Online Dating Insider » Conferences

iDate Virtual Conference Was Today

David Evans — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:39:25 +0000

I received an email just now inviting me to the iDate Virtual Conference. Thats awkward, it ends in a few minutes. Wish I had received the email earlier. Did anyone attend? What did you think of the event?

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iDate, What Did You Think?

David Evans — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:15:51 +0000

Site is running a bit slow, looking into it.

Lots of readers went to Miami last week for the Internet Dating Conference. Curious about what attendees thought about the show. Leave a comment.

Here are The Internet Dating Industry Awards results.

Thursday’s impromptu cocktail hour by the pool at the Royal Palms was great, lots of people showed up, great to catch up with folks. Sorry to those I didn’t have a chance to connect with, will be following up with you shortly.

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Miami, Here I Come

David Evans — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:13:55 +0000

In a few hours I’ll trade rainy 50 degree Boston for 82 and overcast Miami. No iDate for me this year though. If you feel like taking a break from the conference, contact me and we can set up a time and place to meet on Wednesday or Thursday. Beach or hotel pool bar preferred. I love being in Miami in January, nice and warm, seeing old friends and meeting readers of this blog. Paradise for a few brief days before heading back to the Northeast.

Interesting how many people are trekking to Miami but not attending the conference. At least a dozen people I’ve talked to in the past week are doing this.

Don’t forget your sunscreen, swim trunks and flip-flops!

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iDate Day Three Conference Agenda Notes

David Evans — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:43:14 +0000

It’s that time of year again. iDate, the only online dating industry conference in the US, hosts it’s annual Miami Beach event Wednesday 1/27 – Friday 1/29. If you want to connect while I’m in town, let me know and we can set up a time to meet.

Day three of the iDate agenda.

Friday January 29: Friday morning starts with virtual goods and e-commerce demos going up against what I think is a talk about monetizing singles.

Then it’s a session about how dating sites can get credit, going up against a “blue ocean” strategy talk, which could be interesting. 100 million singles in the US, only 1/3 use dating sites. There’s your untapped market share right there. Dating sites selling leads to matchmakers, another market expander. Dating sites becoming more social, integrating with Facebook, blue ocean, again.

In the demo rooms, more e-commerce companies and search engines.

After that, a panel about the convergence of paid and free dating, but Sam Yagan from OKCupid is the only person I see listed on the panel. No matter, Sam is a great guy in a “tell-all” kind of way. This is a must-see session.

Few others demos, Shaddi talking about the Indian market, a marketing company and a billing company.

After lunch (which is where they should have given out the awards), Increased Retention via Maximizing Female Responses sounds interesting. I’m curious what that means, too bad the agenda is still not finished for the show. Down the hall, Viximo is speaking about virtual goods against more repeat e-commerce demos.

Next series of sessions: Noel Biderman will share his thoughts about profiting on infidelity. Their ads are everywhere right now, big marketing push. Still waiting for the conservatives to jump all over this.

Dating Factory and Dating Lab are talking about the evolution of dating business models (my pick). Matchmakers are going to want to check out the Matchmaking Pro demo. I went through it with Jerome at the Matchmaking Institute a few weeks ago, nice system, rebuilt from the ground up, bridges online and offline dating nicely.

VisualDNA is speaking. This is the most important session of the entire show. I’ve done some work for them, in fact I’m looking at their visual profile creator right now. Eharmony and Match are using them in various capabilities. Don’t miss this.

Closing up the show we have an un-titled panel debate. All new people on the panel this year. Hopefully they can keep us interested for more than 5 minutes. The last two of these have been epic debacles.

Final thoughts: As the only online dating industry conference in the US, iDate is the only game in town. This is both a blessing and a curse. It makes conference planning for companies a lot easier, but according to most of the people who I talk to, the show continues to disappoint. A sampling from the emails I receive after every show offer up basically the same complaints, year after year. People expect better service for the price they are paying to attend.

The agenda needs a lot of work. I’ve been saying this for years and hear the same thing from attendees after the show. Stacking up the interesting speakers in competing time slots, way too many micro-demos everyone has seen 100 times and a general lack of well-defined conference tracks hurts attendance.

Plain and simple, iDate is about the people and the conversations and deals going on in the hallways, not to mention getting into the sun for a few days.

