I wanted to speak at iDate in Miami, but alas, it looks like I am an industry outsider this year. It seems I didn’t get in line early enough and they are overbooked for speakers. It would have been a good opportunity to talk about the industry from an, ahem, pundit’s perspective. I like the idea generation and industry issues panels a lot.
Shameless self-promotion: I’m going for the grass-roots campaign angle. If you would like to hear me speakat iDate, email jennifer@idate2006.com and let Mark Lesnick know you want more inside scoop on the industry.
I have a great set of bullet points for a talk and I don’t want to waste them. Depending on the outcome, I may put together a poolside chat during one of the panels. No conference room, beverages close at hand and better scenery than the back of people’s heads.
This year the bar needs to be raised. No “intro to anything”, we’re past that, no excuses. The conference needs to foster new ideas, hard hitting discussion about what we need to be focusing on in 2006 and present us with the resources needed to get started.
Looking over the schedule, I see a slot for a someone to talk about acquiring venture capital for dating sites. They need to focus on raising capital for marketing and acquisition, not starting a new dating site. There needs to be an embargo on new sites, perhaps nationwide legislation that new site concepts need to be peer reviewed before they are allowed to launch. If you pass, you can launch with a logo on your home page saying that you’re site is verified. Wait, that’s already happening.
3 people are talking about customer retention. Hopefully Dr. Grey will talk about retention, and Scott Butler will talk about acquisition. Scott’s session last year was amazing. ProfileHelper is talking about better profiles. I think we’re past worrying about how good a profile is, especially if it’s a fake one. Still, this is as close to a conversation about value-added services that we’ll hear.
Online vs offline – Robert Fisher, natural choice. Robert knows more about the industry than almost anyone.
Industry issues discussion – Cupid and Date, Christiancafe. This should be good. Meir is sharp and Sam is an instigator, grab a good seat for this one.
Software platforms – Relationship Exchange, of course, given their very big year.
State of the industry – A recap is be nice but we need to focus forward, not back.
Affiliate promotion – If you run an affiliate program you should be in constant contact with your best and worst performing affiliates and have an affiliate manager in place. It will be interesting to see how they school affiliate sites on raising their game, because at the moment 95% are terrible.
Legal – funny how the True legislation is not mentioned, only recent lawsuits. hopefully the presenters will not limit his talk to lawsuits that don’t mean much to most of the people in the room unless you work for Match or Yahoo.
Statistics – Two sessions. I hope Keynote Systems is there as well, because glossing over powerpoint slides filled with flat-line numbers for 45 minutes doesn’t do it for me. I can do that at home.
Telcom – This should be good. Vivox is in the house.
Events, clubs, promotions – Last year IRL was in full swing, where did they go? Julie and Vince are sharp, I don’t see where the nightclub guy fits in.
Managing Idea Generation for Increased Online Dating Revenues. The best workshop so far hands down. this should be right after the keynote. Not clear on BrainBank, they sell idea Management applications. We need to talk about hidden revenue, leaving cash on the table and extending subscription duration as well as value-added services.
Coming up, I’ll post a list of sessions I’d like to attend that don’t exist.
[tags: idatemiami2006]
