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November 20, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
A certain high-ranking official with close ties to the clandestine dating/social-networking industrial complex has forwarded me top secret footage of recently-release video of Eharmony's CEO speaking with Marketwatch's Bambi Francisco.
Bambi Francisco :Have subscriber Acquisition Costs (SAC) gone up for eHarmony?
Greg Waldorf: No.
Dave, talking to monitor: Greg, what's up with the eye roll? Looks like the prompter was up in the ceiling.
BF: Match grew 22% to $80 million last quarter.
GW: eHarmony is growing at about the same rate as Match.
BF: Revenue growth for 2007?
GW: Next year's revenue growth will be most likely due to subscriber base increase, not price increase. Emphasis mine.
Dave to monitor: Bambi, ask him how much of that $110 million is left in the bank.
BF asking her usual questions. How many subscribers?
GW: We don't break out our individual subscriber counts. Many hundreds of thousands.
GW: 14 million signups since inception.
BF: What is average lifetime of a subscribe and how to you value your subscribers.
GW: We value them on trying to make them successful.
Dave: Nice dodge!
BW: applying pressure...
GW: Lifetime value of subscriber is well over $100. We don't break out into months.
BF: What new services are coming next?
GW: Serious R&D. New services for married couples in wellness space.
Dave: Nothing about expansion plans that have been pinging around the blogosphere.
BF: Spark has 26 niche sites. Talks about the network's demographics, pays homage of sorts.
GW: eHarmony relies on an algorithm.
Dave: Wishes he could have coached Greg on that one. That was a giant softball question he totally threw away.
BF: Average subscription price?
BF: I can tell you that 90 people get married every day on eHarmony.
Dave: !!!!!
What did we learn during this interview?
We don't know how many subscribers eHarmony has. Could be 300-700k.
We don't know much about what they are going to do to grow the business.
The CEO refuses to quote how much he charges for his service.
That drove me particularly nuts. How can you not have a price? I hear unsubstantiated reports that they are giving away free and multiple months to people so who really knows except the CFO what's going on there?
Eharmony spent more than $60 million advertising in 2005. It raised $110 million in 2004. EHarmony projected 100,000 marriages on the site in 2005. Looks like the actual number was about 17,000 people.
Technorati Tags: eharmony
Comments (2)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance | Research | eharmony
November 6, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Someone sent me this link to a Web 2.0 event where FriendFinder CEO Andrew Conru does a presentation titled "what can we learn from the adult industry." I'm posting this because some people argued that I called Friend Finder network "adult", when it contains a variety of religious and other non-adult sites. AFF is stickier than Disney, in the same league as Google in terms of minutes spent on site. More time is spent on AFF than any other adult site on the web.
Here is some tasty research about online daters.
Young people are becoming technically socialized on social network services (SNS), and SNS serve valuable social needs. However, just as a bar would fail if it tried to be all things to all people, SNS sites must realize their value is dictated by their context. As such, they must consistently be thinking about new ways to bring audience in to this context, rather than just adding new additions designed to trap clientele that wishes to move on. That we wish to move from place to place is entirely natural, and generally technologists fail rather miserably when they try to break human nature for economic reasons.
Via Fred Stutzman, aka Chimprawk, aka Unit Structures. Fred is the go-to guy if you want thorough yet readable academic look at social networking.
More avatars from Zwinky.
Technorati Tags: avatars, socialnetworking
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November 2, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Interesting tidbit: Match CEO Jim Safka says there are 90 million people over age 18 who are single in the United States and actively looking for a relationship, yet only 3 million people actively subscribe to any kind of Internet matchmaking service.
I'm curious where he got that number from. I've not heard him or anyone else use that number before. Usually it's all about profiles, not subscribers. Plus or minus a few hundred thousand subscribers doesn't mean anything, really. Do you agree or disagree with this number?
Technorati Tags: active+daters
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October 16, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq:EQIX), the leading provider of network-neutral data centers and Internet exchange services, today announced that eHarmony will expand the company’s operations at Equinix with a new Web site operations deployment at Equinix’s Washington, D.C. area Internet Business Exchange™ (IBX®) center. The move comes after eHarmony has successfully deployed production operations for the company’s Web operations at Equinix’s Los Angeles area IBX center.
Starting in 2000, part of my duties at a management consulting firm was to track the location, bandwidth and occupants of Internet data centers around the world. The data we collected went into enormous maps printed on Darth Plotter. We used the data for a variety of projects, from planning optimized routes for fiber optic cables as the snake through cities such as Las Vegas, then the fastest growing metropolitan area in the US, to gauge the growth of internet companies based on the amount of rackspace and bandwidth ordered.
In addition to network connectivity benefits, Equinix’s centers also provide eHarmony with a secure and redundant physical infrastructure with a strong track record of uptime. Power operations at each center include a high-performance backup system that ensures uninterrupted power even in the event of utility power disruption. Security features include interlocking "mantrap" doors, multiple layers of biometric hand-geometry scanners controlling access, as well as 24-hour security officers and hundreds of surveillance cameras.
Eharmony states they currently have 13 million users.
This is the kind of critical infrastructure Markus at PlentyOfFish fame would categorize as over-redundancy. We'll see how PoF itself adapts to it's continued massive growth.
Technorati Tags: eharmony, equinix
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October 13, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Where did the week go? I'm busy with all sorts of client work, hence the slow posts. I'm building the next generation of online dating and social networking sites and helping solution providers build out their value proposition for top dating sites. I can't talk about much, you'll just have to see the fruits of my labors when various clients go live over the next few months.
True and Friendster: Of all the partnerships to consider... Co-branded "Love" page. Too little to late IMHO.
