Here are a couple of companies I think you should pay attention to, talk to and do deals with, at iDate or otherwise.
Dating Headshots: At the risk of over-exposure, I beg you to take a moment to think about the benefits of having better dating profile photos, additional revenue streams, fun contests like makeover giveaways to members and did I say additional revenue?
They have had great success with a number of dating site pilot programs and I still haven’t heard a good reason why they are not a great reason to add to all dating sites. Its time for the dating industry to wake up and start taking advantage of these and other value-added services. All you have to do is run an ad and/or embed a widget, eazy-breezy. Call Gordon at 1-866-532-2159 or say hi to him at iDate.
Instinct Marketing: Bill and his team provide lead-generation services to a number of dating sites and matchmakers. He knows this stuff cold and a great guy.
eLove: Terry and Paul will be around as usual. After working with them all summer I can tell you that they have a lot going on, including a very interesting new hire. No, I’m not talking about Julie Ferman :-)
Marc Porcelli @ Epic Advertising: They guy does a huge amount of online dating advertising through his network.
iovation: superior anti-fraud services to dating sites. Again, once you get the pricing right, whats not to like?
Crowdflower: crowd-sourced content management for dating sites. Supercheap labor to keep your site free of spammers, rid of X-rated photos, etc.
White Label Dating and Dating Factory: Whether or not you are a fan of hosted dating sites, being able to click a few buttons and having a fully-functional dating site up and running with a core set of existing profiles is a great deal. Of course the devil is in the details in terms of who owns the profiles, can you take them with you, revenue split and the fact that they only work with paid dating sites.
IntroAnalytics: Last year there was a big splash with IntroAnalytics and VisualDNA. Looks like VisualDNA has pilot programs with eHarmony, Match and a few other sites and has perhaps moved on to greener pastures. Still, I really like some of their profile-builder technology. Match liked their matching system enough to pretty much copy (or license) Visual DNA’s visual matching system.
IntroAnalytics, however, is here for the long haul. Sure they are branching out into ecommerce and other verticals, but a number of dating sites are having great success with key metrics using their behavioral matching systems. As a bonus, they also work in real-time.
As sites go, make sure to high-five the peeps at HowAboutWe, DateBuzz and all of the other startups that launched this year.
Make sure to discuss social media marketing, the insane valuation of Are You Interested, just what the heck is going on with Zoosk (expecting 200M in revenue for 2011 and were posting 20% month over month revenue gains), Facebook dating upstarts like Datebuzz HowAbout We, Meetcha, etc.
Depending on the source, online dating is either declining, flat or growing in leaps and bounds. However, There Are 3 Million First Dates Every Day Worldwide. Hopefully iDate attendees will nudge that number up a few million this year.
Who else should be called out in this list as must-see people and companies? Feel free to contact me to be included in this list (at my discretion just in case this opens the floodgates).
