Someone just turned me on to the Lady Gaga Telephone video featuring Beyonce. A certain dating site makes an appearance at 4:27. Warning, this is one weird and sexy video.
Great post from Tony Karrer, the initial acting CTO for eHarmony.
Match continues to say that they have 15 million profiles. I wish they would refer to the number of active profiles, which is a much more authentic representation of the size of the database. Or better yet, read the Flash cookie on my hard drive or IP address lookup and say that there are NNN,000 active members in my area. Remember when the number was 20 million a while back? I don’t know offhand how many profiles Meetic and People Media and Singlesnet bring to the table, or even if those are counted in the 15 million.
The Outlook Social Connector for MySpace looks interesting. MySpace for Outlook enables you to view activity updates for friends and colleagues in the People Pane, synchronize your MySpace contact list to your Outlook contacts, and get one-click access to profiles.
Even if the casual online dater belongs to one paid and one free dating sites, keeping track of emails, flirts and canned search results takes a lot of time. Don’t forget who’s viewed/bookmarked you, which I consider incredibly important to keep tabs on. Where is the dating management system for Outlook?
Dating Ad Network interviewed Sam Yagan, co-founder of OKCupid.
We have about 5 million unique visitors to our website every month.
…we analyze all of the interactions that are happening on our site. We aggregate the data, we do some statistical analysis to try to find trends and we publish those trends back out on our blog.
More please!
Steve Klebe of Vindicia on What will it take to make mobile payments mainstream in the US? Redg Snodgrass, who was at Skout, chimes in ad well. Redg is now Director of Digital Distribution, Alcatel-Lucent. He showed me some of the very cool monetization and tracking services aggregation he’s working on, very interesting stuff and potentially a game-changer in the social and mobile application space.
According to PeopleMedia, there are a lot of single black people out there (6 out of 10 blacks are single).
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Regarding Match: I think the issue isn’t whether they have 15, 12 or 18 million members, or X number of “Active” members. The issue is the huge discrepancy between whatever number that is and how many members on their site can actually interact (i.e. the 1.4-1.5 million PAID members).
Even assuming that every one of their 15 million members logged on today, they’re just window dressing if they can read your email.
Ross, does that 1.4-1.5 million figure have a source?
I ask as I’ve recently spun-off a site from missedconnections.com that aims to combat the match.com pay-for-contact problem that seems to be bugging the majority of their members. Having evidence that showed only 1 in 10 messages you send on match.com ever get read would be useful for promotion.
Eliot, its clearly stated in the Match financials. This is how 99% of subscription-based dating sites operate.
Eliot,
There’s no way I’d make a statement like that without having proof. But yes, Match.com is part of a public company. As a result, they report their paid membership base as part of their quarterly earnings press releases and their 10Q / 10K filed with the SEC.
Some of the information was also released / mentioned when there was a lawsuit between McGinn and Match (I believe that was Feb / Mar).
Interesting site — would enjoy having a chat when you get some time.
Thanks David and Ross, I’ll take a look at those documents for some ideas.
Assuming a service helping members combat the match.com pay-to-play problem gained traction, no easy task I’m sure. At the risk of highjacking the comments I’m interested in people’s take on the rights and wrongs of a service like this.
On the one hand you have match.com’s business and shareholders and on the other you have members of the match.com community that want to make contact but aren’t willing or able to pay the fees.
I realise I’m asking this in a lion’s den as David points out most dating sites rely on this model and I suspect many of the people here may rely on this model for their income.
Eliot,
Yep, it’s a lion’s den you are in:)
You are saying that there are members of match.com who want to make contact with other members, but “aren’t willing or able to pay the fees.”
I’d love to have dinner at a nice restaurant, but I’m not willing to pay the bill.
I’d love to fly first class, but I’m not willing to pay the airfare.
I’d love to have the latest stereo, but I’m not willing to pay for the system.
Matter of fact, I’d love to have everything for free, but I’m not willing to pay for anything.
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Get where I am going with this? Why should online dating be any different?
If you want to get it for free, use a (substandard) free service. Otherwise, stop the griping.
Besides, we are talking about less than $1/day for most dating services. Our one-year plan works out to around 30 cents/day. Who in the 1st World can’t afford that? People spend $1-2 (or more) on a coffee every day without giving it a second thought. Yet, when it comes to online dating, they all-of-a-sudden can’t afford it?
