Time for some advertiser love and some considerations to ponder regarding what it takes to build a dating site with pre-fab’d dating software.

Boonex announces an updated iPhone Android app for Dolphin, Mobile Licenses for $199. Dolphin replication and Dolphin cluster setup (is anyone else doing this with packaged dating site sofware?) Places Module with Events integration: create locations like hotels, clubs, restaurants, bars, business-companies and much more. You can create events inside locations as well.

SkaDate has improved their pre-sale support and has added a ton of new features. Lots of tutorials as well.

Speaking of help, one thing that will never change is the fact that people who aren’t versed in web application development tend to make a lot of negative noise when it comes to dating-site-in-a-box systems.

That said, I think most dating site software companies have a ways to go in terms of customer service. It’s clear that there are issues that need to be addressed in the post-sale support arena. Its not that I get lots of complaints though, and it feels like much of the ranting is from competitors, but thats just a hunch.

Sometimes its not the software thats the issue, its the people behind the often-questionable concepts driving sites and their lack of knowledge about how to go about launching a dating site. Thats where the frustration comes from.

The online dating industry portion of my consultancy is based on getting people up to speed on the decisions they need to make, getting them to revenue faster, and sometimes helping them out tactically along the way.

Having done this for a number of years, I’ve learned the following.

As I always say to clients, if you have a bit of money and you want to make some more on the Internet, starting a dating site is probably the last thing you should consider unless you satisfy certain criteria like previous entrepreneurship, technical knowledge, project management, wrangling developers, advertising optimization, etc. And a sizable marketing budget of course.

Mark my words, if you are a regular joe working with a web developer and designer, of course you are going to run into problems. Lots of them. Every day. You don’t know the net, or servers, or design or marketing or ad optimization or sales funnels. Or maybe you do to some extent, but you’re not an expert at:

• Raising money
• Sorting out bank account/merchant  account/e-commerce system
• Deploying a website/database with redundancy
• Managing a branding project
• Figuring out the feature vs. simplicity vs. money equation
• Wrangling a team of talent (around the world perhaps)
• Other topics too numerous to mention here (but part of my dating site startup bootcamp)

I’ve done many, many advisory calls with people who are preparing to select a dating site platform, or stuck in the middle of the development process. The build vs. buy vs. white label conversation is often an eye-opener for potential dating site owners.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Careful consideration of things like experience, the team, vision for the company, available resources (cash and talent) and expectations all come into play when deciding how to launch a dating site.

When its done right, its gratifying on many levels, but when dating site development goes south, you’re often in for a world of hurt.

Thats why its better to contact me before you get started so you can launch quickly, get to revenue faster and avoid all of the pitfalls your competitors suffered.

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Heading to the Harpoon Octoberfest party on the waterfront tonight along with a few thousand other dejected Red Sox fans. This has been a trying month, not only in baseball, but getting blog posts out. Don’t you worry, lots of good stuff coming down the pipe.

HowAboutWe Powers Someecards: One of my favorite weekly emails is from someecards. Once look at today’s email and it becomes apparent that HowAboutWe is now powering their dating feature.

OkCupid has launched a secret skunkworks Ok Labs in San Francisco. Ex-Zoosk’er Nicholas Abramovic is there. Nick used to run acquisition at Zoosk and later consulted for SpeedDate.

Nick’s previous gig was founder of DateUp, a stealth online dating service acquired by Match.com. His LinkedIn profile says he is currently leading the San Francisco office working on top secret projects for the coolest company in online dating.

Am I the only one who’s excited to see what they come up with in the labs?

Future of the Dolphin dating platform and niche social networks: More at Boonex.

Reposting this from last month because I’m surprised that HowAboutWe hasn’t done this yet: ChirpMe Launches A Dating Site For Activities–And Groupons: Most new dating sites have at least considered date ideas similar to HowAboutWe. ChirpMe decided to do both. ChirpMe is a start-up that is participating in and funded by the 500Startups accelerator program.