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iDate Day Two Agenda Notes

David Evans — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:36:34 +0000

Day two of the iDate agenda is below. Day One Agenda Notes.

Dear Internetdatingconference, your missing children PSA is crashing a lot of browsers, remove or fix, thanks.

Thursday January 28: Ron Worthy from People Media gives the keynote. Make sure to listen to the man who sold his company to IAC (Match) for $80 million. See the mile-wide smile on his face. During his talk, make a promise to yourself, your team, and your company that you will grow your dating site to be so amazing that you can buy Match in a few years. Feel the inspiration, feed off of it, make plans for global domination. who knows, the person sitting next to you might be the missing piece of the puzzle you’ve been looking for.

Next, Mark Brooks give the 2009 online dating industry year in review. Mark has been working with iDate since it’s inception and is capable of presenting a thorough high-level overview of the industry. Hopefully Mark will fuel the tinderbox of innovation and not just regurgitate stats.

My take: Except for a handful companies, dating revenue was relatively flat in 2009, there were a few big acquisitions and there are still 60 million people in the US who haven’t tried online dating because dating sites refuse to innovate, instead depending on credit-card billing trickery and lowest-common denominator advertising. Online dating remains a fragmented marketplace, with a few big players and an competitive landscape that will continue to contract as smaller players continue to hit the wall. Furthermore, the matchmaking process is still as opaque as obsidian, nobody knows how or why people are matched and the dating process hasn’t changed in years except for some guided communication efforts at eHarmony and Chemistry and the novel Herway approach where women call the shots. Profiles are becoming more dynamic and companies finally realizing that the 300 million profiles on Facebook and millions on Twitter and other social services are a fairly substantial source of visitors.

Duane Dahl at Perfectmatch is going to share their success with smart media partnerships. I talk to people about marketing their dating sites every day. PerfectMatch nailed this years ago and it’s mind-boggling that nobody has been able to follow suit. Listen and learn.

Dating Factory (private label dating vendor) demo goes up against duane, which is unfortunate. All of the private label providers should be on a panel hashing out a year’s worth of confusion, questions and comments. Dating Factory is speaking again about dating business models on Friday. Why two presentations? Agenda problems abound at iDate, a re-occuring theme to anyone who’s been around a few years.

I had lunch with Manhunt co-founder Jonathan Crutchley a few weeks ago. Jonathan will talk about the gay dating market. His is a great story.

Bill Broadbent from Instinct Marketing will talk about online dating revenue models with some dating coaches. In 2010 online dating sites are going to sell more of their high-end leads to offline matchmakers as dating sites continue to evolve into various permutations of the web-rings circa 1999. Coaches fit in there somewhere. I’m working on a VIP dating concierge service, can’t wait to tell you about it and invite you to participate.

SkaDate (advertiser here) is speaking about online dating software with Pilot Group (Not the private equity firm It is is led by former AOL president Robert Pittman.)

I’m surprised Boonex (advertiser here) is not attending. and what about the 5-10 small dating software companies out there? Most tell me they don’t need to attend. I call BS on that. The reality is that most cannot stand up to any sort of serious scrutiny. The rest are too busy slandering each other on this blog on a post I made back in 2006 and elsewhere across the web. Not a lot of love here. Most dating software is around a C+ and the private label vendors have a ways to go until they are truly accepted.

White Label Dating is going to make a big push into the U.S. in 2010, but they are’t exhibiting at iDate. At least WLD is aware of their Achilles heel and is potentially doing something about it. Less adult, more transparency, better terms and stop slamming the competition. Look at Dating Factory and The Dating Lab as well.

To get an idea of why I give software and private label dating solutions so much grief, go take a look at the private label software providers like ONEsite. I’ve sent a number of clients their way because they are real pros, worth every penny and don’t screw around, at all. Sam Moorcroft said a few months ago that he’s yet to see a big dating site built on dating platform software. I have to concur with Sam’s observation. If you pay $500 for software you’re going to have a $500 site. Actually you’ll have a $15,000 site, because after developers, infrastructure and design, that’s what it’s going to cost. This is fine for the majority of small dating startups that don’t want to give away 1/2 of their revenue to private label vendors and gives them a lot more flexibility to grow and evolve the site.

