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Let’s hear it for sunburn, jet-lag and being back in rainy Boston. Last week was in LA to meet with clients who were attending the iDate LA conference so I decided to stop by the show to check out the west coast version of iDate.
For those of you who have never been to an iDate event, a quick primer. iDate has been around long enough to be considered a must-attend event for the online dating industry. It has the unique position of being the only dating conference in the US. There was a previous conference organizer, SITRAS, which folded after only two shows. Turns out that at the time the US dating industry could only support one show a year. iDate runs two US shows a year, one held in the Jan-Feb time frame in Miami and a summer show in Los Angeles. There are also European and Asian versions of the conference. Most major US and some EU and Asian players invested in the online dating industry attend the Miami show. However, many of them don’t go to LA unless that’s their back yard.
Given the importance of an event of this magnitude, a large number of people came up to me during every iDate show show to give me their personal assessment, some of which I have included below, along with my own observations. Feedback came from a wide spectrum of people, from first timers and speakers to people and companies who have spent tens of thousands of dollars on sponsorships and entry fees over the years.
To get an unbiased reaction to the show, let’s hear from @aprilblackbox, who did this video review of iDate LA. I started the #idatela2009 hashtag on Twitter. Only 4 messages which was disappointing. April’s tweet was “@ “idate” conference in LA.dominated by white men & theres zero inovation.classic rinse & repeat of what’s out there:pay 2 look at profiles.” There’s your unbiased opinion.
Overall, the consensus seems to be that the conference is stuck in first gear. For the $100-$300,000 that these shows bring the organizers, attendees think they deserve a better experience overall. What then, are the perceived issues with iDate?
For the most part the sessions aren’t delivering the content, insight and commentary that industry executives expect. This is the number one statement I heard from attendees. Topically, the sessions need to be improved to better reflect the interests of online dating executives. Where, for example, are the sessions on acquiring, driving and trading traffic between dating sites and social networks? What about technology issues, or dating software? Where is the track on usability and user testing? These are the topics I focus on with my dating industry clients, where is the external support and discussion for these pressing issues? The lack of any focus on these common denominators is a source of frustration for attendees. Their words, not mine.
There are issues with the conference which clearly need attention. None of the changes required are rocket science, it’s about listening to your customers, especially when their are other options emerging for connecting with our peers and learning about industry best practices and vendor exposure.
Attendees want more from the industry overview. The industry is hungry for insight and commentary. We know where we are, where are we going?
Areas where sessions need improvement: moderators need to ask more/better questions and keep the energy in the room flowing. And the microphones should work, all the time.
Sponsors seem a bit too closely tied to speaking slots for some people’s tastes. Some speaker/sponsors seem mismatched with their topics.
The final session, which many people take later flights for, did not deliver enough value to justify sticking around. More on this later, because I think this year’s LA closing session reflects much of how the online dating industry thinks and perceives itself.
The buyers and sellers session was sparse, not enough dating sites for sale in attendance. I didn’t go to this but this was the feedback from several people who were there. this is understandable, the dating sites worth buying have been looked at by everyone in the industry and are in general way over-valued.I hear the Google Insights panel was chock-full of interesting data. I need to see that PPT deck for sure.
Patti Stanger, missed this one. Either you love her show or you don’t watch it. I heard it got contentious for a while, at the same time she also basically gave away everything that she has done to get where she is today.
3 Mobile Dating Strategies That Work. Brendan O’Kane, Messmo. Their offering seems just right for certain dating sites wishing to capitalize on mobile. He was swamped with interest during the show. Ted Verani at Jumbuck is a veritable wealth of knowledge, having worked at just about every mobile company ever involved with online dating. I heard they are making $20 million a year with their applications. I’m trying out their Powerchat iPhone app right now, lot’s of kids on there.
Deepak Thomas at Match shared some good stats, I really wanted to sit down one-on-one with him to ask some non-trivial questions. Maybe next time.
Top 10 Decision Criteria For The Selection of Your Mobile Dating Enabler was very good. Christine Loredo at Trilibis knows her business through and through and is a lot of fun to hang around with. Her presentation (marketing) with her compatriot Austin(technology) was a great look into what dating sites need to think about as they develop their mobile dating strategies. The online dating industry simply cannot ignore mobile any longer. I learned a lot and walked away feeling like these were two of the key sessions of the show.
Skout, which offers a mobile dating platform, did not attend, I know Christian and Redg are up to some very cool stuff right now which I’ll be breaking here soon.
