friends and acquaintances. Funny how Sam Moorcroft bashes True.com, which seems to be growing well and has offered some great products, when neither me nor my friends have even heard of ChristianCafe.com!
Moorcroft could learn many lessons from True.com. In my and many people’s opinions, they did show Match.com (and many others) how it’s done. ChristianCafe beating True.com — that seems more like the impossibility dream.
Randy Smith
serious online dater
Herb, I mean randy, what exactly has true.com showed the industry? I’ve seen the yearly advertising budget promoted as being 30 million. Yet i see no organic growth from spending all that money.
http://ranking.websearch.com/I/TrankChart.aspx?url=www.true.com&period=12&size=2
I’ve got 40 some sites in nearly every industry… I can tell you that no organic growth = death in the long term.
Good grief, you guys are crazy! Now, I’m Herb Vest?! Just because someone comes out in favor of your competitor (or some service you love to hate) you feel so distressed that you must whine and cry “foul?!”
I’m a consumer, and one who has actually tried a number of sites. Instead of trying to patronize me, why don’t you listen to actual customers. From my perspective, True.com has been the only company to do interesting things in this industry — from disclosure and safety pushes (and I see that both Match and Yahoo now adopt pushes of theirs, albeit it is subtle and not publicized) to offering customers evidence-based products and materials.
Markus, I thought Dave Evans recently posted here that the kind of numbers you cite can’t be trusted. And I doubt you are really in the know as to what their advertising budget is and what they gained or lost from it. Death in the long-term for True.com? Time will tell, but they sure don’t act like it and the site activity and buzz I see everyday about them would argue otherwise.
Randy Smith
serious online dater and someone with no irrational-looking grudge against True.com like the commentators I’ve seen here
No one in the industry thinks true.com is a serious competitor, they have been losing money like crazy, paying $4.25 to $14.00/email address. As a last ditch effort to gain exposure and maybe some competitiveness they attempted to legislate their failed business model. I think you will find the industry is way more scared of me then of true.com
***Vice President, Marketing, True.com (Dallas, TX)
Mr. Butler hired and managed a team of 25 marketing professionals handling new customer acquisition, conversion, and retention and an annual media budget of $24 million. In his time with True, Mr. Butler launched strategic marketing partnerships which catapulted True.com from the #58 highest ranked property in the Online Personals category to the #1 ranked property (July 2004, Media Metrix). During that period, Mr. Butler grew the service’s membership base from 100,000 members to over 1.2 million members.
Whats the idea behind charging $500 for six months? Is this an attempt to weed out the time wasters?
As regards personality profiling i think that they are all gimmicks. The BBC recently tested a whole range of dating compatability tests and none of them worked. Unfortunatly love is not rational. On my own site I have decided to just keep it simple, I think the important thing is just to meet people in real life and hopefully you will click with one of them.
A personality test is a must. In a couple of years, a dating site without one will not be able to compete. While some people seem persuaded that romantic compatibility tests in general are bogus, the bottom line (supported by a number of scientific studies) is that personality, values and communication style play a major role in relationships satisfaction.
True, most compatibility tests I reviewed have poor psychometric properties and commit every error in the Testing 101 book. However, the fact that most of these assessments have nothing to show when it comes to their predictive value doesn’t mean that it’s unfeasible. It is indeed possible when you use a well-constructed, scientifically valid test, and we have data that confirm that. Personality and other personal characteristics can make the searches for potential mates so much more precise … why not take advantage of that?
We have recently launched MatchScale – a complete compatibility assessment system, including a comprehensive personality test, personal report, match report and an overall match score that can be integrated with regular demographic search. We have also integrated a new feature – screening for people who are likely to be stalkers or perpetrators of domestic violence.
People tell us they learn from the assessment so much – from answering questions that make them think, to learning about what makes them tick and how they are perceived by others, to understanding the most likely dynamics of a potential relationships.
Brian, you say love is not rational … I say, define rational! Infatuation, maybe. Yes, there is the chemistry issue. But Solid match is terms of personality sure feeds the chemistry, plus ensures that when the infatuation weakens (and it does in all couples eventually), there is enough substance to carry the couple through the long-term ups and downs.
$500.00 is nothing.
eLove.com is getting between $1,500 – $3,000 intiation fee and $19.95 per month.
Customers will pay for VALUE!!