Spark Networks 2Q06 Financial Results: Traffic to Spark Networks properties increased 35% from May to June, to 3.7 million visitors. Record Quarterly Revenue of $17.3 Million, Q2 EBITDAS(1) Increases Over 900% to $2.6 Million, Six Month EBITDAS of $6.0 Million - Matches Full Year 2005 Total, Six Month Net Income of $1.0 Million; Quarterly Net Income of $327,000. SAC for the Company as a whole in the second quarter of 2006 was $34.45, an increase of 8% compared to $31.93 from the same period last year.
 Pinger has unveiled the first carrier-independent instant voice messaging service for mobile phones. Pinger is a new communications tool that lets you send voice messages directly to individuals or groups as instantly and efficiently as email or text messaging. The service works on mobile phones from all major U.S. carriers. Following a one-month beta test, Pinger today introduced a new feature that allows MySpace users to post voice comments to their MySpace friends' pages from their mobile phone. You can also be notified of new Pinger messages with a MySpace message.
This is going to be useful in several contexts. Progressive communication is a hot topic in online dating and social networking. Pinger may work it's way into the wink->email->IM->phone->F2F communication style followed by so many sites. I love the idea of being able to leave a message without actually having to talk to people.
Meez and Paltalk Team Up: Mashable is surprised Meeze partnered up with PalTalk.
Eight Social Networking sites for men who love men.
Marketwatch: Today, there are 3.2 million visiting the country's biggest online dating service from home each month, and 4.9 million, if you include those checking out their prospects at work. Match.com generated $248 million in sales last year and is on a run-rate to generate $312 million this year. Siminoff says that his network will do about $70 million in sales. And, he's estimating that privately-held eHarmony and Yahoo Personals generated about $165 million and $100 million, respectively. Just adding those big four alone gets you closer to $600 million. Still, that's chump change compared to the roughly $12 billion in advertising online.
The blog continues to be a problem. Updownupdownup. I either need to get it fixed or go back to my own blog.
You have got to be kidding: Text message people by looking up their license place at SearchPlates.com.
Sam Wick joins Userplane as head of business development.
Technorati Tags: meez, research, voice+messaging, paltalk, pinger, searchplates
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October 10, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
I don't buy the whole notion that 50% of all social network users are over 35. Fred Stutzman, the man when it comes to researching Myspace and Facebook, has a thorough look into Comscore's recent analysis of social network websites' audience and tends to agree. Fascinating stuff for marketers looking to reach the older set on Myspace.
Technorati Tags: comscore, myspace, web analytics
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September 29, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Adam over at FoxBase Alpha points to a paper written by MIT economists titled "What Makes You Click? - Mate Preferences and Matching Outcomes in Online Dating" by Günter J. Hitsch, Ali Hortaçsu and Dan Ariely. A good read if you're interested in optimal BMI, superstar effects and charts showing how much money a man needs to make at different height levels.
This paper uses a novel data set obtained from an online dating service to draw inferences on mate preferences and to investigate the role played by these preferences in determining match outcomes and sorting patterns. The empirical analysis is based on a detailed record of the site users' attributes and their partner search, which allows us to estimate a rich preference specification that takes into account a large number of partner characteristics. Our revealed preference estimates complement many previous studies that are based on survey methods. In addition, we provide evidence on mate preferences that people might not truthfully reveal in a survey, in particular regarding race preferences. In order to examine the quantitative importance of the estimated preferences in the formation of matches, we simulate match outcomes using the Gale-Shapley algorithm and examine the resulting correlations in mate attributes. The Gale-Shapley algorithm predicts the online sorting patterns well. Therefore, the match outcomes in this online dating market appear to be approximately efficient in the Gale-Shapley sense. Using the Gale-Shapley algorithm, we also find that we can predict sorting patterns in actual marriages if we exclude the unobservable utility component in our preference specification when simulating match outcomes. One possible explanation for this finding suggests that search frictions play a role in the formation of marriages.
What is the effect of 30% of all online daters telling white lies on the study? Fernando Ardenghi and Dr. James Houran are going to love this.
Technorati Tags: online+dating+research, gale+shapley
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September 28, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Want to tell your online dating story? A researcher would like to interview a handful of people in the Boston area for an informal class project about their experience of online dating and how they use online dating sites. The interview will take less than an hour and the data only used for research purposes. if interested please contact Jeana Frost at frost@bu.edu.
Technorati Tags: online+dating+research, research
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September 22, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
 What a week. Facebook and Yahoo are dancing, Comscore rolls out wildly inaccurate numbers (Zencon?), Dogester raises $1 million bones, dead people on Myspace, FriendFinder turns 10, all my friends are sick, getting married or having babies, Plentyoffish continues to roar up the charts and about 100 new social and business networking sites launched, most of which no one will ever visit.
Technorati Tags: exhausted, tgif
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September 15, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
The RateOrDate blog continues to impress. Now they have gone and researched the relationship between online personals and newspapers in the US.
Observations:
Almost 1/3 of newspapers have no online-personals partner? Which side is dropping the ball?
The top two online-personals partners are the ones that have top-tier pricing structures.
JDate is the only non-general dating service to be hooked up with a major newspaper.
NYTimes focuses exclusively on print personals, yet only has 186 listings, including duplicates?
Best Integration:
Boston.com / Yahoo! Personals - Yahoo provides several content sections, Boston.com has their own Personals forum, and Boston.com Personals has even held their own events and contests.
Worst Integration:
Long Island Newsday - you call that a jump page?
Honorable Mention (Misplaced Priorities Award):
The Washington Post - 200,000+ pixels of unrelated banner advertising on a page where people should be focusing on a high-value activity.
Honorable Mention ("404" Broken Link Award):
(tie) The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun - oddly, the AmericanSingles.com search box redirects through cairo.com... domain is dead.
Technorati Tags: online+personals
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September 7, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
A reporter from a national news organization hopes to speak with singles who’ve felt that their reputations as daters and the details of their relationships have been exposed online, either because others have written or talked about the experience of dating them, or because they’ve been examined by a dater ratings site or received feedback from the dating site to which they’ve subscribed. If you have any thoughts, please email reporterquestion1234@yahoo.com for more details.
