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OmniDate is getting some heavy PR after they redesigned the site. WooMe just got $12 million to make video introductions and SpeedDate continues to grow in popularity. Will people prefer Flash-based avatars from Omnidate, live video conversations from WooMe or strictly speed-dating from SpeedDate? Which company will be the first to land a large dating site as a parter? Or in WooMe’s case, a large consumer site targeting 20-somethings?
There is room in the market for all three and the chart below is a clear indicator of which services consumers prefer today.
The voyeurism of WooMe is where its at for the younger set. Right now, go sign up and feel the excitement and anticipation as you attempt to join a 4-way chat with two hot men or women. Call me crass, that’s the primary reason guys are on WooMe. There are some very hot young women there and as long as they feel safe and continue visiting the site the men will continue to seek them out. Watch that traffic continue to grow in coming months, although summertime may put a bit of a damper on growth, if speed and video-introductions follow the dating market trends to any extent.
WooMe is cash-heavy and has a solid growth strategy in place, I’m eyeing them closely. A $12 million fundraising round gives them the resources to out-spend the competition just like Obama outspends Hillary (although I’m upset about his campaign finance reversal, shame on him, but that’s for another blog.)
SpeedDate is on it’s way, moving on up the chart, closing in on WooMe. I love watching them battle it out, even though they are going after different markets. What kind of stories does the chart below tell you?
I had to include overall visits as well. It appears that Omnidate gets a lot more repeat visits than Woome or Speeddate.
OmniDate is for people who want to interact before going on a date. WooMe is for people who don’t think twice about turning on a webcam and chatting with a few people. Totally different markets.
They both want dating site partners, but WooMe was smart to avoid the dating-only branding, which opens them up to a number of other opportunities that OmniDate and SpeedDate can’t easily enter without building new functionality.
Ravit Ableman at Omidate took me on a virtual date a while ago. I was touching her hand, blowing kisses and flirting too quickly and she made me slow down. Great way to teach men manners. Much has changed since then, I’ll have to ask her out again for another demo. Omnidate wants to serve as a bridge between profile reading and meeting in person, like SpeedDate. Woome could care less if you meet up after your session. Another big reason why people like Woome. Meet, talk and cya later. There is no pressure for a big next step.
Here’s what I think. OmniDate is in a full-court PR press while it struggles to get traction. PR is important, but if the market doesn’t appreciate what you’re buying, no growth.
Is OmniDate going directly after consumers or trying to do deals with dating sites? If they are strictly doing deals with dating sites, then the traffic numbers are justifiable, at least for now. If they are more focused on consumer marketing, they have some re-strategizing to do. Balancing PR-generated interest spikes with risk of over-saturation is a tough play.
WooMe is built to succeed from the start. I’m not concerned with them improving the service, it’s at the magic 80% mark now, the expense of implementing the other 20% of features is not worth it. Now it’s time to market the hell out of the service.
To date, the competition is relatively quiet when it comes to marketing yet they have left OmniDate in the dust. something tells me that OmniDate will get a bump in traction if they can land a partner like Spark Networks or a strong niche site. Potential dating site partners will look at this graph and make their own inferences.
It’s my belief that a kick-ass service will often trump noisy marketing. Why? People are talking about great services on Facebook and blogs and the water cooler. And inviting their friends.
Dating sites suffer from a distinct disadvantage from most online properties. You really can’t have passionate users like you can with say Flickr or SecondLife or Basecamp. Dating site members are gone in a few months. Either they found a date and maybe told a few close friends or they didn’t, in which case they told 10 people online dating didn’t work.
That’s why big sites are forced to spend over 25% of their revenue on marketing. If they didn’t they would disappear overnight.
One thing about dating sites that’s unfortunate. Either you’re dating and quickly off the site or you’re not and you’re unhappy with the experience. There is no in-between, and there is nothing the dating site can do to help. A better profile isn’t going to do it, neither is a coach. The only thing that helps is joining another dating site, or copious amounts of tequila therapy.
Live video is the quickest way to get the initial 411 on someone. Avatar-based chat is next, especially when it’s linked to a Q&A session.
Maybe these services can help, but I’d almost rather check out how you represent yourself with your Instant Messaging avatar and a quick chat. Go check out Yahoo IM avatars, they are a lot of fun, almost like Tamagotchi. All living things may fear my presence but my Yahoo avatar is looking good 24×7.
What happens when people discover all of these services and stop going to dating sites altogether?
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