I’m talking to a dating site later today funded by another popular accelerator fund. These kids really get it and its great to see investors warming up to the idea of cramming them with knowledge, domain experts, caffeine and cash.

As to whether singles give a damn about group buys and date recommendations in a large-scale meaningful way, the jury is still out. More at Forbes.

Finding an Instant Date Nearby, With an App: NY Times talking about Blendr, which used location to show you other suitable singles nearby. These apps dumb down the matching process a bit too much for my liking, but they sure can be addictive if you are in a major metro area.

Moonit surpasses a major milestone: 1,000,000 registered users. Dating site startups, they probably didn’t buy profiles to start up their database, and in most cases, neither should you.

CuddleComfort.com went live recently. Time to get all snuggly with strangers. The site says that “Maine proved to be the state least in need of a cuddle, at 94% below America’s average. With over 15,000 people searching for a cuddle buddy each month on Google and almost 5,000 on Twitter, we are catering to a very clear demand.” More info.

FreezeCrowd finally launched. EDU email addresses only. College dating remains a hot market, tons of startups that tend to get a lot of launch press, then fade from memory. Then again I’m in my 40′s.

Meexo is like Pandora for dating: Pulls in Foursquare and Facebook data. For dating purposes, you can hide your profile from friends. Virtual currency is used to pay for sending messages.

Make way for another “rate a date” site. DirtyBubble is a place people to rate, share, and review their previous relationships and hook-ups. Look at it like Yelp for people. People get to review their exes on different categories and leave their feed back about their experience.

Looks like Cheek’d has some competition.  MeSayingHi let’s people make connections in the “real” world before actually scoping them out online.

New Online Dating  Book: Robin Mesger says My  friend and  I wrote a book about true on-line dating stories.  It’s called I Don’t Want to Die Alone!:  True Stories  of Online  Dating and was just published.

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Longtime sponsor Boonex has announced the release of Dolphin 7.0.7. 100 improvements, fixes and new features. Along with being a generally improved package it brings some substantial additions: support for 3rd-party mobile apps and Page Access Control.

Hosting
HostForWeb is the first official BoonEx hosting partner, starting at less than $4/month.

July Special Offer
Mobile Apps license available separately for A$299 for both iPhone and Android Apps.

Mobile Apps Update and Mobile Builder
The new breed of BoonEx Mobile Apps now support integration of 3rd party Modules in the most elegant manner. Executed properly this implementation allows 3rd party modules look and feel like part of native application experience.

Page Access Control
This system has been around for some time as a commercial modules by AntonLV. We’ve purchased, integrated, updated and packed it in for you for free. Why? Put simply, because it brings control over your site to a whole new level.

Details about Dolphin 8, which is coming soon.

More details at Boonex.

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A great time was had by all at the eAmore Dating Industry Summit in New York. 150 people got together in Brooklyn to listen to dating industry executives, startups, financiers and vendors.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the event. The main gripe was that the schedule ran too long, and this will certainly be addressed at the next event. From my perspective this was easy to overlook while engaging with a roomful of bright young and passionate dating entrepreneurs for a few hours at a hip event space under the Brooklyn Bridge.

I felt like an elder statesman. Some presenters were 12 when I started covering the dating space. I ended up spending a lot of time on stage and tried to educate and provide perspective by sharing what I’ve learned working with dating sites over the years.

One issue that was continuously reinforced throughout the night is that entrepreneurs tend to avoid focusing on previous attempts in their market. This can be useful if they leverage their myopia in positive ways, or may lead to pain-inducing times if they don’t understand how the market has evolved. That’s where I can help.

Some of my rapid-fire “state of the dating industry” presentation ended up repeating key points Sam Yagan made in his keynote. Example: Social exhaust data is interesting in dating profiles but no one is leveraging it to its full capacity. Mobile is easy to get into, difficult to succeed. The Q&A with Sam was super, he is one of the nicest and smartest people in the industry. We could have listened to Sam talk for an hour straight, he’s that good.