Technorati Tags: rating+people, reputation
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September 6, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Yesterday I had coffee with Jeana Frost, creator of Virtual Dates, an application well suited for the icebreaker portion of meeting someone online. You know the feeling. Someone catches your eye, but their profile doesn't leave you with much to start a conversation with. You sit there re-reading the profile over and over, trying to glean that tidbit of information that's going to tip the scale over and have you reaching for the Wink or Email button.
Suffice to say it was clear early on in our conversation that we shared common ground when it comes to our views on the shortcomings of online dating.
Jeana and her fellow academics think the current model for meeting someone online is artificial and static, and far removed from everyday social interaction. I couldn't agree more.
According to Jeana and co's research, online dating is terribly inefficient, lacks appropriate filters and a mechanism for social feedback. Where is the information we really want to know about a person? The attributes we need most that aren't described by income, religion or favorite sports team?
To begin to address the perceived shortcomings of today's dating sites, Jeana built Virtual Dates while at the MIT Media Lab. Virtual Dates is built on Chat Circles, part of of Sociable Media Group.
Chat Circles is an abstract graphical interface for synchronous text conversation. Here, color and form are used to convey social presence and activity, and proximity-based filtering is used intuitively to break large groups into conversational clusters. The system also includes an integrated history interface, which visualizes archival Chat Circle logs. Our goal in this work is to create a richer environment for online discussions.
While I haven't seen the demo, from the description, it sounds like it could be a useful feature for dating and social networking sites, if the user experience is done just right and the final product is properly integrated. It's got to be dead simple to stick on a site like a Userplane chat and tightly integrated, like WeAttract on Yahoo Personals. Speaking of WeAtttract, whatever happened to them?
I'm often frustrated with my dating site clients when it comes to baseline metrics for measuring various site stats. Thankfully, being a Media Lab alumni, Jeana knows how important the role of data logging can be in monitoring and measuring the performance of an application like Virtual Dates.
Thankfully there is a phenomenal testing lab available, Myspace. Unleash your app out into the wild, get 50k users in a few weeks and log loads of data about how people are, and aren't using the service.
Less than half of all singles in the US has tried online dating. The other half remains a cagey quarry unlikely to sign up for a dating site any time soon due to a number of factors, known and unknown.
Dating sites should be doing everything in their power to figure out ways to entice more people to try online dating. Adding social networking features is part of the solution, but the real answer is the unknown and often intangible gut reaction people get to a particular blend of features, user experience and quality of the members. The vibe of a site is often what makes or breaks it's success and it's almost impossible to stumble across the perfect blend of paid subscription, social networking, dating, collaboration and communication tools which will define the online dating experience of the future.
Perhaps applications like Virtual Dates, or an environment based on the concept, is what's needed to entice the other 50 million singles to give online dating a shot.
Jeana's dissertation is titled "Decision Making in the Information Age: A Study of and Design for Online Dating." You can bet that's going to be on my reading shelf in the near future. Harvard Business School did a story on Virtual Dates last week.
Dating and social networking executives would do well to seek out Jeana at jeana.frost at gmail dot com to find out more about how new social interaction applications will drive the next generation of online dating and social networking. If enough interest is drummed up, I'm hoping we'll see Virtual Dates on dating sites soon enough.
Technorati Tags: progressive+communication, social+interaction, virtual+dates
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Features | Online Dating Software | Research | Technology | innovation | social networking
September 5, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
All of this talk about basing the traffic for an entire continent based on 45k people running toolbars is crazy. Where is the open source metrics toolbar that works with Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox and Safari? Why hasn't someone built one yet? How insightful would Bill Tancer at Hitwise be if he was analyzing what is really happening out on the interweb instead of guesstimates of traffic flow?
Technorati Tags: traffic, web+analytics, web+metrics
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August 29, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Now that Google has hired most of the big brains in academia, Yahoo is rushing to catch up.
In the dating space, Yahoo is hiring PhD's to figure out how to use economics to save attractive women from unwanted solicitations on an Internet dating site. While displaying how many people a guy has already approached is an interesting metric to make available (transparency is good, even if not public data), this is a basic database query. I think i mentioned the idea on this blog last year.
It's the rest of the projects that Yahoo is unleashing a new breed of economist brainiacs that's most fascinating. Researchers are going to have a field day with Yahoo data, which is an incredible treasure trove of consumer behavior ripe for analysis.
The contextual advertising project is going to be huge for Yahoo, but only because they are a network of sites that can share data. Most standalone sites cannot afford, or get access to, such broad amounts of data. That's where the new identity providers using new systems like OpenID, are going to run rampant when it comes to targeted advertising.
Interesting factoid:
In 2001, Yahoo started charging for its online dating service -- which surprisingly resulted in an increase in membership. Mr. Raghavan thinks the switch increased the value of Yahoo Personals in the eyes of consumers and encouraged them to use it more. While the move predated Yahoo's recent research push, it's an outcome economists might have predicted: The fee deterred users who weren't serious about dating, making the service more efficient for those who were.
While I agree with using price as a filter, I don't buy that increasing the price increased membership alone. There are other factors that come into play, including changes in marketing strategy and overall industry growth which may or may not have been taken into account when measuring the increase.
In 10 years I have never been approached by Yahoo to do a survey, so I don't know how much they rely on them or focus groups. I went hiking this weekend with a friend who does high-end focus groups, it's was enlightening to hear her take on how useful, and useless, expensive focus groups can be, depending on the moderator, questions asked and the participants. Reminded me of a book called How to Lie With Statistics.
Factoid #2: Yahoo records over 12 terabytes of data daily -- the equivalent of about half the information contained in all of the books in the Library of Congress.
Technorati Tags: search+engine, yahoo+personals, online+dating
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August 11, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
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August 9, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Lawless Luvoo.com: Missouri residents on the Do Not Call list are receiving telemarketing calls from dating site Luvoo.com. Reader Renaldorv says I have been living under a rock, that Luvoo is not the real deal. I put Luvoo and Mate1 in the same category. Site that will be around for a while, but how good are they when it comes to getting yourself off the dating market? Fads people, fads.
