I read about Randommate over at OPW. Randommate easily boasts the most features of any speed dating site I’ve seen. Unfortunately, it’s feature-itis is also what makes me want to run to the simplicity of other speed dating sites. Speed dating is about popping in, meeting a few people and leaving. Here’s the Randommate launch press release.
Let’s be honest. The majority of online dater’s don’t want speed dating. Nobody is breaking down the doors at dating sites saying they want the feature. This will change over time.
The quality of a speed dating site is based on one thing and one thing only, the quality of it’s members. Functionality is a distant second. Same goes for dating sites.
Nobody knows if a standalone site, a partnership with a big dating site, or a social network app is going to be the winning channel for speed dating.
We haven’t seen a market leader emerge yet. It’s just too early and the sites are still learning the ropes. I’m sure Speeddate and the others are all courting dating sites, or will be shortly. Otherwise, they are going to launch on Facebook and MySpace and take the marketing money they would spend and use it otherwise.
Speaking of revenue, where is it? Based on ads? Then you need a ton of traffic to make money, and the ads are going to be junk for the most part. Pay to play credits? WooMe is going to do that. I think we’ll hear crickets when speed dating start charging. Speed dating seems like it wants to be free. At the same time, I hope speed dating sites can work with dating sites to figure out how to make some money and use the fees as a paywall for serious daters.
Speed dating is a niche business for the under-30 crowd. In certain circumstances the over-30 crowd will embrace speed dating, but we’ll see them using it in a different way, video-conferencing.
Can you imagine a speed date on MySpace? Shudder.
We will be talking about videoconferencing instead of speed dating in a few years. Videoconferencing is going to eclipse speed dating, guaranteed. Much larger market, more opportunity to connect people and much more revenue potential.
I have a solid business plan to go after the casual videoconferencing market if anyone is interested in talking.