Here’s part 1 of a recap for those of you who were unable to attend. Leave a comment if you have found other write-ups of the event and I’ll add at the bottom. Speaking of attending, people came from all over the US and several people who went to iDate LA came to eAmore on their way home which was great!

As an optimist cynic who thinks he’s heard it all, I learned an incredible amount from some very bright people hell-bent on changing online dating for the better.

The event turned me on to a number of new concepts based on previously-attempted ideas that failed to get significant traction in the marketplace. Examples: mobile matchmaking, white label providers, introduction services and dating site meta-search. Reality is that sometimes it takes a few iterations of an idea for it to take off. Society has to be ready, technology advances, having enough money, the right founders and team and plenty of luck are required to succeed in the dating industry.

Mobile was a hot topic. Most services had or are planning some sort of mobile apps. HowAboutWe talked about their new mobile app.

Andrew Weinreich, founder of mobile dating service MeetMoi was the moderator. Kudos to Andrew for his efforts to keep the event moving along and insightful Q&A sessions.

Parlor.fm is soup-to-nuts voice-based social networking. Almost too much to comprehend in a quick demo. Founder brought LoveDetect to market, a concept I love to this day.

LoKast, creators of disposable social networks impressed. Great for parties and events.

MeepMe has a new take on flirting at events. Lots of UPenn/Wharton people at the event.

A Small World-inspired Invite-only services like Refreshing Note and Clique NYC caught my attention. Great examples of leveraging local networks and the social graph.

I enjoyed finally meeting Lori from Cheek’d. She has great energy and while I was lukewarm from the start on “dating business cards”, her foray into Facebook is worth paying close attention to.

Moonit is based on better relationships through astrology, and does a good job masking the new-age feel of most astro-based services. They have a new API available to dating sites. I can’t believe I didn’t get a chance to say to Dana, who I’ve spoken with a number of times but never met.

Same goes for so many people. I was on stage too much and didn’t get to mingle enough until the very end of a long night. If I didn’t get a chance to say hi, please don’t take it personally. I’d love to talk with you if you are doing something interesting in the dating space.

Spent time with Kareem Ahmed, the founder of Inbox Cupid, a Groupon-style service where members are the deal of the day. I am totally bullish on the concept, huge potential. I would be surprised if the company didn’t attract investment interest in the near future. Kareem called me the Simon Cowell of the dating industry. I’ll take that as a compliment.

Special thanks to Adam Ludwin at RRE Ventures for talking about some of his criteria for investing in dating-related companies. RRE’s money in HowAboutWe is being put to good use. There has been a lot of discussion in the crowd about if suggested date ideas are a strong enough driver of growth.

One key indicator that HAW is on to something is that dating sites are copying the idea.

eFlirt Expert’s “How to pick a dating site” eFlirt Engine service won my vote for most likely to succeed. Built in a “startup weekend” environment, singles need a place where people can go to select the dating site that is right for them.

I love Lokast and a few other demos were great, but there are 60 million people not dating online in the US and we need to get people educated and comfortable with online dating. Then they can go hog-wild with mobile apps and Twitter and all the rest. Plenty of room for new and novel startups, that’s for sure.

Luv@FirstTweet leverages Twitter to build your profile on the go and then match you with other people. I’m slowly warming up to the idea that Twitter can play some sort of role in the matchmaking process.

MyYearbook and Hotlist both talked about social sites with a dating component. Hotlist is a social discovery engine that enables you to view where your Facebook friends and crowds have been in the past, are checked-in right now, and plan to go in the future. MyYearbook, which has that Myspace feel it it, gets over a billion pageviews/month.

I’ll follow up with some more thoughts on eAmore in a follow-up post. Did you attend? Leave a comment and let us know what you thought, it will help us improve the next one.

My hat is off to Maria for putting together a solid event, thanks for all your effort. I’m already looking forward to the next event. In the meantime I’ve got some smaller get-togethers and webinars planned, stay tuned.