Teligence will talk about 1-900 numbers. Anyone who pays for phone or pay-to-play webcam sex online is wasting their money. Today’s free or low-cost online amateur cybersex options, complete with full-frame video and duplex audio, trump generic phone and expensive cam sex, with caveats, of course. That said, the social networking aspects of chat lines may be of interest to some sites and worth exploring.

FlashComs will talk about online chat. Remember the Userplane brouhaha over the summer at iDate LA? I like these systems and the people building them out but the fact is that chat on dating sites is generally a bad idea unless it’s an adult site, in which case it’s mostly bots talking to each on the scammy sites or one poor woman being barraged by any number of ill-behaved men on others. There are always exceptions and I’m happy to hear about well-run dating site chat rooms.

Let’s move on to mobile dating business models. Brendan O’Kane from Messmo is speaking. This is a session that shouldn’t be missed. I spent time with Brendan a few months ago. Enormously likable guy who is super-smart and connected when it comes to all things mobile. His service offering fits in nicely with the rest of the mobile marketplace as well. The initial overlap I thought I initially perceived between Messmo, Trilibis and other mobile vendors like Jajah proved unfounded. Each company fits together in the mobile ecosystem like pieces of a puzzle. I don’t see Trilibis on the docket, but they have some new initiatives and people coming on board that I think people will be hearing about soon enough.

John LaRosa will talk about the offline dating market. John is the guy who wrote the dating industry study that I sell here (at a discount!). Speaking of research. If you are a subscription site or a free site looking into the Freemium model, you should pick up a copy of the Subscription & Membership Site Benchmark Report. Copies have been selling like hotcakes.

Global Collect will demo their payment systems. So will a bunch of other companies. No vindicia, that’s too bad. Great company building an incredibly strong service that puts more money in dating site bank accounts.

Thursday night features the iDate Industry Awards. Three hours is two hours too long, they should have done this right at the show. It will be interesting to see who wins the various categories.

Tomorrow: Day three agenda notes.

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iDate Day One Agenda Notes

David Evans — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:40:13 +0000

It’s that time of year again. iDate, the only online dating industry conference in the US, hosts it’s annual Miami Beach event Wednesday 1/27 – Friday 1/29.

I’ll be in Miami working on something super secret during iDate but I’m not attending the show. If you want to connect while I’m in town, let me know and we can set up a time to meet.

The iDate agenda is ready for review. I like to weigh in with my thoughts about the show and I’ve continued the practice this year. Hopefully they will be helpful as attendees plan your time in Miami and for the iDate staff as well. Here’s to hoping it warms up in time, last year was freezing!

Wednesday January 27: The day before the real show starts. Matchmakers get together to catch up since the Matchmaker conference in NJ a few months ago. Julie Ferman, Paul Falzone, Patrick Perrine, Jerome Chasques and other matchmakers will be holding court.

A prominent dating coach recently said to me, “I go to iDate for business, I go to Matchmaker conferences to spend time with my friends” really struck home with me. Matchmaking is so much more comfortable and human, whereas online dating is all about scalability and margins and churn. Both have serious perception issues that are holding each other back. Here’s to hoping the two sides of the aisle can make something happen together in 2010.

Elsewhere, companies trying to sell dating sites will stand around awkwardly like at a high school dance trying to impress buyers. When the first guy stands up and says his lesbian left-handed volleyball player niche dating website is worth $1,000,000, everyone snickers, then goes home and starts a competing site.

Google will be talking about Google webmaster tools and search (I hope more about tool than search), which was an impromptu topic at the closing session at iDate LA last summer which devolved quickly. I ended up shouting out loud to move on, to much applause. Glad to see this is a Day 1 item and not a closing session topic.

Speaking of the basics, Mark Brooks is running a session introducing people to the online dating business. Hopefully Mark will give a complete rundown of the tools that dating sites needs to use and how they all should tie into the Analytics dashboard. Anything less than a live demo is a mis-use of people’s time (not sure how much of this is a workshop vs. presentation format).

If you have $250,000, by all means start a dating site. If you can’t write that check, you’re probably going to fail or limp along in obscurity and should seriously consider that perhaps there is another area of interest on the Internet you would be better suited for. Being a dating site affiliate is a great way to learn the ropes.

