I just had a great conversation with the Down to Earth team. Down to Earth is the new Match.com free dating site. It will take a few days to process everything, will have something up next week. I also have a ton of information from my talk with Match over the holidays which will be up soon.
Talked to Userplane this week as well. Some of the team will be at iDate, but no huge party like last year, recession, ugh!
Any business that isn’t learning from their users doesn’t want to learn from their users. How Meetup performs user testing daily.
The word of the day is Tesla — “time elapsed since labs attended” — a measure of how long it’s been since a company’s decision-makers (not help desk) last saw a real user dealing with their product or service
Canal Winchester technology consultant iBeam Solutions Inc. has closed a deal to buy a New York online dating service. IBeam parent iB3 Networks Inc. recently completed the deal for NYC Mags Inc., the owner of Web site MadisonAvenueMatch.com. The startup Internet dating service, which will target New York professionals, is in the development stage and set to launch in the first quarter of 2009.
Are Stolen Facebook Profiles the New Hot Commodity?
Regarding Match using TrialPay as a lead generation mechanism: Many publishers of applications also gravitate towards this monetization avenue. Offerpal and Super Rewards are busy working with Facebook applications. Some applications developers have been running experiments and it turns out the conversion rates are comparable to other forms of display advertising.
Online dating serves as an analogy for the intended goal of many museum forays into the social Web.
I saw Slumdog Millionaire last night, highly recommended.
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“Down to Earth is the new Match.com free dating site. ”
- Merge Chemistry with Match (outside USA).
- Chemistry & Match will be only for paying members (subscribers)
- Launch a free site, DownToEarth as a tool to deliver a subliminal message “When you -dear free user- realize that nothing is really free, that you had been paying with precious time, part of your life, and spending time browsing and browsing free profiles could be more expensive than paying a serious online dating subscription fee; please go directly to a paid online dating site.” DownToEarth to leverage Chemistry & Match !
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Exactly, it’s a traffic driver and a way to lure people into the IAC/Match world. One thing is clear, they are going for a “higher-end” audience. After a single month they are signing up more users daily than 95% of all dating sites.
good analysis fernando.
effectively communicating the value of the free experience vs the paid experience is ultimately good for subscription based dating businesses and users. that said, i am curious as to how overt that message will be (if at all). will it be blatantly communicated (currently is not) or is it more subtle? the more overt (timing is important) the more effective one is in shaping/skewing the experience for the user.
seems like D2E has created a site that is by design not geared towards a favorable user experience and thus creates an opportunity to cherry pick frustrated members tired of spam/poor matches/rude members with an up sell to reputable paying sites that offer a better service. look at D2E’s search filters…they are practically non existent. gender, age range, radius, photos – hardly enough filters to increase your chances for pro actively finding a good fit. what does have me scratching my head is their post date rating system…seems to counter my aforementioned point for a watered down experience but the free site may serve as the preferred conduit for testing purposes while minimizing risks that may adversely affect the bottom line if prematurely rolled out on match.
dave, i know you have talked to D2E/match and have more info/insight on all this – looking forward to your post.
life is good.
oh btw, i love how there’s a ton of P of F ads on D2E – funny seeing a free paying site make money off another. also, there’s clearly no love loss between match and eHarmony with no eH ads featured in their “partners” section. any chance that will change? =)
Dating Ad Network must love to see the cross-promotion, banner exchanges are back.
I think that online dating is going in the right direction finally! http://www.virtulove.com is in beta stage and looks like it will be a good place to find other singals.