Measuring Dating Site Success By Active Users: Markus says that of the top 50 dating sites there are only three free sites? This bears looking into, difficult to believe. Let's talk metrics. How about the number of active users logged into the website, averaged month-to-month. Now if we can get other large-scale sites to measure the same way we may have something along the lines of apples-to-apples comparison. For niche sites this won't work. How to measure their success?
Look at JD Power and Associates. Sterling brand, highly respected, solid results. Why can't we get this level of accuracy and truth when it comes to measuring website attributes?
Bill Tancer (blog) @ Hitwise, stats gurus at Comscore and Alexa. Go take a vacation together for two weeks somewhere with limited cell service and lots of umbrella drinks and figure out a decent measurement algorithm.
I"m beginning to like what I see from some Keynote more and more, although even they have troubles with rankings (LoveHappens as the "darling of the online dating industry?). Clearly no one system is enough. To that end, I propose a mashup of Hitwise for real-time data, Keynote for customer satisfaction rankings, Comscore for deeper five-figure research papers, and either Google Toolbar or some other equivalent for user tracking.
Social software coverage at the Social Software Blog has moved to the Download Squad. Looks like that's the end of that.
Mark Brooks is starting a site for internet dating affiliates. While I question the need for yet another site dedicated to educating affiliates, my hat goes off to anyone who can raise the clue density amongst affiliate managers and the countless lazyweb people who throw up affiliate-driven dating site review. Almost every one I've ever seen has been awful. Weak category structure (don't put eHarmony in every category for crying out loud), bad UI and cheesy Adwords.
Dating site affiliate marketing is in a sad state of affairs on both ends. How about raising the bar with well-designed websites, helpful content and edutainment for consumers? One last thing, if you are an affiliate with a few dating sites, don't just list the ones that make you money. That's not a directory it's a waste of people's time.
 True is touting the fact that Hitwise calls them the #1 dating site. Nice marketing exercise if it were remotely True.
 Webdate Desktop Application: Actually, it's an Agent. Message, Instant Message, & Search other singles in your area. I'm glad it "Sits snugly in your windows taskbar." Download.
Hottest Dating Sites Based on Religion, Ethnicity: MarketingVox says some niche dating like JDate, Shaadi.com or Naseeb.com are thriving.
I was featured in a English as Second Language DVD last year, just put the clip up on Youtube. I will probably regret posting this link but I've been quiet all week and you need something to laugh at. Talk about a bad hair day.
Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing, online dating, social software
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August 8, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
 Look at some of these adjectives that people are using to describe themselves on Match.com. Men put walking at the top spot, for women, it's honest. The color of specific body parts are number two for both men and women, in this case, browneyes for men and darkbrownhair for women. The most recently added list includes: hetersis, albarino and extraordinarymachine. Huh? It's difficult to tell the gender of the top 10 most recently added lists. It will interesting to see how these words change over time. Like "What's Hot" lists at Yahoo and Google. These words might be good for search engine advertising keywords as well.
Technorati Tags: matchwords, tags
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August 7, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Did you know: Google gained the greatest increase in market share, as measured by page impressions, during the Myspace outage last week. Dating sites experienced a 10 percent increase and adult sites had a slight rise.
Hitwise GM of Global Research Bill Tancer saw an opportunity to find out what people were doing on the net while Myspace was down. His post-mortem of the popular social networking site's downtime effect on netizens surfing habits found Google and Facebook page impressions shoot up 11% during the power outage in Myspace's only data center in Los Angeles.
Technorati Tags: hitwise, page+impressions
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July 26, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Proving once again that Forbes should stick to finance, this year's listing of top towns for singles benefits from an "improved methodology." Leading off with Providence, RI as the #14 best city for singles in the US and 12th in nightlife cast an amateur-statistician pall over the remainder of the findings. I live in downtown Boston and let me tell you, Providence is not where one goes for love. Strip clubs maybe.
The aannual listing of America's Best Cities For Singles ranks the 40 largest metropolitan areas in seven different categories: nightlife, culture, job growth, number of other singles, cost of living alone, coolness and public opinion.
I have a problem that they used AOL Digital Citites to count the number of hotspots in each city, nothing about the quality of the entertainment. And what's with using the number of people on Match.com for each major metro as a datapoint? Ever hear of census data? Hmm, Match is the personals site for Forbes, no wonder.
2002
1. Boston
2. Austin
3. Washington-Baltimore
4. Raleigh-Durham
5. Denver-Boulder
6. San Francisco-Oakland
7. San Diego
8. Houston
9. Minneapolis-St. Paul
10. Atlanta
2003
1. Austin
2. Denver-Boulder
3. Boston
4. Washington-Baltimore
5. Atlanta
6. San Francisco-Oakland
7. Los Angeles
8. New York
9. Raleigh-Durham
10. Dallas-Fort Worth
2004
1. Denver-Boulder
2. Washington-Baltimore
3. Austin
4. Atlanta
5. Boston
6. Los Angeles
7. Phoenix
8. New York
9. San Francisco
10. Miami
2005
1.Denver-Boulder
2. Boston
3. San Francisco
4. Raleigh-Durham
5. Washington-Baltimore
6. Atlanta
7. Los Angeles
8. New York
9. Chicago
10. Seattle
Technorati Tags: single+lifestyle, single+living
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Posted by Dave Evans
Much of my work in the online dating industry involves working with startups looking for a way to leapfrog their way into a market-leading position in a particular niche. Other times it's developing new growth strategies for established sites that are looking to crack the top 10, or struggling to stay there.
I've spoken with many startups consisting of a single person with an idea and the drive and ambition to see their vision realized. The one thing almost every one of these people lack is funding. It's near impossible to raise VC for a startup dating site these days, the risk factor is off the charts. This leaves most people to hatch their idea and work on the site when they come home from work and on weekends. A select few are able raise angel financing from friends and family to work full time on their labor of love.
