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As iDate approaches, I want to post what I hope are some provocative thoughts for you to ponder, with the goal of meeting many of you F2F in Miami and kick-starting a conversation about online dating in 2006 and beyond. Many of the following quick takes should be full posts, but things are too busy and I don’t want the ideas to fall off the radar, so here they are.
The typical single consumer is already dating online and the industry has proven
it’s having a heck of a time getting to 50 million. Do you throw more marketing
dollars at the problem? No, Match, Yahoo and Eharmony will outspend everyone.
Do you try to make the dating experience more interactive, safe and fun? A
resounding yes. What is being done to accomplish this? Not much.
Personality profiling is having it’s moment in the sun, how long will it last? I hate the stress of feeling like I am not answering correctly, even though “there are no wrong answers.”
Staring at static web pages of profiles which haven’t changed since the day they were created. Exciting! Where are the blogs?
Many women are scared they’re going to meet a felon and end up on an episode of CSI. What are dating sites doing to make them more comfortable? Not enough.
You can run but you can’t hide. It’s still far too difficult to unsubscribe from sites and the credit cards are often being overcharged.
Remixing: I like FastCupid’s database of women, but I wish I could get them to take the new Chemistry test. RSS feeds make it easier for third-parties to come along and create new services which enhance and improve the online dating experience. Where’s the business model for major dating sites that will entice them to open up their services to third parties? Do we need Dr. Phil or a better online dating experience, starting at the web browser or phone?
The barrier to entry into the dating market is so low, it’s become a problem. Anyone with a few free hours can have a dating site running, at a cost of close to zero. What are dating sites doing to develop intellectual property that makes new entrants think twice, no, five times, about entering the market?
If True.com’s legislative efforts are successful, it’s game over for many free sites focusing on casual daters. Of course, they could play the Myspace card and say they are a social networking site and avoid the penalty for not performing background checks.
Online dating will never be the next new thing again. You’ve had your time in the sun. Now it’s back to business fundamentals, membership consolidation and strategic partnerships.
Where is the market consolidation? There have been hardly any deals in the last six months, I’m surprised more roll-up plays haven’t been announced. Perhaps that’s because there is a dearth of databases with quality members, and high-traffic doesn’t mean quality by any means.
iDate is going to be heavy on retention tactics, it will be interesting to see, after the first person speaks, what else can be said.
Dating will be subsumed by social networking. Agree or disagree?
Anyone who starts a new dating site with the phrase “revolutionize the industry” has most likely not paid careful attention to the events of the last few years in the industry. Eharmony did it, but at what cost?
It’s important to look at what has failed as much as what has been successful. There are plenty of great ideas being driven by lackluster managers, and a handful of brilliant people held back by lack of funds or corporate organizational charts. Every manager at a dating site would do well to go pick up a copy of Crossing the Chasm to better understand how to take advantage of the changes in the dating industry business environment.
Self-policing- it can’t hurt the industry any more than it has already harmed itself.
How do differentiate between 20M profiles or 200 in your zip code? Consumers have no idea how to judge the differences between dating sites. Having more profiles means less and less.
Sites would do well to stop promoting “millions of profiles” and instead share how many people are in your area code. This is similar to the gigahertz wars between Intel and Apple. More does not necessarily mean better.
You never know what you’re going to get on a dating site until you spend a considerable amount of time on it interacting with other members. This is why I think the 3-day free trial is too short a time. You can’t get a real feel for a dating site in three days, let alone seven days.
Background checks, too bad they didn’t work out this last time around. It seems nothing short of an online serial killer will shift the industry towards a developing a more proactive safety-conscious environment.
I’m off to the beach until next week.
[tags: idatemiami2006]
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
http://www.epic.org/privacy/iei/attachment_a.pdf
“Anyone who starts a new dating site with the phrase “revolutionize the industry” has most likely not paid careful attention to the events of the last few years in the industry. Eharmony did it, but at what cost? ”
I think you mean to say that niche industries like paid dating won’t be revolutionized. People are using myspace by the millions for dating and myspace is a good 3 to 6 times bigger then the entire dating industry.
Going forward the big quesion is how are niche dating sites like match.com and eharmony going to compete against social networking gaints that use dating as a loss leader.
But here are the flaws:
1. Background checks would need to be repeated often to be meaningful.
2. Not all criminals have a record. Hence, false sense of security would be created.
3. If user pays for the check, it’d discourage users from trying out different dating sites to find one that works.
4. If websites pay for the check, the user still pays indirectly.
Regional criminal search - $40
Nationwide criminal search - $50
Sites with 20 million members need to come up with $50 x 20 mill = $1000 mill.
Basically a billion $$ a year for background checks! Maybe wholesale pricing and other factors could halve that. Even the whole dating industry revenue isn’t anywhere near a billion a year.
Do you still think background checks are realistic for mass memberships like online dating?
The biggest unknown right now is microsoft. They are launching a free classifieds system that includes personals. This will be integrated right into MSN messenger and windows live. The project sounds down right scary. Big question is what will happen to the Match.com deal and what will happen with the lavalife deal. Both are paying to display ads on messenger and have a button.
It does not seem to me that the dater looking to settle down is the best customer for a dating site, this person could provide little as a return customer. Serial daters would, logically, be a dating site’s best customer.
Matchinform.com offers a type of free date checking that is independent any dating site. We do not run a background check, we believe that there are plenty of people with good credit and no criminal background that one might still wish to avoid.
We ask daters to fill out a survey regarding their online dates, and we allow daters to input a user name and see what others have said. We think cooperation in this industry, as opposed to depending upon the good intent of the Match.coms of this world will prove more effective.
We would love to know what people think. email us at info@matchinform.com or use the contact us tab at info@matchinform.com or use the contact us tab at http://www.matchinform.com.
Regards,
Warren H. kelly
President
MATCHinform, Inc.
(240) 235-6005