Starting a well-funded dating site run by people that aren’t Internet marketing aces with a solid tech and management team is a guaranteed recipe for failure. I know because I get these calls all the time. It’s heartbreaking to hear that someone took out a second mortgage to start a dating site that has zero chances of succeeding, but that’s being an entrepreneur for you. Private/white label solutions actually aggravate the situation IMHO.

Feel free to prove me wrong, seriously. I love to get emails that say “You are an idiot I made a million dollars and your advice had nothing to do with it.” Markus at PlentyofFish is the only person I’ve heard that from and I smile every time he says that because POF is the result of a perfect storm of monumental proportions.

I help companies make more money all the time just by turning them on to Google webmaster tools (along with much more powerful systems) and can’t stress how important A/B testing, optimization and analytics are to dating sites. This should be a top priority in 2010. It’s crazy that dating sites are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars every year on their marketing campaigns. There is a lot of slack to pick up here and I can’t wait to see dating sites improve their marketing efficiency.

I also run an online dating industry startup bootcamp. I’ve put scores of companies through it and have been refining it for several years. Companies have made millions of dollars based on my bootcamps and I’m more than happy to share my program with you if we are a good fit.

Day two agenda highlights coming tomorrow.

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Announcing The Internet Dating Industry Awards

David Evans — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:23:16 +0000

This year, iDate, the primary US event for the online dating industry, is holding a new event, the Internet Dating Industry Awards. The online dating industry deserves some recognition, and it’s great to see iDate expand a bit. It’s felt a bit long in the tooth in recent years and this injection of freshness is a step in the right direction.

I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around the concept of a three hour event on the primary evening of the conference.

That’s the night everyone goes to dinner, does deals and then goes out to the Miami Beach hotspots. There are dating site operators located in Canada who haven’t seen the sun in three months, let them go have their fun.

A $750 delicious 2-hour dinner at a Miami hotspot with great friends and clients or sitting at a table at an awards ceremony for three hours. What would you prefer? Leave a comment.

Curious what people think about the idea of having the ceremony at lunch. Everyone is already in the same room already and it doesn’t eat into nighttime activities.

Quick run down of the questions:

Best Dating Site: According to whom? Total overall traffic, effectiveness?

Best Dating Site Design: If Match or OKCupid doesn’t win I would be shocked. Actually, if PlentyoFfish wins I’ll be really shocked. I would have worked in the phrase usability, thats whats important to people.

Best Dating Software Provider: Boonex, SkaDate or a few other small shops. Take it from me, nobody in the industry really knows these companies, not sure how they can judge them in any meaningful way.

Best Mobile Dating Site: This is a good category. Interested to see who wins. Match, Zoosk, Are you Interested or maybe Skout? I try to get excited about mobile dating but I always end up going home to my big monitor to browse people.

Best Matchmaker: This will be a big deal for the matchmaker contingent. Not sure if it includes offline chains? Either you love your matchmaker because they found you a mate, you took them to court or you have no opinion on the matter.

Most Innovative Company: Great category. Where is the innovation happening that’s changing the face of online dating? EHarmony, OKCupid or Match? There are a ton of smaller companies who are innovating. What about vindicia or iovation? They are incredibly innovative, far more than dating sites.

Best Payment System: Pick one of the zillion payment solutions.

Best Affiliate Program: I don’t understand this. Dating sites are judging their competition’s affiliate programs?

Best Marketing Campaign: Online Booty Call or eHarmony or maybe Chemistry.com? Assuming that marketing campaigns are social media, radio, tv, blogs and print. It would have been great if iDate had reviewed the Webbies or some other big award show, they should have listed a few campaigns to choose from.

Best Up and Coming Dating Site: I love this category, but what does it mean? a startup site up less than a year or a mid-tier site which has jumped the traffic ranking by leaps and bounds?

How about a few new categories: Least spammy dating site, dating site with the best profiles, dating sites with people who are real, respond to email and you would actually introduce to your friends, best free dating site, best paid dating site, etc. Add some more in the comments.

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3rd Annual Matchmaker Conference Review

David Evans — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:15:08 +0000

Today’s guest post is by Julie Ferman of Cupid’s Coach. Julie has been a key participant and driver of new ideas at matchmaking and online dating conferences for many years.