A typical call from a dating site startup goes something like this:
I paid a developer a lot of money for a site and the developer has become unresponsive to my ongoing needs. I'm not sure how much to spend on marketing, or where to spend it. I don't have a strategic plan for moving forward, and I feel overwhelmed thinking of everything I have to accomplish in order to launch, let alone achieve profitability.
They can't launch with a 1/2-finished site, or worse, launch with a broken site that doesn't meet the minimum requirements of today's online daters. They have a To Do list as long as their arm and not enough time in the day to get things done. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Or, as is often the case, the caller has a live site not getting the traction they expected after three, six or even nine months. The person has usually burned through what they consider a significant amount of capital and earned a lot of grey hairs for their efforts. This is especially frustrating, they have earned their startup battle scars and need a fresh strategy for getting out of the red.
Most people can't afford a typical five-figure consulting engagement, and all dating site startups need similar help. To this end I am putting together a new consulting product to address the needs of startup dating sites.
Typical startups have a different problem set than established players. The new consulting arrangement will cover issues common to all dating site startups. Generally things will start out broad in scope, further refinement of the focus of the engagement occurs naturally as familiarity and understanding grows between us.
The new practice will be structured to reflect the where the company is in it's life-cycle; startup, crossing the chasm, mainstream adoption to exit strategies. I suspect most interest will be in the startup mode, although I have been speaking with several sites who are mid-tier and need a push to progress to the next level.
To manage time and costs, I'm testing the new Ether pay-per-call service. It's easy to schedule a call where we can address a predefined list of questions. You provide the initial list and I will suggest additional topics prior to the call. From this list, during the call we will begin to develop a plan of action tailored for your specific circumstances. You get the benefit my years of experience in a condensed a la carte format where you can purchase as much time and expertise as you need.
The first phone call is an hour long minimum and will be used to establish a baseline status of your company, site, resources available, expectations and goals. Additional hours can be easily added. More often than not, the initial discussion and questions bring about more of the same as we zero in on your specific needs.
If you are seeking insights into how to accomplish any of the following goals for your dating site or social networking service, this new offering may be right for you.
- Drive more traffic to your site
- Increase conversion rates
- Free or paid subscription
- Service differentiators
- Marketing strategy
- New features (VOIP, chat, mobile, games, anonymous calling)
- Comprehensive site evaluations
- Other specific issues you define
All calls are confidential and you will receive an brief summary outlining key points of discussion.
Call Me to schedule time on the phone, affordable advice immediately. Get the information you need, when you need it. No long term consulting arrangements, contracts or hassle.
Technorati Tags: consulting, startup
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Features | Finance | Marketing | Mobile | Research | innovation | niche
July 12, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Last night I came across a PBS show about relationships and immediately got hooked when they started computer modeling the "perfect" man and woman based on what each test subject thought physically desirable. Face morphing software was remarkable. Masculine male faces preferred feminine female faces and vice versa.
I enjoy the scientific side of matchmaking, although I'm not talking about personality tests. Facial chemistry, pheromones and voice recognition are all interesting ways to ascertain the relevance of a potential partner.
Watching people build the perfect date on a computer screen was entertaining. Watching guys inflate women to double-D proportion was expected but most fascinating was listening to the scientists talk about why people choose specific facial structures and body types.
The most entertaining part was the stubborn woman (Beth) who kept on steamrolling over all the men. They followed her through the entire process, and things got even better when they put together a scientific 3-minute speed-dating event.
It made you feel sorry for people unwilling to be flexible when it comes to finding their match.
Each speed dater had a dial where they continiously rate the person across the table. At first, they are instructed to sit in silence across from each other and start the rating process. Ratings were projected on monitors out of view of the participants, like when political operatives measure the response to certain parts of a speech.
It turns out The Scientific Dating Agency's experiments were a failure to begin with but it's early days for this type of research. There are simply too many variables to keep track of to come up with consistent results. For example, they talked about people with similar faces finding each other more appropriate, although this premise ended up failing miserably.
The London Seduction Society was there to throw some chaos into the situation. LSS members made the women feel less than themselves, and got called out for this. Instead, we learn it's important to make the woman feel better than the man (paraphrased).
The woman who got 10 dates out of the event simply said to listen and compliment guys.
I missed the beginning, the CQ tests?
What worked was measuring instant attraction. Immediate chemical attraction most important. Not the face, but the body.
Waist to hip ration, reliable indicator of fertility.
Women wanted tall men. Other features not as important. Over 5 foot 11 got 30 dates. Forget the gym, get shoe lifts.
At the end of the show the phrase "attractive does not mean appealing" came to mind.
Any other more serious research shows or documentaries out there worth checking out?
Technorati Tags: science+of+matchmaking
Comments (4)
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June 12, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Holy cow. Plentyoffish AdSense check for $901,000. Subtract $5,400 for hosting/month and Instant Messenger at $8,000/month and you have a nice little internet company going for one guy. I love his blog title, The Paradigm Shift subtitled Adapt or die. Favorite entry, "Any Idiot Can Make millions off Google."
Another good one is about American Singles 34-person development staff and and 30 person infrastructure group. Puts into perspective how resource (capital and personnel) a large dating site can be if you're not watching the bottom line close enough.
$6.00+ per free signup w/o viral marketing, Google making $30+ per user per toolbar download, Markus is not very good at keeping his and Google's competitive advantages private, which is good news for everyone else. I agree 100% that at this point in the dating game he is correct in saying that you have to be at the top, buying your way into the dating market does not work.
I'm sure this is going to heat up in the comments section, interested to hear your thoughts on POF and Adsense.
Technorati Tags: adsense, plentyoffish
Comments (16)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance | Research
June 9, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
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.
