Boston-based mobile-only social network Mocospace is looking at acquiring MySpace. What happened to Myspace still amazes me, but what’s even more remarkable is that Mocospace has 14 million members in their mobile communities.
Five years ago nobody gave much though to mobile dating. It was the 11th most requested features in a singles survey if I recall correctly. How things change.
In 2011 we’re going to see a lot of mobile dating startups trying to grab market dominance in an emerging sector thats remains up for grabs. And here we already have a mobile social network that is larger than every dating site on the planet.
Questions that need to be answered:
Are singles looking for social apps with dating component or dating-only apps?
How big is the market for singles interested in finding other singles satisfying specific criteria within 500 meters? Or do they prefer just to browse profiles. If so, one would think mobile access to a popular site would be more efficient than a startup.
What are the demographics of mobile dating users? Young, don’t spend money, abandon profiles easily, sporadic engagement and limited by the technology of smart vs. feature phones. Or 30+, ready to spend and heavily engaged?
How do you monetize each market? Free apps and monetizing through advertising (need enormous amounts of traffic to make money) or paid apps, with or without advertising.
If you get paid on the download, you make your money. If you rely on advertising, well do the math. social apps are not Angry Birds. Nobody is going to make a plush toy and movie based on a dating app.
Every once in a while I run into Raj Aggarwal, founder of another Boston-based startup Localytics, which put out news this week that 26% of Apps Downloaded in 2010 Were Used Just Once. Ouch.
I’d like to see how many people use paid vs. free dating apps.
All mobile dating companies should have really good answers and the ability to quickly pivot based on user response to whatever they launch with. I can almost guarantee that whatever you launch with is not going to be your business model in six months.
