Every year I like to write something about the Internet Dating Conference sessions I feel will be worth paying attention to, along with some personal commentary having been to iDate, spoken there and generally knowing a lot of the people attending and how it operates.
Today, thoughts on iDate, Day 2.
Its going to be difficult for Face Recognition Profiling and Moniker domain name sales and Online Personals Watch (what is Mark demo’ing?) to compete with Combatting Dating Fraud: Proactive measures. Surprised that iovation isn’t speaking, but then again they already have a ton of dating sites as clients. From the agenda: “For the dating industry CEO , this is an excellent opportunty to forge relationships with consumer groups and law enforcement for the benefit of the industry and the consumer.” That means, “Get in line with us and on our good side before we legislate the hell out of your industry.”
Next session: babyTEL is talking about VOIP calling. Is this another run at anonymous calling on dating sites like Jangle on Match? Flashcoms will continue to attempt to erode Userplane’s and other voice/video chat apps market share in the dating market. They have MTV, AT&T and Pizza Hut as clients, impressive.
Was just emailing back and forth with Jonathan Crutchley, who will be talking about Current Trends in the Gay Online Dating Market. Whatever happened to MyPartner? I believe its for sale.
Pete McGreevy will talk about New York State Regulations and Class Action Lawsuits. Why isn’t there a general “Legal” track at iDate instead of spreading this stuff throughout the conference?
Dating Starts Here will demo their meta-search for multiple dating sites. I’ve written about this ad nauseum. Only thing that matters is the deals they do with dating sites. In the past, online dating meta-search sites have partnered with not-so-hot dating site partners, which leads to a weak customer experience, which leads to no revenue. Its the new style of affiliate marketing for dating sites that goes round and round. for a sense of how this work, check out the UK-centric Canoodle, which searches 35 dating sites as part of the IDE Group.
Pro-Call Solutions will demo their customer care and call-center solutions.
Lunch!
Afternoon sessions.
Joel Simkhai of Grindr will talk about Location Based Dating: Business Models & Technology. So far this is my #1 pick for the day. Grindr really knows what they are doing when it comes to location-based apps. I wrote about going to a club and watching people use Grindr to pick each other up. Other two demos at this time are payment providers, which online dating executives *love* to hear about ;-) and Moss Networks, which is not a technology but a PR firm.
Next sessions.
Free Business Models & What They Mean to the Dating Industry: An Industry Friend or A Business Killer. This is the session where conference organizer Mark Lesnick grabs the spotlight to rant about free dating and how its cannibalizing online dating. Either you buy into this hoopla or you go to the beach. I recommend SPF 40.
Yah, more payment processor demos. But wait, Image Vision Labs will talk about content filtering.
“IVL is a software solutions company developing automated real-time content compliance and moderation platforms using artificial intelligence to filter nudity, copyrighted material, logos and brands for companies.”
This is exactly what Milabra was pitching at iDate a few years ago. Nobody really got that excited, which was surprising to me. Then Crowdflower came along. I am a huge fan of Crowdflower, you should check them out. Its like cloud computing, with people, or content management based on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
And now, the final panel debate!
This is where you eat potato chips and drink beer and everyone rants about dating-industry topics. There is no topic set.
You’ll find this either very entertaining, a complete waste of time or thoroughly thought-provoking, depending on how much beer you consume.
Its too bad Liz Wasserman from Mate1 is not on the panel this year. She is a boatload of awesome. Still, a pretty good lineup. Someone *please* video this and I’ll post.
After party at SkyBar. Last year was a blowout, lots of fun and worth sticking around for.
And we’re done.
Previously: iDate 2011 Conference Preview: Day 1