Technorati Tags: price+elasticity, credits, video+dating
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June 1, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
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May 25, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
ComScore World Metrix says nearly one in seven Internet users worldwide had visited MSN Spaces in April of 2006. Unique visitors to MSN Spaces has more than doubled in the past 12 months, from 41.65 million to 101 million. Amazing growth, just goes to show how much easier it is to gain market share based on existing user base, in this case MSN.
Technorati Tags: MSN+spaces
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Posted by Dave Evans
$81 million seems like a small number for such an enormous population until you look at the demographics of the country. 60% annual growth rates expected. Baihe.com, which claims to be China’s largest online dating site, received US$11 million in venture capital after attracting more than five million registered users in 2005.
Press Release.
Technorati Tags: china
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April 18, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Ad Age on talks about singles flocking to Myspace from Match.com. The novelty has worn off and dating sites have not stepped up to the plate with new features to keep up with consumers. BindMindFind and $200 couple's therapy do not a healthy industry make. Couples counseling is more of a Google Local kind of service, but if you want to pay a dating site more money to stack the deck in your favor, go for it.
Lisa Skriloff states that CL is drawing away daters from traditional sites. Lisa, I don't see Craigslist taking much away from traditional dating sites, where's the data to back that assertion up? Unsubstantiated claims drive me crazy.
Then we have Teamdating, where you get to meet their friends and their friends get to meet your friends, or something to that effect. Are people demanding they want to go out on a first date with their friends around? This is new to me.
Good intel: Match.com spent $54.2 million on ads last year, while eHarmony spent $61.6 million, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
More than 1/5 of the entire dating industry revenue went to ads for both companies, and Yahoo wasn't even mentioned.
Yahoo Personals Premiere had "solid early growth over the past 18 months." I assume that is shorthand for "early interest has flattened out."
Jim Safka was telling people that Chemistry.com is "intended to draw in affluent individuals who haven't online dated before." I have not heard this "affluent individuals" phrase from Match, Chemistry is Match's response to eHarmony walking away with their customers, affluent has nothing to do with it. Rich people like to take tests and middle-class rely on intuition?
New advertising campaigns? I haven't seen them. All my brain registers are Eharmony ads and those Mate1 ads popping up everywhere. I wish for all the money they are spending that Mate1 would make them more memorable. They are advertising for brand impressions, not call-to-action. Big mistake.
Pretty soon people will have their dating site running in their taskbar with presence detection, voice and third-party enhancements like testing and search. We will look back and wonder why we had to actually visit a website to view profiles and search for people. See Meetro as an example.
Technorati Tags: match.com, mate1, teamdating
Comments (6)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Marketing | Research
April 8, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Before you spend anywhere from $1,500 to upwards of $50,000 on a matchmaker or traditional dating service you owe it to yourself to be as well-informed as possible.
The first step is being aware of all your options. There are many matchmakers out there to choose from and that certain matchmakers may be a better fit for you and your circumstances that others (geographic, financial, demographic to name a few).
You're about to place a great deal of trust, responsibility, and a good deal of money into the hands of a complete stranger. It can be overwhelming to look up matchmakers in the phone book or an internet search engine and it's not exactly the type of question you ask your friends at a cocktail party.
To help you get up to speed I am providing two reports. These in-depth reports contain everything you'll need to choose the matchmaker or service which is right for you.
One covers matchmakers, the other covers traditional offine dating serivces. Both reports help you answer questions such as "What services can I trust?", "How much will it cost?", "How do they operate" and "What should I expect?"
The Matchmakers Market
Price: $276.00 - 30 Pages
An in-depth discussion and description of how matchmakers operate: summary & discussion, why they’re doing well today.
Market size & status report: estimated number of matchmakers in the U.S., 2005 estimate, 2008 forecast, average revenues per matchmaker.
The Matchmaking Institute: entry of new matchmakers into the profession.
Industry trade association: discussion of past efforts to form The National Association of Ethical And Professional Matchmakers, other efforts.
Major market trends: ease of entry, use of websites, impact of recessions, ancillary services being offered.
Profiles of Some of the Top U.S. Independent Matchmakers. For matchmakers profiled below… an in-depth discussion and description of how they operate, typical fees, clients served, specializations, address or phone and website. Findings of Marketdata phone interviews, opinions on status of the market.
Matchmakers covered
Janis Spindel, Irene Valenti (Valenti International), Orly Hadeda (Orly the Matchmaker), Leora Hoffman Associates, Kailen Rosenberg (Global Love Mergers), Zelda Fischer (Gentle People Ltd,, Barbie Adler (Selective Search Inc.), Lisa Ronis Personal Matchmaking, Jill Kelleher (Kelleher & Associates) and Dianne Bennett.
Traditional (off-line) Dating Services
Price: $245.00 - 18 Pages
Summary & definition of “off-line” or “traditional” bricks & mortar dating services with physical office locations, the franchises and major chains. History of these competitors, recent effect of online services boom, troubles of Great Expectations and Together Dating Service, comments/observations of former owners/employees, other experts.
Costs per acquisition, marketing methods, profit margins, avg. receipts per office. interview with GE & Matchmakers International management/owners.
Market $ size & status report: 1997-2005, Marketdata 2005 growth estimate, 2008 forecasts
Have companies changed their sales practices? – discussion, recent actions.
Table: The 4 major chains, by no. of offices and revenues, 2003 & 2005
Competitor Profiles (headquarters, website, how the service works, no. of offices, fees charged, no. of customers, profile of its customers, franchising, avg. gross sales potential per office, typical profit margins, expenses, marketing methods, recent mergers/acquisitions, recent company developments, estd. or actual company revenues, mgmt. opinions, etc). Status reports & findings of Marketdata interviews. In-depth profiles for following companies…
- Great Expectations
- Together Dating Service /The Right One
- Matchmakers International
- It’s Just Lunch
- Other off-line companies
NOTE: These reports are part of a larger report on the online dating industry. If you are interested in learning about the rest of the report, go here.
