Back in the saddle: I’m excited to be back. Taking a week-plus off from blogging during the holidays (with the mother of all sinus colds) was important, and I’m glad to be back and blogging our way up to iDate. Here are a few links of interest that I’ve been collecting.

Are Paid Online Dating Sites Dead? Of course not.

I found Partner Maps when they followed me on Twitter.

The Admin Zone looks like a great place if you run an online community.

Woman on a Mission to Marry in 52 Weeks - we will have to catch up with her in June and see how she’s doing. My mission has lasted a decade, maybe I need a billboard too.

Metrodate Celebrates 10 Years, Goes Free

Gail Laguna, ex Communications Director for Spark Networks, is now Director, Global Public Relations at Ascent Media Group.

Serious online daters need a serious computer rig to make the most of their time online. this Logitech setup looks perfect for Online Dating.

Burger King has launched a promotional Facebook widget. Un-friend 10 of your Facebook Friends via Whopper Sacrifice and BK will reward you with a Whopper. Careful though, unlike the usual Facebook unfriending process, the widget will notify your friends. I’m off to prune some people, sorry in advance, nothing personal, really, I’m starving.

Mandy Ginsberg, Match.com General Manager for North America, will be introducing Dr. Helen Fisher as the keynote speaker for iDate.

Two years ago I worked with Dr. Fisher and Chemistry.com to build their first blogs. Working with the entire team was rewarding I enjoyed spending time with Helen, who possesses an astonishing amount of knowledge about the science of love.

Helen has a new book coming out this spring which is based on her work with Chemistry.com and I’m sure she’ll be talking about that, although the agenda description is not up on the iDate website yet.

Here’s the blurb from Amazon:

Why do you fall in love with one person rather than another? In this fascinating and informative book, Helen Fisher, one of the world’s leading experts on romantic love, unlocks the hidden code of desire and attachment. Each of us, it turns out, primarily expresses one of four broad personality types—Explorer, Builder, Director, or Negotiator—and each of these types is governed by different chemical systems in the brain. Driven by this biology, we are attracted to partners who both mirror and complement our own personality type.

Until now the search for love has been blind, but Fisher pulls back the curtain and reveals how we unconsciously go about finding the right match. Drawing on her unique study of 40,000 men and women, she explores each personality type in detail and shows you how to identify your own type. Then she explains why some types match up well, whereas others are problematic. (Note to Explorers: be prepared for a wild ride when you hitch your star to a fellow Explorer!) Ultimately, Fisher’s investigation into the complex nature of romance and attachment leads to astonishing new insights into the essence of dating, love, and marriage.

Based on entirely new research—including a detailed questionnaire completed by five million people in thirty-three countries—Why Him? Why Her? will change your understanding of why you love him (or her) and help you use nature’s chemistry to find and keep your life partner.

I personally invite Fernando Ardenghi, Dr. Joel Block, Dr. Jim Houran to listen to Helen speak. I would love to listen in on a conversation between the four of them afterwards.

Details:

8:30 AM thursday January 22

Mandy Ginsberg, (General Manager) Match.com USA, introduces Dr. Helen Fisher, Chief Scientific Advisor to Chemistry.com

Location: B Wing - Rooms B210 & 211

ModMySite has several deals on Boonex Dolphin dating software development, customization and special packages.

- Discounted Support and Modification Pricing (save $75!)
- Free Month of Premium “Super Tweaked” Web Hosting (save $25!)
- Dolphin CLEAN 6.1.4 FREE!
- Google Maps for Dolphin 6.1.4 FREE!

The Modmysite forums are a good place to connect with other Dolphin developers and people interested in using the software.
Boonex is releasing a new version of their dating platform very soon, I would check out their site before making any decisions about your dating site platform. Same goes for SkaDate.
I am interested to hear about people’s experiences using any and all dating site software. While I am adept at walking clients through the due diligence process, the details and minutiae associated with software installation, setup and customization is different from platform to platform and version to version and insight into which platforms perform best is appreciated.

SkaDate has released an update to it’s dating platform. After six months of development, SkaDate 7 is available for download. You can find more information about Skadate 7 version at: http://www.skalfa.com/press/skadate-7-major-release.html. The link is to a fairly exhaustive blog post about how the system has been improved, including new features, template management, security and especially performance. You can test drive SkaDate 7 demo at: www.skadate.com/demo.

