I had a fantastic time in Miami Beach at the Social Networking and Internet Dating Conference. I haven’t been in a few years and it was great to reconnect with old friends and have a chance to finally meet people I’ve only talked with on the phone. I met a number of people for the first time that I’m looking forward to getting to know professionally as well as personally.
I didn’t get to as many sessions as I would have liked which was unfortunate. However, most of the dating sessions catered to new dating site owners, which is great for that segment of attendees, but as with most conferences, the action was in the hallways.
Special shout outs:
Mark Ezra at Honesty Online for the tremendous hospitality throughout the weekend.
Bill Broadbent at Instinct Marketing for the great conversation at the Delano. It was great to see Mike Jones and Janet from Userplane there as well, easily two of the nicest people in the dating industry and they know how to throw a party.
Ditto for Sam Moorcroft at ChristianCafe.com. Sam and his wife are tremendous people and a joy to be around. It doesn’t hurt that Sam has been kicking butt in the Christian Dating market ever since day one either, the man knows what he’s talking about.
Patrick Perrine at MyPartner for being so much fun to hang out with, whether it be shopping, dancing or people watching. We worked together last year and it was nice to finally met face to face.
Items of Interest:
Good to see Patrick and Dora at Personality Pro. Ralph Castillo of Cupids X Factors was all over the place as well, he created a personality assessment tool which sounds pretty slick. Tai Lopez at Elite Introductions was around. Tai is doing great work taking the concept of the online introduction to the next level.
I enjoyed getting to know more about what Lisa Clampitt of the Matchmaking Institute is up to. Keep an eye out for her, she’s got some amazing plans for the future.
I got to meet people from Chemistry.com, eHarmony, and a few others working at big social networking and dating sites that I won’t mention here, as some people prefer to remain in stealth mode at industry events and I need to respect their wishes.
Getting to spend time with Sam Yagan at OKCupid and Markus Frind of PlentyofFish was a real treat. Markus was never happier than when he said “I do everything opposite what you recommend on your blog and it’s working out great.” Well at least I could be of some help.
Several dating industry insiders have dated people they met on OKCupid. I wonder who the others are?
Brandy Shapiro-Babin of Webmaster Radio and I became instant friends as we hung around with the Thought Rocket team. They have a ton of interviews from the show up on the website.
I convinced E! Entertainment to come to the conference as part of a an online dating story they contacted me about. Lot’s of people were interviewed. Expect to see the finished product in a few months.
Having clients at a trade show meant spending a lot of time in the booth and repeatedly explaining things to curious onlookers. I think the LoveDetect booth came out great and showing off the ability to inject the service into any live dating profile blew people away.
Check out Vidoop for a new fun and secure way to allow people to log into your site, while earning you revenue at the same time.
You couldn’t walk 50 feet without running into a payment processor. I learned about several new payment options and finally got to meet Ryan at GlobalCollect.
One thing I’ve learned about this industry, and which was reinforced by several clients during the show, is how insulated and cliquy the dating industry appears to newcomers. We need to work on this.
Enlaso was exhibiting and they got me up to speed quickly on their latest translation services.
I got to learn more about White Label Dating and World Dating Partners, whose booths were next to each other. I’m still not clear on the differences between the two companies, as the selling proposition seems pretty similar. Ross Williams at White Label Dating says I have to get up to speed on what’s going on in the white label dating space. I agree.
Camlink speed dating launched today. Video-based speed dating is heating up.
One thing that bothered me was there there weren’t many major social networking sites in attendance. I hoped to make some inroads with certain people at Myspace and Facebook. Maybe next year.
Thursday night’s party was ok. I made it home relatively unscathed.
Friday night at Opium was great. I haven’t seen 4am in a while and had a blast dancing the night away. Special thanks to my dance partner, you made my night.
Dinner beforehand with several international matchmakers was fun, what a great group of people, including Julie Ferman and coach/dating guru Evan Katz and Alison Roth of Thought Rocket.
Perry Morgan at National Background Data told me all about how they sell criminal background check data wholesale.
I’m trying to find out how many domains were sold at the Friday domain name auction. I noticed a few decent url’s but most were not very interesting, at least to me.
As with tradition, the final dating industry panel featured free beer, and lots of it. Every time someone said “customer service” I took a drink. Every time Markus said that paid dating is dying, I took a drink.
The panelists didn’t drink enough for the conversation to get really interesting. Some good points were made and there was some visible tension on the stage, but nobody really blew things wide open. Guess we were all too drained from two days of networking and partying.
A big shout out to OnlineBootyCall, who had me choking on my beer every time they made a point or asked a question. Who knew a site that that would do so well?
I just this minute realized the goody bag for the event included a small version of the schedule. A good idea, but a little to late for me.
At some point during the show I lost my phone, thankfully the event staff found it quickly.
When I am doing radio or phone interviews, I’m animated and show some character. Stick a camera in my face and I turn wooden. I need more practice.
In South Beach, seeing two Lamborghini’s flying by at 80 mph with their throaty exhaust growl is almost as exciting as a walk along the beach mid-day.
It was difficult to come home to such a crushing loss for the Patriots. People are walking around in shock, myself included. Now it’s time to pick through the pile of business cards I amassed in Miami and get to work on the usual post-conference tasks. Almost forgot, have to go vote today!