Purchasing: Please Contact David Evans at 617-939-7916 or email relaxedguy at gmail dot com to order either report.
Comments (3)
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April 5, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
John LaRosa of Marketdata publishes the only in-depth study of "The U.S. Dating Services Market." His newest addition, dated April 2006, is now available.
I've sold a lot of the last version to everyone from dating site owners, laywers, venture capitalists and others involved in the dating and social networking industries. Feedback has been positive across the board.
Price for readers is $1,395 (30% off) for the full study (reg. list price $1,995). You may also purchase specific sections of the report.
Email dave at digicraft dot com if you would like to order individual chapters or have questions about the report.
This newly updated 4th edition Marketdata study is a fascinating analysis of one of the oldest professions—matchmaking. The popularity of dating websites has taken a hit lately, as customer dissatisfaction with inaccurate profiles grows. Background and marital status checks may become mandatory and are a hotly contested issue, with more and more states proposing legislation.
What's new for this edition...
- new chapter on background checks legislation
- updated 2008 forecasts, 2005 mkt. performance
- all competitor profiles updates
- updated singes demographics
- Dianne Bennett added to matchmaker profiles
- new profile on Meetic and European market
This market is a now a $1 billion business in the U.S., with online dating services soaring in popularity since 2001 and representing nearly 50% of the market’s value. The Web has revolutionized this business and has brought affordable and convenient matchmaking to the masses. But, dating website revenues grew only 4.5% last year as the U.S. market became saturated with 850+ sites. Europe is the next untapped market. Off-line chains and matchmakers are posting moderate growth, but radio datelines and print personals continue to slide. Speed dating continues to do well, along with certain niche markets.
The study examines: market size/forecasts and segments from 1994 to 2008 Forecast. Separate in-depth chapters cover: Dating Websites, Dating Service Chains with physical offices, Independent Matchmakers, Radio Datelines & Print Personal Ads, and Singles Publications. Study examines how dating services operate—typical revenues/fees/profits, negative image problems and sometimes unethical sales practices. New chapter on background checks. Includes detailed profiles of the top 10 matchmakers in the U.S., dater demographics, factors affecting demand, latest Census data/national & state operating ratios, industry conferences/trade groups in formation. Competitor profiles for: Together/The Right One, Great Expectations, Match.com, eHarmony, It’s Just Lunch, Yahoo Personals, Lavalife, Meetic, The Matchmaking Institute, Spark Networks and more.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction - Study Scope, Methodology, Sources Used
Page 1-4
Executive Overview of Major Findings
Page 5-32
Price: $245
Highlights of ALL study chapters: Discussion of industry status as of 2004, major developments and trends since 2002, factors affecting demand, how services operate, customer demographics, industry $ size/growth, 1991-2008 F, main market segments (1994, 1997, 2002, 2004), separate outlooks for online services, off-line chains, matchmakers, personal ads, radio datelines, etc., how services operate, past regulatory actions/image problems, industry structure/Census operating ratios (national). Rankings and estimated/actual receipts of the top competitors. Discussion/names of the 4 industry trade associations being proposed/in formation.
Nature of The Business - How Dating Services Operate
Page 33-45
Price: $120
Recommended ethics/precautions consumers should take before signing contracts, screening procedures, entry of large corporations to the business (Advanta), why demand is growing for dating services, singles demographics.
Discussion of industry characteristics, evolution of "marriage market intermediaries", definition of types of providers (singles/personal ads, video dating services, singles events, interactive voicemail systems, traditional matchmakers, computer dating - how each service operates, estimated number in U.S., no. of clients, image, advantages/drawbacks of each).
Success rates of and problems with "marriage market intermediaries", review of literature and past studies, the future of intermediaries.
How dating services operate: typical methods used by Together, Matchmakers Intl., suggested techniques for launching/marketing a new dating service.
Operating ratios of franchised dating services (avg. gross revenues for small, mid-sized, large metro areas, amount spent on advertising, profit margins, $ allocated for office staff, rent, overhead, etc.)
Recommended industry code of ethics: guidelines developed by trade group, questions consumers should ask of matchmaking, video and computer services
Past regulatory actions taken against Together Dating Service by PA State Attorney General's office, Great Expectations vs. the Better Business Bureau, allegations of deceptive sales practices used by former sales reps and counselors.
Demographics & Other Factors Affecting Demand
Page 46-56
Price: $105
Summary: Discussion of number of American singles, findings of survey by It's Just Lunch about typical $ amount spent on dates by men/women, avg. no. of dates, etc. analysis of male/female make-up of dating services' clients, singles by age group (baby boomers - key group of customers).
Latest Census data: number and % of population representing single/divorced/widowed males, females as of year 2000, 2010 projections.
List of the dating service industry's major challenges and key issues (social stigma, negative publicity, price resistance (no-cost/low-cost alternatives to traditional services), staffturnover, failure rate of services/reasons.
Tables
1. Marital status of adults: 1970-2010 F, age 18 and older (no. of adults in U.S.)
2. States with highest number of unmarried men and women
3. State ranking of % of unmarried men & women, 50 states
4. Marital status of U.S. population, by sex and age: 2000 (no. and % distribution)
5. Marital status of U.S. population, by sex, race: 1980-2000
6. Marital status of U.S. population, projections by age & sex: 2000 & 2010
7. Persons living alone, by sex and age: 1980-2000
8. Households: projections, by type household: 1996-2010 (married, single, etc.)
Market Size and Growth Rate
Page 56-67
Price: $140
Estimated number of dating services in U.S. Yellow Pages databases, geographic concentrations.
Discussion of lack of official industry data, past estimates by ISIS trade group/rationale.
Market status and summary: historical growth of the industry's largest franchises & chains, peak sales year, comparison of market conditions in 1994 vs. 1997, $ size of market (effects of online dating services, growth of radio dateline systems, mismanagement, rise of the personal ads, price resistance by customers, negative publicity).
