iDate is next week and I wanted to talk a bit about the agenda. Recently I wrote about the iDate speaker schedule and improbable iDate sessions which is sure to provide a chuckle.
The format this year is morning seminars and lectures, followed by afternoon workshops.
iDate should make video or MP3’s available of the entire conference. Podcast the whole thing for a few hundred bucks for the people who can’t attend. A ton of revenue there for them, not that they aren’t making a million off the show already.
Thursday
30 minutes on the state of the industry with Mark Brooks. We’ll see if he can top Date.com’s presentation last year. My crystal-ball says he will talk about slowing growth of the industry, review a few of the larger acquisitions, say a few words about legislation and mention Vintacom, Myspace and True.com. Will he admit to working for True?
30 minutes finding out what Relationship Exchange has been up. Brad will talk about the new relationship with CGI and how they fit into their ecosystem of companies. Last I heard they had 300,000 paying customers, maybe we’ll find out how that growth is working for them.
30 minutes of Cannon trying to sell webcams to consumers. On the first morning of the only dating conference in the US and you’re going to sell me on the idea of webcams? Where is Logitech?
Dr. John Grey “Customer Retention – How to Stop Customers From Blaming You For Their Lack of Success”. Blame themselves?
Relationship Exchange and World Dating Partners will be doing exhibitor Seminars to finish out the morning.
Interesting that the sponsor list is so different from last year. Most exhibitors from last year are not on the list.
In the afternoon it’s Comscore and John Larosa talking about metrics and statistics vs. event promotion. Last year this was one of the most interesting workshops. Will Markus at POF be there to provide color commentary?
I like how iDate mentions that they will speak for 20 minutes and the rest of the time the audience is free to grill them, because that’s exactly what’s going to happen. This will be the most contentious session of the conference. Nobody wants to see the flat growth charts, depressing.
I sell MarketData’s dating industry report, which is going to be updated very soon. I would offer Comscore’s but they have not put together an affordable package, perhaps this will change.
Up against the stats geeks will be Cupid.com and a random nightclub owner talking about live event promotion. This will be sparsely attended.
Since payment solution providers avoid dating sites like the plague, it will be interesting to listen to 2000 charge and JetPay talk about their solutions for the industry.
It was a bad idea to put all of these workshops on the same timeline. Everyone should see the stats and metrics session, that should be a prime morning spot. At least the merchant systems are not stacked on top of each other.
Datingsoftwares will be speaking and so will Stickam. Userplane has pretty much sown up the dating and social networking space, is there room for another video/chat client?
Next up, Background checks, Thomas Technologies and Honesty Online. What is Honesty Online?
The description of these exhibitors the generic text provided by iDate. Give us more details.
US information search is there too, the background check battle continues. I had lunch with the new Biz Dev guru at backgroundchecks.com, expect big things from them. I see Verified Person is back as well. Maybe this is the year for background checks, is sure wasn’t last year, even after all the hype. Trufina, where art thou?
Mobeze will talk about click-to-call. This and anonymous calling is going to be very hot, someday. Several vendors attended last year and didn’t get anywhere, perhaps it’s the third party vendors that are going to drive the adoption.
The Vivox presentation(s) are going to be good. I’ve been talking with them and I like what I’ve heard so far. A new entrant, funded by father of VOIP and Vonage.
90 minutes of BrainBank talking about new ideas for the dating industry could be very interesting. Enterprise Idea Management is a catchy phrase, but you already get all your good ideas from blogs, right?
More webcam companies. Commodities at this point, what’s the best user experience and cost to dating sites? SafeDate is back after a long quiet period. Threw best party last year, hands down.
Why are Privatel and Mobeze doing two session talking pretty much about the same thing in different rooms at the same time?
Skylist and Email analyst are showing their email marketing solutions.
Friendfinder is doing a exhibitor session. Maybe some models from Adult Friend Finder will mingle with the crowd. Otherwise expect a close-to-the-vest presentation. These guys make a ton of money and stay very quiet. Expect to hear about the SpringStreet acquisition.
Plutolife – mobile gaming and dating. Lot’s of worldwide companies trying to crack the US Market.
Friday
Online vs. offline with Robert Fisher of Great Expectations. This is going to be good.
30 minutes talking about legal issues, otherwise known as the True.com session. Legislation seems to be stalled across the board, the media coverage was good but died down, along with it’s chances of passing.
ProfileHelper talking about the value of better personal ads. How could I not think this is going to be a good presentation. I did the same thing a few years ago at SITRAS with ProfileDoctor. I think dating companies will more open to this today. Hopefully Eric will talk about when he was the profile guy at Match before they killed the program. Great stories.
30 minutes on streaming technologies. See Userplane.
The Instinct marketing seminar will be good. Bill Broadbent is super sharp.
SEO stuff from Efficient Frontier. Yeah, let’s drive up keyword prices even higher!
Ideal Exposure, CityNeo, Domain Systems. Ad Network, location-based mobile something or other, and domain name registrar. GoDaddy is selling them at $1.99 now, this market is fually saturated.
Econfidant- smarter advice for dating and relationships. I’m surprised more of the downloadable PDF, coaching and advisors are not in attendance.
AdBrite- more online ad networks. Friendster and YouTube are clients, YouTube is the hottest online video storage company out there. Expect acquisition soon.
National Background Data. Many background checkers trying to enter a market they don’t understand well enough to be considered a player and they are a year late. Where is the simple site integration?
The VC/funding workshop is sure to be well attended. None of the companies who have actually funded a dating site are presenting though.
Agito and Match Ranger talking about affiliate marketing. I consider this a must-attend.
Talk Plus prepaid calling cards. Sure, ok.
The closing panel should prove to be interesting. Last year was entertaining to say the least. A good panel this year. If I’m there I will be in full-on heckling mode.
At first I heard 900 people were attending, now I hear it’s 350, about same as last year.
Where is Match, Yahoo, Spark PerfectMatch and all the other major sites? Conspicuously absent although they all will have spies working the shows.
Most importantly, where are the parties?
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