Agree with Terry. I would like to see the BBC piece on personality tests, any pointers to where it lives on the web?
I tend to agree with Brian above. I think people like to keep it simple. They are looking at photos of people in their area. They’ll read the essays to learn more about them. A well written essay can say a great deal about someone. No essay can also say something about the person.
I believe the next requirement from our users will be idenity verification and possibly criminal background checks. I think our biggest “challange” is fake profiles (including OtherSingles.com) Our customers are getting more savvy and are questioning whether the person they are in contact with is really who they say they are. Identity verification is critical if we are asking members to pay before they can e-mail someone.
I am in the process of incorporating identity verification on OtherSingles. I am on the fence as to whether include criminal background checks. I hate to have someone “weeded” out because of a pot bust a few years back. Thoughts?
I agree with Dr. Ilona Jerabek, who also invented True Compatibility Test, that a personality test is a must.
But I also think that the complete trait inventory like 16PF will have to be used, instead of the simple Costa & McCrae Big-5.
The Industry will need more power calculation, more reliability, more precision in the compatibility-results given to test-takers
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
This is the BBC site for the program:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/sexsecrets/
Unfortunatly it does not give much info, it was all covered in the show. I wonder would it be floating around the bitstream network?
Worth a try.
I have never heard of elove (I am in Ireland) how are they doing? I need to sort out a pricing model for my site at: http://www.sparkireland.com
I can’t decide :-( I am torn between a yearly fee, or a flat one off fee. I don’t want to do monthly as we all know people only signup for a month or two. My rational is you are going to get the same cash from them, so you might as well give them a year. Which pricing model do you folks like best?
People pay more than $500 for dating services? Wow! That’s unbelievable. I mean in 1974, Together dating was charging $250, now people are getting more than double that amount. How in the heck do they do it? I thought everyone paid $20-$40 per month.
Thanks for the link Brian. Ilona, I disagree about personality tests, no news there. They are a component that many dating sites may choose to offer. Saying they are a must in order to promote your product doesn’t do much good here, you’re talking to people who hear “you have to offer my value-added service or your company will die” all too often. Show us metrics, how tests measurably increase customer satisfaction, better first dates, longer relationships, etc. Otherwise, it’s just marketing.
Self-examination is of value, but people don’t join dating services to get to know themselves better. They have already paid for the service, so that’s not a selling point.
Dave,
Great post…you really stirred things up and got people to talk.
You mention in your initial post that if you were building the ultimate dating site you would “cherry-picked the smartest people� and you go on to say “which I think would be pretty easy at this point.�
I’m curious who you think these people are or which site they work for. And specifically, which features these sites have implemented that make these people so smart or innovative.
I don’t think background checks are going to fly….what sells is a site with lots of pretty, smiling faces. Initiating background checks is going to significantly weed out the members, remove the impulse purchase (when people pull out the credit card to contact mr/ms hottie), and lastly I believe it would introduce a level of liability to the sites that would not be accompanied by a high enough increase in revenues.
I was wondering are there any discussion forums for online dating? It seemed to me like it would be a good idea to have a place where industry people could chat.
Has Corante any forum facilities? Or what about google groups? I am half geek so I would be happy to setup a forum on my server if there is no other option.
What do you think Dave? If we set it up, would you link to it?
I set one up a while ago, nobody really used it so I took it down. Too much spam, difficult to moderate and most busy dating executives prefer blog format, they don’t have the time or desire to wade through flame wars, which is invariably what will happen. There are a few boards around, Google for them, but I don’t they they offer much more than what you get here.
Interesting user board:
http://messageboards.ivillage.com/iv-rlcyber
Adding my 2 cents Dave:
I want to see more objective information.
Height is good, but Weight also gotta be there. No such thing as average, above average, all is subjective. I have met many women online who were lying about their weight (I remember reading a study that on dating sites, men are likely to lie about their income, and women about their weight or how good they look).
It should also clearly ask if you are looking for a stable relationship or marriage, just friends, or a fling. Match.com Latino does ask that, but the English one doesn’t. Nor does Yahoo Personals USA.
As subjective a thing as profile writing might seem to be (my business!), I am attracted to the concrete, to the substance behind the words.
The more objective the information, the more reliable and useful it becomes.
John
Founder http://www.dating-profile.com
Co-Founder http://www.MatrimonialProfile.com (India)