From the monthly archives:

January 2007

Found, Match.com Case Study

by David Evans on January 31, 2007   in Research

In November 2005, Court Rye wrote a Match.com case study. I stumbled across it doing a random Google search for industry information. His portfolio states he worked with Match.com employees to identify alternative business strategies, marketing techniques, and technology related opportunities and proposed RSS integration and chat room facilitation with sponsored events as a means [...]

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Multiple Bombs Found In Boston

by David Evans on January 31, 2007   in Uncategorized

Today the braindead marketers at Turner Broadcasting decided it was a good idea to PLACE FAKE BOMBS around Boston and nine other US cities.
I’ve been fielding calls all afternoon from around the country and I have been terribly worried about my friends in and around town.
To say I am sick to my stomach with [...]

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Where We Spend Our Time

by David Evans on January 31, 2007   in Traffic

Compete says only 20 domains capture a whopping 39% of all our time spent online. Adultfriendfinder was a surprise on the list.
In recent weeks, several people have turned me on to Quantcast, which contains lots of interesting data along side general traffic stats. I need to find out where they get this data from before [...]

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TrustPlus Portable Online Reputation

by David Evans on January 31, 2007   in Identity, Safety

My friend GPC, who used to do PR for eHarmony, went to the Web Innovators Group last night in Cambridge. I am deep into a project and couldn’t tear myself from the monitor and Greg was nice enough to post his review of the companies that presented.
One company which stuck out was TrustPlus, which is [...]

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Match.com Shoots for Unsexy in New Ads

by David Evans on January 31, 2007   in Marketing

Adrants says:
After Bob Garfield demolished them for disseminating unrealistic online puffery, we’re impressed by Match.com’s latest initiative, which takes a more intelligent approach than vapid sex-obsessed competitor True. The aim is to draw warmth to Match.com from people who still pan online dating as creepy, oversexed or are simply just too shy.
Amen to that, even [...]

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Overview of Identity Verification Services

by David Evans on January 31, 2007   in Identity, Safety

Read/WriteWeb has an overview of identity verification services. Having worked with Trufina and Opinity, I am intimately familiar with how they operate and current issues that need to be addressed if these companies hope to succeed.
At first, background checks were a solution looking for a problem. The thinking was along the lines of “We [...]

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HotorNot Cooling Off?

by David Evans on January 31, 2007   in Dating Sites, Finance

I had a chuckle this morning when I saw that Markus says that HotorNot competed with OkCupid. He thinks HotOrNot will move to a hybrid YouTube/dating model. Bizarre that they are shutting down HotOrNot, $5 million revenue for 5 people, but then again, they have to do something, their traffic appears to be tanking.

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Classmates Feature Upgrades

by David Evans on January 30, 2007   in Features

I like how Classmates has added further customization of profile pages, including the ability to create new pages featuring blogs, photo galleries and articles. If they can do it with hundreds of thousands (millions?) of members, what’s holding back dating sites from offering the same features? Most social nets offer some sort of customizability and [...]

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American Singles Only Site with Valentine’s Promotions

by David Evans on January 30, 2007   in Marketing

It looks like American Singles is the only dating site taking advantage of Valentine’s Day promotions by offering special affiliate banners. I’m surprised more sites are not doing this. An easy way to get out in front of affiliates, re-establish credibility and perhaps even drive some sales.

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Eharmony Launching New Service

by David Evans on January 30, 2007   in Dating Sites, Jobs

Eharmony needs a Product Manager and a Java/J2EE Developer to work on an emerging eHarmony service. I’m not sure what exactly the service is, let the rumors begin the the comments.

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