Someone emailed me this week to ask when Spark Networks acquired Engage. At first I thought they must be mistaken, but a visit to Engage shows the usual Spark Networks footer on the home page.
Years ago I worked with Engage to develop their signup process. It was a unique project because the signup forms were different for men and women.
A quick look at the whois database shows that the DNS records for Engage were last updated on 28-Jan-09.
No mention of the acquisition on the Engage blog, which means they were being very quiet about the deal. Spark hasn’t returned my emails, which is somewhat surprising given their new communications person is much easier to deal with than the previous people.
Engage started out quite strong, with a unique set of features that no other dating site has come close to replicating. The problem was that, brilliant as the conceptis, having people act as matchmakers for each other on a dating site doesn’t work right now.
Look at the precipitious traffic drop. Engage launched with about the same amount of money at OKCupid, but Engage spent too many years redoing the website and not focusing on marketing.
Last summer I interviewed Engage founder Suneet Wadwha along with TrishMcDermot on Cupidcast.
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I agree that the matchmaking function is too complicated and unnecessary. Any stranger can mess around and match random people. Maybe if it was only your friends who can match that might work. I wonder what the purchase price was. I’m sure spark can just as easily acquire a social network or partner with a social network if they want the leads. Engage does have a good name, kinda sounds like engadget, which is a better site. They should change engage to a matrimonial site like E-harmony and focus on making real engagements!
A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.
“It was a unique project because the signup forms were different for men and women.”
I have a question in general about these sites and most of what is Web2.0 out there… When are we going to actually move BEYOND the gender binary? Why do I have to be a man *or* a woman to sign up for dating, Facebook, Second Life, etc? A real unique and advanced and righteous site would allow for a lot more fluidity based upon gender and/or sexuality.
I think it’s worth discussing.
The market for people who are not man or woman is not quite large enough and would make searching quite difficult.