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Developer Dan Moore has a good bullet-point Review of SkaDate dating software. Dan wrote the article after helping a client move an existing dating site from a custom ASP/MS-SQL system to SkaDate’s PHP/mysql platform. Dan gave SkaDate a B-. Disclaimer: SkaDate is a long-time advertisers on this blog.

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Bad news for those of you looking for the next generation of adult gaming on xbox. According to the LA Times, Kinect-powered sex games will not become reality. Microsoft says they will not allow adult games based on the new Kinect motion controller to pass certification.

Austria-based ThriXXX is none too happy with the decision. I would think this is a lucrative market. We’ll just have to wait for the hackers to do an end run around the certification process.

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Dating industry executives, we know that sometimes you you need a full-blown consultant to work with you on long-term tactical efforts like marketing plan execution, member acquisition programs or product development efforts. But what if you don’t want to go through the hassle and expense of hiring an expensive consultant for a long-term engagement?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Introducing Online Dating Insider Advisory Services, for those times when a conversation with a dating industry expert is what you need. Buy an hour or two of phone time and you’ll receive access to our wealth of online dating industry knowledge and insight.

No lengthy contracts or hidden fees. You pick up the phone, ask your burning questions, we discuss, and you walk away with the answers you need immediately.

Scheduling advisory services couldn’t be easier. Simply select the number of hours you would like to reserve. Once your order is complete we will be in touch to schedule a time to talk. All you have to do ahead of the call is send us an email with a bullet-point list of reasonable topics you would like to cover. See below to get an idea of whats ok to talk about.

Sign up for Introducing Online Dating Insider Advisory Services below and lets talk.

One Hour $250.00 Two Hours $500.00 Three Hours $700.00

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This is from advertiser Skalfa eCommerce, creators of SkaDate dating software.

New version of SkaDate 7.5 is available. User features now include a Virtual Gift Shop, User Points system, music upload and rate, Private and Public profile status, enhanced search results navigation, and uploaded photo rotation and more. Important Administrator features added within the release are a photo verification tool, mass-mailing to internal site mailboxes, and the ability to limit search results for certain membership types. General software improvements include Internet Explorer 8 support, an integrated 123 Web Messenger, a new template, and improved existing templates. Detailed description of the new version.

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Niche dating sites can be incredibly effective if you’re Jewish, Black, Gay, Athletic or belong to any number of groups where it makes sense to self-identify as part of a particular group of people. Matchmaker was the first site to have many different demographic areas broken out inside a single dating site, but Date.com merged everything into one database when they acquired the site.

These days I’m increasingly interested in how large dating sites are taking advantage of the staggering amount of information the collect about their users. Large dating sites are spending tens of millions of dollars logging, storing, analyzing and refining compatibility algorithms on multi-terabyte data sets based on what users is doing on their sites. Data such as the number of emails being sent and responded to daily and hundreds of other metrics and measurements are being captured, at least I hope they are.

Smaller sub-500,000 member niche dating sites are simply not able to compete when it comes to designing compatibility algorithms and dynamic content display. They have to think smarter about which data to collect and how to feed back what they learn about how people use their site in an ongoing incremental update process. Dating sites are not set-it-and-forget-it enterprises, although this is how much of the industry views itself.

Building a quick site turning on the marketing dollars and watching the money pour in works for a few sites, but is not the golden rule by any means when it comes to competing in today’s crowded marketplace.

The widening gap between niche sites and mainstream dating sites reminds me of when Google was starting to get traction. There was Alta Vista, HotBot, Dogpile and 25 other search engines. In the past 5-7 years the majority of them having fallen by the wayside as Google has risen to prominence. This has not been the case in the online dating industry, yet.