The third annual Matchmaker Conference over October 23-25 was a raving success. Gathered together in Weehawken, NJ at the Sheraton Lincoln Harbor Hotel were 85 of the worldâ€™s most savvy and dedicated personal matchmakers, dating coaches, and dating industry execs.

The conference is produced by Lisa Clampitt and Jerome Chasques, founders of Matchmaking Pro, the first association which brings together professional matchmakers and dating and relationship coaches. The mission of the annual Matchmaker Conference is to build a healthy, supportive community of peers, to share resources, maintain quality control, and to literally evolve and propel forward the personal matchmaking industry. The association and the conference provides the opportunity for individual matchmakers and larger companies to share resources and referrals, support one another, receive press leads, and develop national and international referral networks for both prospective client leads and referral candidates for existing clients.

The halls of the hotel were abuzz with enthusiasm, shared stories, abundant laughter and â€œahaâ€ insight moments as this group of dating and relationship experts compared notes on dating coaching secrets, client challenges and success stories, business innovations, marketing strategies, and innovative ideas for client sharing and cooperative matching strategies.

The conference has been emceed each year by Julie Ferman, founder of Cupidâ€™s Coach, a personal matchmaking and dating coaching company based in Los Angeles. A 20-year veteran of the dating industry, formerly a Great Expectations franchisee, Julie Ferman has produced many a dating industry conference and is also a regular presenter at the Internet Dating Conference in Miami. When asked whatâ€™s special and different about the Matchmaker Conference, Ferman beamed with her contagious ebullient enthusiasm. â€œThereâ€™s a completely different â€˜vibeâ€™ here at this conference, compared with any dating industry event Iâ€™ve ever attended or produced; when this group of matchmakers gathers, itâ€™s literally a Love Fest. The talents and skills that might make someone a natural for personal matchmaking are very different from those that might enable success in business; matchmakers need to not only be experts at enabling relationship but also we need to learn how to survive and thrive as business owners, and this conference is all about strengthening both elements of ourselves and our businesses. Itâ€™s an honor and a true pleasure to work with Lisa and Jerome and to lead and synergize with these matchmakers from all over the world. We had speakers and attendees from Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, the U.K., Canada â€“ amazing.â€

Highlights of the conference: Keynote speaker Rachel Greenwald, author of â€œWhy He Didnâ€™t Call You Backâ€ delivered a fascinating and well received address, revealing the insights of her extensive research into what women are doing thatâ€™s working with the modern day man, andâ€¦whatâ€™s not. Also a highlight was the presentation by Joelle Apter, with GenePartner, which has developed a biological matching method, designed as a complementary service for matchmakers and online dating sites. Based on the genetic profile of the client, the GenePartner formula determines the level of genetic compatibility with the person they are interested in meeting.

Early-Bird pricing is available through November for next yearâ€™s Matchmaker Conference, same place, Weehawken, NJ. October 22-23-24, 2010. For early bird reservations visit www.matchmakerconference.com or call 877.232.8743.

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iDate LA 2009 Recap

David Evans — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:54:45 +0000

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.

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iDate LA Session Review

David Evans — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:51:27 +0000

Its been five months since the last iDate dating conference in Miami. What has changed since then? Well I’m going iDate LA next week for the first time to find out. I’ve waiting until now to attend because mobile dating has left my nonplussed for the most part. That tide is turning, my iPhone is full of dating and social apps, ranging from Brightkite to Are You Interested to Match, Zoosk and several others in private beta.

iDate LA Twitter hashtag #idatela2009

The money isn’t there yet but the technology finally is. Nobody has created the killer mobile dating app yet, perhaps one of the companies in LA next week will take that honor.

Minor balks: When will iDate start filming sessions for those of us unable to be in two places at once? A $300 video camera is all it takes. Yet again, no pre-event online networking session. I guess nobody cares about these.

At iDate, the event kicks off with investors talking about going public. This is the absolute worst time to take a dating site public. The presenters should focus on raising capital and title the panel “how to write a business plan and P&L statement that doesn’t suck.”

I’ve been pitching dating-related companies to VC lately. Investors have little interest in funding online dating companies. So much effort goes into finding the 1% that do, and of those 1%, finding the handful of “helpful” money as opposed to the “easy” money. Perhaps some bright individual will create an angel investor network for online dating. Wouldn’t that be a good idea? Pitch your ideas to a well-defined group of people who have expressed interest in the sector. Why hasn’t anyone done this already?