Dr. Jim Houran’s session (seen here with Larry Michael from MatchMatrix), Assessing Profiles for Compatibility, was by far the most entertaining. Jim is one of the people I’ve been following for years and it was great to sit down and finally get a chance to connect. I love when I finally get to meet people in person that I’ve only communicated with online. Part of me wishes that his was a panel session with the creators of other testing systems (Fernando and someone from eHarmony or Perfect Match would be a great group to hear from). The overview of various online dating compatibility systems was well received and I applaud Dr. Houran’s willingness to realize this is early times in the matchmaking sciences and his openness was refreshing. This is round one when it comes to compatibility testing, we’ve barely even begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible.
I missed Increasing Customer Retention and various Product Demos, ended up interviewing a few people instead and getting pulled into random conversations.Payment processor demos and talks I skip in general. Vindicia is a solid bet for chargebacks and anti-fraud services and a few the other payment-related vendors are doing very well in the space.
On Friday, Alex Mehr absolutely killed it with his talk, Online Dating & Social Networking: A Marriage Made in Heaven? Best presentation of the show, hands down. The social dating application companies are so far ahead of most dating sites in terms of understanding their customers, viral marketing and the minutiae of working with social networks like Facebook, its no wonder they are gaining market share quickly, especially in the UK.
Alex was super informative and he even sported ripped holes in his jeans to show off his Zoosk boxers. During the session I was sitting near to Cliff at SNAP, makers of Are You Interested. They are doing very well in the space as well. Social gaming and to some extent social dating is huge yet remains underground for the most part. There are tons of small teams out there making millions of dollars off social networking advertising. But they don’t go to iDate. I’m going to be paying a lot more attention to that side of the industry in coming months. That’s where all the action, money, funding and excitement is these days. Check out All Facebook and Inside Facebook to see what I’m talking about.
Viximo talked about virtual goods. I know them well as they are local to Boston, so I went outside and talked to some more people. They hallways, as always, was where the action was. How many more times to dating sites need to hear the pitch to understand the importance of virtual goods?
I missed Marina Glogovac at her talk, Lessons I Learned As The CEO of Lavalife. What were the key takeaways?
I also missed Instant Messaging: “To IM or not to IM” – A Review of All Available Services Suitable for Internet Dating Websites. OnlinePersonalsWatch broke the rumor that AOL was shutting down Userplane and I heard there were various Userplane executives at the session refuting this. Hopefully someone at Userplane will read this and tell me the story. It’s frustrating that I didn’t have the time to talk to them, feels like I fell into some sort of LA time wormhole.
Topicfox emailed me today to announce that due to a conflict of interest with AOL / Userplane, Topicfox will be shutting down operations immediately. That’s too bad, I liked how the system was coming together. Regardless of the Userplane situation, Flashcoms was exhibiting. They have a number of high-profile customers and a full suite of communications services.
CS Identity was an exhibitor, as was Vindicia and a whole bunch of payment providers. Here’s the full list of iDate LA sponsors.
Mike Baldock, who used to run Vintacom, is now a marketing/strategy guy for Courtland Brooks. It was great to catch up with Mike, haven’t seen him in several years and he is one of my favorite people in the industry.
Jonathan from Manhunt, who told a number of fascinating stories about how he started the business and what it takes to keep it running.
This brings us to the final panel. The title was something like “How to go from a $1 billion to a $5 billion industry”. To cut to the chase, it bombed. I actually left early. I *never* leave the final panel early. Colleagues and beer and a chance to let yourself go with a microphone, what’s not to like? this year there was too much ranting, not enough moderation and the session was far too unfocused. The time spent messing around with Google Trends was way off topic and had the audience rolling its eyes often. This has simply got to stop.
I would have replaced the panel of industry insiders with singles, some of which are on dating sites, others that aren’t. The industry people talk about moving the knobs and tweaking the dials, instead of the great shifts of focus required to entice the 60 million people who haven’t tried online dating to come take it for a spin. I do agree with panelists about better CRM systems and there may be some validity to simply increasing conversion rates, but I consider that fiddling with knobs, albeit incredibly powerful ones.
With this stronghold on the industry comes the reasonable expectation that iDate is going to deliver the goods. After attending iDate for several years, I would personally peg the quality of the conference at a C+, maybe a B- if there is a fantastic speaker or two on the schedule. Mostly it’s about the people, not the agenda. The face to face networking is unparalleled. There is simply no other way to see the majority of the online dating industry in the same place at the same time. This is the blessing and the curse of iDate, in a nutshell.
I had lots of other interesting conversations with people which I will get to once I’m settled back in and get a good night’s rest. In the meantime, here’s some of my personal LA experience.
On Wednesday I went over to the UCLA campus to meet with Chuck Rosen. Chuck and his daughter Janey run Showbizzle. In a previous life Chuck produced the original 90210 and Dawson’s Creek. He gave me a great tour of the campus and the sculpture garden.