Downloading a dating platform and rolling the dice with a few thousand dollars is almost certainly a recipe for disaster in today’s market. This is not to denigrate dating platform providers. On the contrary, I think there is a lot of room for groundbreaking sites to rise up and take market share from slack dating site operators. but what I’m hearing from people day in and day out is a lack of innovative though in regards to what singles are looking for in a dating site these days and the platform providers are simply providing just that, a platform. That’s where I come in as a consultant.

Dating sites are simply starting up all over the place these days as they try and cash in on the recession-based surge the media has done such a good job mis-reporting.

Lately I’ve noticed that most dating software vendors are reticent about discussing their businesses and that more and more people are building sites themselves, either through software platforms or White Label Dating. I still get 10-20 emails a week from startups, but now they are looking for free feedback on their concept, not the multi-month engagements of the past where I work with them to refine their business models and deal with the 87 issues any dating site startup needs to address in order to be successful.

If the industry is at the point where anyone can launch a dating site or become a pseudo-affiliate of White Label Dating, where is the interesting stuff happening? These days the action and interesting stuff tends to be happening at the top ten dating sites. Thats where the real innovation and growth is occurring, along with one heck of a steep learning curve. And that’s where my focus is moving towards as well.

Lately I’ve been reading more stories like these:

Is Big Data at a tipping point?

Online dating: Your profile’s long, scary shelf life

How Google and Facebook are using R:

Itamar Rosenn at Facebook conveyed how Facebook’s Data Team used R in 2007 to answer two questions about new users: (i) which data points predict whether a user will stay? and (ii) if they stay, which data points predict how active they’ll be after three months?

For the first question, Itamar’s team used recursive partitioning (via the rpart package) to infer that just two data points are significantly predictive of whether a user remains on Facebook: (i) having more than one session as a new user, and (ii) entering basic profile information.

For the second question, they fit the data to a logistic model using a least angle regression approach (via the lars package), and found that activity at three months was predicted by variables related to three classes of behavior: (i) how often a user was reached out to by others, (ii) frequency of third party application use, and (iii) what Itamar termed “receptiveness” — related to how forthcoming a user was on the site.

Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior

These stories may seem to have little to do with online dating, but as a whole they can be seen as incredibly inspiring when viewed from the perspective of someone running an established dating site or looking to start one.

One one end of the spectrum we have bare-bones sites like SinglesNet at the top of the charts, both for traffic and consumer complaints. On the other end we have analysis-driven dating sites like Chemistry and eHarmony (both with their share of complaints as well) leading the charge into massively scalable dating sites able to match members heuristically.

In between we have the niche sites making a tidy profit for a handful of companies focused on satisfying customer demand and hopefully having a good time while they do it.

Then we have the startups, which range from naive to incredibly thoughtful when it comes to business models, marketing plans and expectations. See above.

Each sector of the online dating industry has is own set of issues and objectives but all share these common goals: Attracting members, converting them and then retaining them for as long as possible. This in effect is the essence of online dating and of the work I perform, day in and day out, for five years and counting. These goals will not change anytime soon, but the strategy, execution and resources required the achieve them are evolving drastically. That’s what I attempt to discuss here in the hopes that the online dating industry values my effort and insight enough to warrant hiring me.

As compatibility matching and the systems required to support millions of members continue to increase in complexity, the number of dating site able to compete is going to shrink. This will lead to consolidation, with a few Googles MSN Seach and Ask.com’s in play and then a tier of niche sites catering to 500,000-people communities based on age, sexuality and interest. The rest of the market will solider along, strong enough to live on shoestring budgets and clever marketing campaigns. I think this is exactly where the market needs to go, but the timeline in which this will happen is anyone’s guess.

Anyone who disagrees should go read up on Facebook’s growth, the small number of social networks and the consumer revolt against myriad profiles and demand for simplicity. Online dating is different from social networking in many ways, but the writing is on the wall. What do you think?

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Has anyone used Dating Site Builder? I need to know if they are worth considering. Site says the have created $850,000 in revenue per month. Not bad for a $30/month product. Feedback has ranged from a-ok to stay the heck away.

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