If I don’t come back with a photo of me and Patti Stanger several of my female friends say they will never speak to me again.

The session 3 Mobile Dating Strategies That Work should be interesting. Hint: location, proximity and communication. Throw in some virtual goods, a game and an identity verification and we’re done.

Looking forward to hearing Deepak Thomas at Match speak. I hope he provides usage stats, Match has a slick interface on the iPhone, but do people actually use it? The reality distortion field surrounding Match is strong, hopefully we’ll get some useful insights.

I wonder if anyone from SinglesNet will attend? As the number one trafficked dating site, they sure keep a low profile.

The boys at viximo are doing a demo. Virtual goods, people, virtual goods. A billion dollar industry that the online dating market totally ignores. Why is this?

Trilibis is going to walk us though “Top 10 Decision Criteria For The Selection of Your Mobile Dating Enabler”. I’m thinking this is *the* session to hit if for dating sites looking to develop a mobile strategy.

Some company is going to create a white label solution for mobile dating and dating sites will bolt it on. Game over. The thing is, few vendors are close to being able to offer this bolt-a-bility. Trilibis has a partnership to create mobile platforms for IAC, owners of Match.com. This puts them at the front of the pack. But what about mid-tier sites? Most dating sites don’t have a lot of technical chops or resources for intensive integration programs like mobile. Plug-n-play is required, will Trilibis deliver or leave the rest to the competition (Skout?).

Competing for attention with Trilibis is Match Matrix. I really like their energetic matching stuff. They are so far ahead of everyone else when it comes to taking advantage of things humans have known for thousands of years, but it’s a bit too touchy-feely for most people.

Next up, MatchMatrix again, talking about Increasing Customer Retention. Isn’t it the job of the dating site to get people off of it as quickly as possible? this is where my dedication to the customer comes in direct contact with the business goals of online dating sites. Someday dating sites will understand that high churn rates are good, but that appears to remain beyond most people’s comprehension.

Mark Brooks is going to review all of the IM services trying to get the business that Userplane is ceding to the marketplace by basically going out business. Chat is a dead issue in online dating, the money and focus is on Instant Messaging. The company that wins is going to be cheaper than Userplane, feature newer technology and have absolutely stellar privacy controls and filters to manage the onslaught of messages (women) receive.

The demos are mostly payment processors, which get an inordinate amount of attention at iDate given there are about 50 companies max that are large enough to warrant their interest. I’m spoken with Vindicia and a few other companies multiple times. Once you understand their corresponding value propositions it’s like a giant light bulb going off. You have to be a serious player to work with them though.

Friday morning is, you guessed it, more payment providers trying to get online dating business. This is getting to be a bit much. It’s time for iDate to rethink what attendees want to experience at the only online conference. Maybe everyone wants to hear from payment processors and I’m off base?

The Zoosk presentation, Online Dating & Social Networking: A Marriage Made in Heaven? Is another must-attend session. Although yesterday Zoosk got spanked by Facebook for autofilling profile fields with Facebook user data. this is a sticky situation, but if you can’t actually use Facebook data in your apps, it kind of kills the purpose of using Facebook Connect. Facebook has access to everything you do on other sites, but won’t share their data automatically. This is going to be a huge issue down the road.

Facebook is 200 million people. Why the hell aren’t 50 dating sites slugging it out to dominate Facebook? Am I missing something here? Running apps on Facebook is hard and takes a lot more effort than buying cheap traffic, which is easy. There, I answered my own question.

Dr. Helen Fisher is going to tell the Chemistry.com story again. Fascinating stuff, I need to finish her last book.

Then viximo is up again, talking about The New Money Paradigm: Virtual Goods & Virtual Currency Primer.

I’m not going to miss Assessing Profiles for Compatibility. Looking forward to meeting Dr. Jim Houran in person and hearing about assessment company.

The final panel debate is titled $5 Billion and Beyond 2012. Seriously? With everything happening in regards to the Craigslist killer, poor effectiveness of dating sites, skyrocketing ad spend, shoddy business practices and poor customer service, not to mention monumental legal issues, and the topic is how to make more money? This is going to be an absolute free-for-all. I will drink lots of beer and talk about robots (inside joke). The social media guy from Intel is going to freak out.

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