On Thursday night, after almost knocking over Ron Artest in the lobby and then having dinner 10 feet away from Lindsay Lohan, several of us piled into a car with this guy and went to the Michael Jackson vigil. His badge said Eons, bonus points if you can tell me what his previous gig was.
Thanks to Tai for the ride in the Ferrari. Fast enough to give me the shakes and loud enough to wake the dead. Awesome.
Over the weekend I drove down to Laguna Beach to meet with a client and then hang with a friend I haven’t seen in 20 years. Rob and Bill, it was great to reconnect with you both.
And there you have it, iDate LA 2009, at least part of it. Add your comments about the event, I’m sure other readers and the organizers will appreciate the feedback.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the great write-up on the iDate 2009 show, particularly for those of us who couldn’t attend. I really like the depth of your recap, particularly that you also shared insight/suggestions for future shows. Sounds like you had a fun flight there too.
Cheers,
Joe Tracy, Publisher
Online Dating Magazine
http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com
Wow. Amazingly good post and thanks for including my video recap which wasn’t nearly as good as yours. :)
I’d have to agree with everything you said critique-wise with respect to the event. Most industries who have been running on autopilot and are at the “knob and dial” phase, eventually wind up asleep at the wheel while the world changes around them. It happens over and over again. This time it’s the dating industry’s turn for healthy disruption.
It’s time for something different. A $5B industry is absolutely possible but not using the same rules and players we have now. Until we shake the snow globe and change things significantly, we won’t ever get to the completely new thing for our knobs and dials to measure. I know we here at Blackbox Republic are among the next generation who will shepherd this new era in.
I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet at the conference but perhaps when we’re on the east coast as part of our 50 city grassroot tour. :)
Cheers,
April
Did Dr. Helen Fisher attend the conference?
———————–
MatchMatrix says:
“The tool we use to measure compatibility is a product of over thirty years’ of relationship success and failure. What is does that can be found no where else is tell two people if they have the core characteristics to make a connection that is totally enjoyable and long lasting. Our system determines your compatibility with another based on shared energetic alignments and misalignments. This is the key that influences ALL relationships.”
“Now MatchMatrix has the ability to identify attractions between people and determine if those attractions will support a long-term relationship. This accomplishment in itself has been referred to as the “Holy Grail” of matchmaking (Atlantic Magazine, Internet Dating, March 2006). And even more important, beyond Attractions is the ability to define the energetic patterns that are at the core of influence in all relationships.”
“The old saying that men are attracted to women like their mother and women are attracted to men like their father is true. MatchMatrix is the only source that provides an objective way to accurately explain the dynamics of an attraction. The reliability of a person’s attraction is determined by the emotional imprint from their opposite parent at the moment of birth. A person is attracted to someone with the same style of communication as their opposite parent. ”
MatchMatrix express compatibility as a group of icons and a very long written report!!!
The Relationship report includes:
- A description of the Four Lifestyle Traits for two individuals,
- A description of each person’s attractions.
- A description of any of five Modifiers that apply. (Each person may have none, one or multiple modifiers).
Imagine to screen 100,000 prospective mates and read 100,000 reports!!!
MatchMatrix does not have any Scientific Proof to substantiate its matching method.
Morever:
What is important in attracting people to one another may not be important in making couples happy!!!
It seems it is all about a high level on personality similarity between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.
———————————————————-
Three words in compatibility matching methods.
Three words with different meanings for different persons or companies!
compatibility
personality
similarity
Sometimes the word compatibility means a high degree of similarity between several variables (religion, education, income, personality, likes and dislikes, etc.) of prospective mates; sometimes compatibility means a mix of similarity and complementarity between variables; sometimes when a dating site says compatibility or even chemistry, nobody really knows exactly what it means!
Some online dating sites offering compatibility matching methods use the word similarity as: “a proprietary Dyadic Adjustment Scale”, others mean: “a proprietary multivariate linear regression equation”, some say a mix of similarity and complementarity meaning: “a proprietary multivariate logistic regression equation”, still others mix similarity and complementarity meaning: “a proprietary equation to calculate compatibility between prospective mates!”
Personality could be assessed by different methods. No actual online dating site offering compatibility matching methods uses the 16PF5 normative test available in different languages, or similar test to measure the 16 personality factors as established by Dr. Raymond Cattell in 1949.
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Usually when one reviews a show, they attend most of the sessions. You admit you skipped many of the key sessions. So how can you possibly begin to offer a fair critique? Would I hold a restaurant reviewer in high esteem if they gave a restaurant review by looking in the window?
This year you apparently were not asked to be on any panels, nor be a speaker in any capacity. One must wonder what your motivations were in giving such a bad review of the conference.