If you’re in the market for dating software, SkaDate and it’s distant cousin Boonex Dolphin are worth some due diligence. Disclaimer: Both are advertisers on the blog. There are several other reputable dating platforms available, each with their pros and cons.

No dating or social networking software is perfect, and it’s great to see the main platforms receiving upgrades after getting banged around with lackluster reputations for several years. I hope vendors listen to customers and continue to refine and improve their systems. The latest offerings feel light-years ahead of where packaged dating software was a few short years ago. One ongoing problem that I don’t see going away any time soon is finding programmers fluent in these platforms who are reputable, reliable and economical. I search for them, believe me, and my efforts have often been less than fruitful.

The Internet Dating Conference is taking place in Miami January 22-23. If you haven’t bought your passes yet, here are the iDate registration details. You’ll save up to a few hundred dollars if you register before January 15th. If you are looking to start a dating site, you should absolutely attend. You’ll learn a lot in the sessions and even more in the hallways. If you run a dating site, you should attend. Pretty much the entire industry will be there and it’s a great way to meet a lot of people just like you, including value-added service partners like background checks, video/chat, payment processors and much more.

In coming days I’ll be posting about the myriad speakers, workshops and what else is going on at the conference. Last year I spent most of my time dealing with clients exhibiting in the trade show floor, television producers and the media. This year I’m looking forward to speaking on a panel about revenue generation, reconnecting with old friends and associates and meeting the latest generation of dating sites and social network operators. See you in Miami.

The stars have aligned and I will be speaking at iDate in Miami in a few weeks. I’m on a panel about revenue generation. I’ve helped launch more than fifty dating sites and social networks and am looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned over the past few years as well as turning the crowd onto new revenue generation ideas and opportunities. I would have liked to participate in the “Introduction to the online dating business” on Wednesday, but I’m grateful to have a speaking slot regardless.

The workshop (agenda) is Friday January 23rd at 1:30pm in B Wing - Rooms B210 & 211. I hope you’ll stick around for it. The closing panel (beer served!) which follows is sure to be a highlight of the show.

This workshop will serve as a unique idea generating session for developing other revenue models for Online Dating and Social Networking. The three leading independent consultants to the industry will each provide “outside the box” ideas on how businesses can acheive higher revenue from their user base. Speakers are: Mark Brooks (Publisher of Online Personals Watch) David Evans (Publisher of Online Dating Insider) and Evan Marc Katz (CEO of Thought Rocket).

At iDate2007 Miami, the Revenue Model Workshop was met with resounding success from the delegates. Many operators gained valuable business information and some gained multi-million dollar business ideas from the session. At the iDate2009 event, each presenter will provide ideas in “rapid fire” each for 20 minutes, followed by a 30 minute question period from the general audience.

Consolidating things into twenty minutes is going to be difficult, but I’m up for the challenge.

The folks at Formula PR have a good sense of humor.

We are pleased to announce that SpeedDate.com, the world’s first online speed dating Web site, and Formula took their relationship to the next level and are officially together. For information on the world of online dating, survey results and expert commentary on love in the virtual age, please be sure to get in touch with us.

Nicely done. Actually got me to visit their site and introduce myself.

Roger Limon, Calisto100 CEO, emailed to let us know about Calisto100.

What are the criteria by which people are selected? We are looking for singles with something special to offer more than skin deep. Confident, ambitious, adventurous, honest, humorous singles with a positive outlook on life are the core qualities we focus on; however, it simply depends on the person. It is no secret that dating/quality is subjective, but Calisto100 aims to filter out the vast majority of singles online who aren’t focused on substance. There are plenty of singles out there looking for quality, and we want to offer them a place on the web where quality actually matters.

Who does the selecting? The company reviews all applications. All decisions are unanimous in order to make the list.

Why 100 people? It felt better than 99 or 101. We are offering a platform for singles to be featured, and it is just too easy to get lost in the crowd on all the other dating sites. We wanted a simple interface where users could simply click a city and see the top 100 all at once. No searching, no filtering, we do that for you.

What is your revenue model? We are subscription based. Calisto100 members who make the list pay a monthly subscription. The first month is free as of now.