Methinks they have misplaced priorities. Or, the ones you are talking about are just cheap.
And, who wants to date someone cheap?
Eliot, there is nothing “wrong” with subscription-based dating sites. In a more perfect world, all sites have to do is identify free and paying members.
Without thinking it through too far, the fact that you are attempting to capitalize on the hundreds of millions of dollars Match and other subscription dating sites have spent on marketing their brand is troubling and unethical. I of course reserve the right to alter my opinion in the future but you are definitely taking what I would consider the “low road”.
Then again, the dating industry is full of similar stories, capitalism in action and all of that.
@Sam – Why Match.com members won’t or can’t pay the subscription could be for any number of reasons. For example, being low on cash due to being a student, a single parent, healthcare bills or a low paid job. Or they might just have a subscription on another dating site and don’t want to pay more than one. Or that might just be tight. I think its worth remembering there are many reasons people don’t pay for subscriptions.
@David, I have been agonizing over the ethics of this and I keep coming back to the following:
One potential scenario that troubles me is the case of two free subscribers who wink at each other. I’m going to be romantic and assume they are soulmates but will only realise if they go out on a first date.
Now, Match.com prevents these two potential soulmates from communicating with each other unless they pay up. Currently, this gives two possible outcomes:
1) If the two do pay up, they connect on Match.com and have an amazing first date and end up being soulmates and living happy fulfilled lives together. Match.com should be thanked for bringing these two together, that is a good thing they have done.
2) If the two do not pay up, the soulmates do not meet. There is a little less love in the world. This is a sad thing. Is Match.com at all at fault here? Match.com knows these two could hit it off yet their current business model prevents them from doing more to connect them. Should their business model get in the way of love?
So, I think there is a third outcome that has not yet been explored fully yet, that might have brought these two soulmates together: match.missedconnections.com or another service like it.
So now I’ve had this idea, and think there may be a way to help the two soulmates, what is the more ethical thing for me to do? I’m in a position to try to help these people or I could ignore that and let things continue and hope Match.com evolve their business model?
The ethical thing to do is to not encourage the potential soulmates to cheat. Full stop.
Any student I ever knew could afford a beer on a Friday night. If your two “potential soul mates” can’t afford 30 cents/day, then something isn’t right.
However, let’s assume they can’t. Your solution is to encourage them to be unethical. In the name of love, of course. And, Match.com shouldn’t mind, because, after all, it’s all about love, right?
Let’s at least be *intellectually* honest. It’s STEALING, no matter which way you cut it.
I think the ethical thing to do is for subscription-based dating sites to require payment before you can do anything on the site or at least identify profiles as belonging to members who are not subscribers. This sadly will never happen on the large established sites.
You’re probably right Dave, but that’s one of the reasons companies like mine start up. After all, our goal is to democratize online dating !
Dave, Ross, that seems like the best solution, no workarounds needed. Plus I can get back to focusing on connecting offline missed connections.
Sam, what do you think about the soulmate scenario where the person to initiate contact is a paid-up match.com member, and the other person is a free member? (I think I’m right in saying the free member wouldn’t be able to read the message or talk back – match.com experts please correct me if wrong). Does this change things?
Eliot,
As I said before, it’s still cheating. If someone is that serious about their soul mate, then pay the fee (both of them)! Why is the onus on the dating service to connect your hypothetical couple for free?
Your example, btw, would never come to frution. They aren’t read to meet. Years ago, a pastor at a church I went to told a story about a singles conference he was having one weekend.
There were two sessions going on at the same time. A guy was standing in the hallway, looking stressed. The pastor asked what was wrong. The guy said that he didn’t know which session to attend, because “what if my soul mate is in the other one?”
The pastor replied, “She isn’t in either room.”
The guy wasn’t ready, clearly. One or both of your hypothetical couple isn’t.aren’t ready.
Huge thanks to David for hosting this discussion here, and thanks to him as well as Ross and Sam for their thoughts. You’ve all contributed to my decision to retire the MissedConnections.com Match.com service, the reasons being I think there is a better way to solve the situation out there somewhere and MissedConnections.com’s main purpose is at risk of being sidelined.