Personally, I found many of the sessions I attended highly informative and well worth the time and money to be there. Along with some excellent dating sessions, I attended two great social networking sessions on social media marketing by two brilliant speakers. If you are in the dating industry and not fully aware what is going on in social media, you are behind the curve. As you said, Alex Mehr showed what can happen when you combine the two.
I find it curious that you completely ignored the payment processing session even though it was specifically put in there because previous attendees asked for it. However, since I was the speaker, if you were disinterested, I am glad you didn’t attend. Many sites are very concerned about payment processing this year and they wanted an unbiased view rather than a lecture from an credit card industry insider. That’s what they got.
The final session, in my opinion, did what it was supposed to do – it got people thinking and talking. The room was crowded and lots of people had vocal comments and questions – a sign of success in a forum like that. What I noticed from you was that, without being recognized, you yelled out one comment that we should get off the current topic. Frankly, you sounded a bit tipsy, as you did in the final session of IDate Miami. Your comment seemed to be ignored by the crowd as they continued to stay on the topic for awhile. You then left the room early. Not exactly the behavior one would expect from somebody who is giving a professional review.
Sorry Dave. Your review seems to be wholly biased and based on personal motivations.
Glenn G. Millar
This was without a doubt the best venue we have had yet. Many top executives were present, along with budding entrepreneurs and we more than double the attendance of the last California iDate.
Ultimately, as regards the agenda, I know we can do better, and I will make sure the next one is stronger. Thanks for your feedback Dave. Your feedback really helps to motivate me to do better, and make the conference as strong as it can possibly be.
Or just keep the conference the same and people will still fill the coffers with cash but the respect and the “must attend at all costs” value won’t be as strong as it could be. It’s up to you to decide which way you’re going to go.
I’ve only spoken at iDate once because years ago I made a total “in-joke” on this blog about an attendee who never showed up again.
After being invited to speak in Miami this year, my consulting business grew accordingly. I understand the value of iDate and I want the show to get better, be awesome and inspiring. Net result: the dating Industry gets smarter and stronger and so does my business. I’m also responsible for a portion of the exhibitors and attendees over the years, but that’s neither here or there.
Mark responded with a spot-on remark. He knows exactly what the deal is with iDate and owned up to the shortcomings and promised to do better. That awareness is exactly what I was hoping for.
As the strategist for Courtland Brooks, I expected different behavior from you. Is this your normal way of commenting on anything that might reflect negatively on your organization?
FYI, social dating is not social media.
Glad to hear the payment processing session went well. It should probably be a Wednesday workshop, you simply can’t get to the level of detail required in an hour.
The final panel: If that session encapsulated how the online dating industry expects to get to $5 billion, I think we’re all in a lot of trouble. You mistake my play-acting for something else, I’m a vodka man myself. You saw an opening and you were shallow enough to take it, which says as much about your character as your lone comment during the session did about your capabilities as a strategic thinker.
The point of my comment was that looking backwards at Google Trends doesn’t get us anywhere, the whole point of the session was to look *forward*.
I guess you didn’t hear the 20 or so people agree with me out loud. I just wanted to get things back on track instead of wasting time screwing around on Google when there was the potential for substantial discussion.
You are absolutely correct, my review was biased and based on personal motivations.
My motivations: I advise a select group of companies related to the online dating space. They hire me for my knowledge, talent, objectivity, resources and straight talk. In my mind, If the industry grows, iDate grows (and hopefully improves) and my business grows. I’m more of an industry observer than an insider. I’m not all chummy with everyone like your organization. I’m the guy that points out what’s wrong and how to fix it, on this blog and at conferences. Sometimes hearing the truth is hard, but in the end it helps us grow.
My bias is towards cooperation, sharing business and helping companies succeed. I often send Courtland Brooks new business and Mark sends it to me as well. I don’t see us as competitors, especially when we’re heading towards a $5 billion industry and we’re pretty much the only consultants in the market that do what we do.
We ALL care about the industry, but many of us are not going to continue to pay $1000 to hear the same old platitudes over the same old beer and chips.
Evan Marc Katz
Thanks for this very comprehensive review and thank you for mentioning the Userplane situation. To confirm for you, Userplane is not, repeat not, shutting down and will continue to offer its market leading chat and IM services. We are excited about the future and still see the online dating space as a critical component of our customer base. The conference gave us a great forum for clarifying Userplane’s status. But more importantly, it was an excellent opportunity to meet with our customers and partners directly. Userplane has previously attended and supported the iDate conferences and will continue to do so, given its high value within the online dating space.
Thanks for coming to my presentation on “Science Friction” — compatibility tetsing present and future. It was great and long over due to finally meet you in person as well and catch up on your projects. I look forward to what the future will bring!
Cheers,
James Houran, Ph.D.
http://www.OnlineDatingMagazine.com
James, it was great to meet you as well, looking forward to our next conversation.