What makes you think people are going to apply? In one word…quality. The web is saturated with online dating, but there seems to be no filter. Free sites bombard members with senseless ads, and paid sites will accept anyone who pays. Where do users go to find a quality single online? That is the gap we are trying to fulfill.

We believe that once Calisto100 develops its presence on the web focusing on quality, singles will then take the time to apply. And remember, the application is FREE. This is not going to be easy, and we know it. Users are used to signing up within seconds, and joining free communities; however, that is part of the problem. There is no filter in the dating world, and we believe that there is a need for quality. Calisto100 also offers an extremely different model. Anyone, member or non-member, can contact a Calisto100 member. This is free for non-members. All of those singles who want to online date without joining a community now can. Calisto100 members are able to control who contacts them, so this is a very unique spin to the standard online model.

I talked to someone about this exact idea a few months ago. Screening is a good idea, but people seem to have a problem with the arbitrary notion of what makes someone worthy.

There are several sites that only accept beautiful people, which means classically good looking. If you are that shallow, go right ahead and join and good luck to you.

First they say it’s subscription based, then it says it’s free. Perhaps they are talking about a social networking application. I’m concerned that people are not going to want to pay a subscription fee for Calisto100. I definitely wouldn’t pay until I was approved.

Calisto100 would be better if acceptance process was crowdsourced from the membership instead of relying a group of dudes sitting in a room looking at profiles. Can you imaging those meetings? Reviewing thousands of profiles every week? I would go numb and just start picking the hottest people, who has time to read profiles?  

Happy new year to everyone, hope your 2009 is starting off well. I’ve been sick and took some time away from the keyboard and am back and recharged. I have a many posts backed up from over the holidays and other tidbits that I’ll be posting this week.

I heard from Meezog CEO Erez Mizrachi, who was nice enough to send along details about their new service.

Meezoog was founded in 2007, raised $320K from private investors, including Dr. Yossi Vardi (Mirabilis – ICQ). Meezoog Alpha was launched on March 2008 with a private international community and expanded by way of invitation. About 200 seed members invited over 3,000 of their friends.

The key differentiator of Meezoog is in the implementation of unique Trust technologies. Meezoog allows virtual strangers to interact with each other in a safer way. Meezoog utilizes an innovative algorithm engine to calculate a set of “social trust” measurements (patent pending).

Today we’re on the verge of launching Meezoog Beta, which will be publically open, allowing people to connect with people they know in Meezoog or to start their own communities.

Meezoog is not just a “stand-alone” or a “destination site”. Meezoog utilizes the Company’s Cross-Platform Social Layer to cover leading social networking platforms and sites (e.g. MySpace, LinkedIn, HI5). And as aforementioned, this platform is empowered by a proprietary algorithm engine. The purpose of this platform is to allow members the interaction with others, regardless of the “network of origin”.

Today Meezoog Social Layer includes Facebook and Meezoog.com, and soon will include additional platforms and social sites. Nonetheless, it should be emphasized that unlike social graph and data portability applications, Meezoog provides measurements of “social trust” as well as trust-based “human paths” that connect people. Those measurements are designed to imitate “real-life” trust among people and allow the social validation of users’ representation on the Net.

Additional important points:

• Meezoog allows the formation of private communities and networks to integrate like-minded individuals.

• Search results are presented in order of “social proximity” and a “trust gauge” shows the calculated “social trust” for every person in the network.

• The system analyzes and locates the most trusted paths between people.

• Instead of referring to all connections as “friends”, Meezoog specifies and embeds the nature of relationship: “teacher”, “close friend”, “uncle”, “coworker”, etc.; its duration (days, years, etc.); the frequency of communications (daily/monthly/special occasions, etc.); etc.

• Meezoog members also include non-singles who wish to bring in and vouch for their dear ones.

Cross-network interaction (think social graph) is going to be a popular feature in 2009. People want to be able to take their data with them and it should be easier to move to a new social network or dating site.

Meezoog has obviously done a pretty deep think about what it means to be friends and how to improve on the current oversimplified notion of a friend on social networks. Understanding the social proximity of people I’m interested in to people I trust sounds useful, but is it the kind of functionality thats unique enough to drive the growth of an entirely new site? Seems like this could be added to Facebook, avoiding the cold-start empty database issue. Actually, this would have been a great feature for Engage.