Match Testimonials Spotted: I spotted my first testimonial on Match.com last night. they’ve been available for months now and I’ve seen exactly one. This does not bode well for the adoption rate of the feature.
Match has a good marketing and PR department but when it comes to talking to memebers they fall flat on their face. Why does Match do such a lackluster job telling members about these services?
I’m doing a review of dating site marketing emails for a client, and after looking at the well-executed emails from eHarmony and Y! Personals throughout the customer life-cycle, it struck me that It’s almost as if Match is scared to engage members.
Catching up with dating site circa 2004, Match has rolled out “Who’s Favorited Me”, which lets members know when someone has added them to their Favorites list. Finally, a useful feature! While you’re at it tell me not just who viewed me, but when. I would trade testimonials, Dr. Phil and my left thumb for more ways to connect with people on Match.
It’s amazing at how many sites are simply copying what SpringStreet/FastCupid was doing seven years ago. Can you believe Match has been around since 1994 and the current site is their state of the art? Boggles my mind sometimes.
Imagine if SpringStreet was able to grow their marketshare faster and not be hung up with all the newspaper and advertising problems. I should have maxed out a few credit cards and bought the site myself to keep it from being ruined. God knows what Penthouse is going to do with it. Has Penthouse done anything interesting with the FriendFinder sites yet? I’m not hearing anything.
Probably just going to sell AFF members stuff from the Penthhouse store. Update: When I got home today I was greeted with the Playboy catalog, which I have never received in my entire life, ironic.
Does anyone actually read adult magazines annymore? Maxim and FHM practically put them out of business, hence the new digital focus.
eHarmony is running circles around Match and Y! Personals, forget about the traffic. At this point, I’m ready to say that eHarmony deserves their success. The company has been fairly successful putting the whole Christian/Focus on the Family marketing debacle behind them.
I bet the majority of people on eHarmony aren’t even aware of the marketing brouhaha. Except of course Chemistry.com, spending a ton of money to go after the urban free-thinking intellectuals eharmony can’t seem to market to. Wasn’t that how SpringStreet started out?
eHarmony is innovating, continuously updating the site and matching algorithm and making hundreds of millions in the process. That’s what I call progress.
Asia is the next battleground. Match will leverage their IAC roots to gain a foothold in the market through acquisitions and partnerships. I’m sure Match will gain the upper hand at first. My friend just asked me how you say eHarmony in Chinese. We’ll know soon enough.
Coming up – I’ll talk about the effect recent social dating site funding is having on dating sites trying to raise startup capital.
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Nice article. I think a lot ofthe future lays in niche dating. Sites like : http://www.TheFitnessPersonals.com
Mr. Evans, you wrote “… … eHarmony is innovating, continuously updating the site and matching algorithm.”
????
How do you exactly could know eHarmony is updating its matching algorithm ?
Because if eHarmony updates its matching algorithm, eHarmony should recalculate compatibility between prospectives mates in its entire big database!!!
Many sites like YahooPersonals (WeAttract), Chemistry and others could receive feedback from their clients/users to make minor changes or slightly corrections, but they do not recalculate compatibility between prospectives mates in its entire big database.
As far as I know eHarmony only constructed the English_for_Canada_version, English_for_Australia_version and the Chinese_for_China_version of its “all-purpose” English version normative compatibility test.
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Fernando, Geoff, how do you know that these companies are updating their algorithms? Eharmony and Match are very good sites. Before they update their whole database they need to make sure that the new standards they are basing their results of are right on.
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