Mark Brooks has another interview with Jupiter Research’s Nate Elliot.
My quick take:
Online Dating market in EU doubling between now and 2009? Maybe 40% tops. Good points about different EU sites maturing at different rates.
Match and Meetic are the big players but there are several large US sites tentatively looking across the pond. When they come ashore, watch out.
“We’ve also found that online daters don’t leave dating sites for social networks.”
This may be true for EU but absolutely false in the US.
Mobile dating has always been over-hyped, remember last year when it was the 13th most important feature for online daters? It’s a long slow road to adoption, on either side of the pond. US mobile phones lag so far behind EU and Asia, no wonder we’re slow to adopt mobile dating. We need GPS and compelling location-based services for it to work in the US.
Good points about video dating, adoption rate continues to be slow. People are not comfortable with it at all. According to the media, the people who are tend to end up on “To Catch a Predator.” Apple’s built-in iSight cameras on the new MacBooks make it easier than ever to start video-conferencing. Skype video is what’s going to drive this and dating may benefit.
Pricing info is spot on. Raising prices is short-term thinking. Pay-by-credits trend may increase as well. How many more people will pay a few bucks for an introduction like on LinkedIn as opposed to $25 a month for a dating site?
I’ve always said that price is a filter. My $25 a month does not pay for the service, it creates a community of like-minded individuals and keeps out the lower quality browsers.
Daters perceive the difference between dating site and a social networking site as slimmer than ever, and at a price point of $0, the value has to come from more quality matches. I wouldn’t be surprised if some dating sites started to more aggressively filter members like eHarmony to justify their price points.
The industry is growing, but at what cost? The top 10 sites continue to enjoy growth of varying degrees while a huge number of sites sit stagnant and due to low operating costs remain operational well past their sell-by date.
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