Marketdata's past predictions - which came true, which were wrong. discussion.
Long-term outlook from 2004 to 2008- key trends and Marketdata expectations, $ size of market, off-line vs. online services' growth
2004-2008 Outlook for independent matchmakers
2004-2008 Outlook for off-line dating service chains
2004-2008 Outlook for dating websites
2004-2008 Outlook for the personal ads market
Niche Markets: companies specializing in... seniors, millionaires, religious groups, etc.
Speed dating: discussion of concept, major competitors identified, fees, income, list of speeddating websites, etc.
Tables
Historical & forecasted market size in $ (1991-2008 F)
Major market segments/providers: 1994, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008 F estimated revenues of: independent matchmakers, franchises/chains, personal ads mkt., dating websites
Value of industry market segments: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008 F
The major off-line chains (no. of offices, 2001 &2003 revenues: Great Expectations, Together,
Matchmakers Intl., It's Just Lunch)
Industry Economic Structure & Operating Ratios
Page 68-77
Price: $90
Summary & analysis of 1997 Census survey (latest available): the dating services industry NAICS code, no. of establishments & companies in the U.S., national receipts, payroll costs, key ratios (avg. receipts per estab., avg. receipts per company, avg. receipts/payroll per employee)
Analysis of legal form of organization of dating services (% of establishments & receipts by: corporations, partnerships, sole proprietorships - 1997)
Analysis by industry concentration levels (market share): top 4, 8, 20, 50 firms - 1997
Analysis by single & multi-unit operations - 1997
Analysis & ratios, by receipts size of companies - 1997
Analysis & ratios, by receipts size of establishments - 1997
Tables
Number of dating services, by state
Ratios, by legal form of organization - 1997 (no. of estabs., firms, payroll as % receipts, receipts by type)
Ratios, by industry concentration levels (market share): top 4, 8, 20, 50 firms - 1997
Ratios, by single & multi-unit operations (ratios as above) - 1997
Ratios, by receipts size of companies (as above, 11 classes-under $100K-$100 mill. - 1997)
Ratios, by receipts size of establishments (as above, 11 classes-under $100K-$100 mill.)
Online Dating Services
Page 78-118
Price: $ 416
Summary: discussion of the explosive growth of this market, advantages & disadvantages to the user, reasons for growth, estimates of number of Americans using online dating(ComScore, Nielson), who the leading competitors are, opinions about whether online services will/will not displace traditional dating services, etc.
Market size & growth: analysis of estimate by Timebeat, Marketdata estimates for 2003 to 2008, findings of phone interviews with top competitors and industry experts
Discussion of blurring of lines between off-line and online dating services.
Limitations of online dating - discussion
Need for a trade association? - discussion, profiles of 3 groups now forming (Internet Dating Executive Alliance/IdeaOasis, National Assn. of dating Websites, SITRAS)
Lack of uniform industry metrics/yardsticks - analysis (registered users, unique visitors, members, paid subscribers)
Table
- The industry's major competitors: type service, no. of paid subscribers/registered users, avg. price/month, estd. or actual 2002-2003 revenues.
Competitor Profiles (headquarters, website, how the service works, cost, no. of paid subscribers vs. registered users, profile of its customers, related services, recent mergers/acquisitions, recent company developments, estd. or actual company revenues to 2003, projections, mgmt. opinions, etc.). In-depth profiles for following companies…
Match.com (also uDate.com)
Yahoo Personals
Lavalife
MatchNet plc
Matchmaker.com (Terra Lycos)
List/Directory: Names/sample directory of 390 online dating service websites.
The Matchmakers Market
Page 119-142
Price: $276
How matchmakers operate: summary & discussion
Market size & estimated number of matchmakers in the U.S., 2004 estimate, 2008 forecast, average revenues per matchmaker
Industry trade association: discussion of current effort to form The National Association of Ethical And Professional Matchmakers, past efforts to form groups, Marketdata recommendations for survival (what a trade group must do and produce to satisfy its members, goals, services needed, obstacles to formation)
Major market trends: ease of entry, use of websites, impact of the recession, ancillary services being offered.
Profiles of Some of the Top U.S. Independent Matchmakers
(For matchmakers profiled below… an in-depth discussion and description of how they operate, typical fees, clients served, specializations, address or phone and website. Findings of Marketdata phone interviews, opinions on status of the market and proposed trade association.)
Orly Hadeda (Orly the Matchmaker)
Leora Hoffman Associates
Kailen Rosenberg (Global Love Mergers)
Janis Spindel
Zelda Fischer (Gentle People Ltd,)
Barbie Adler (Selective Search Inc.)
Irene Valenti (Valenti International)
Lisa Ronis Personal Matchmaking
Jill Kelleher (Kelleher & Associates)
Traditional (off-line) Dating Services
Page 143-158
Price: $245
Summary & definition of "off-line" or "traditional" bricks & mortar dating services withphysical office locations, the franchises and major chains. History of these competitors, recent effect of online services boom, troubles of Great Expectations and Together Dating Service, comments/observations of former owners/employees, other experts.
Have companies changed their sales practices? - discussion
Competitor Profiles (headquarters, website, how the service works, no. of offices, fees charged, no. of customers, profile of its customers, franchising, avg. gross sales potential per office, typical profit margins, expenses, marketing methods, recent mergers/acquisitions, recent company developments, estd. or actual company revenues, mgmt. opinions, etc). Status reports & findings of Marketdata interviews. In-depth profiles for following companies…
Great Expectations
Together Dating Service /The Right One
Matchmakers International
It's Just Lunch
Other off-line companies
The Personal Ads Market
Page 159-170
Price: $140
Print personals - discussion of market characteristics, status report & relationship between newspapers running the ads, the automated voicemail system providers they use, and long distance phone companies, avg. cost per 900 number call, cost to responders to ad vs. those placing them, why personals are popular vs. other methods.
$ Size of the Personal Ads Market: discussion/analysis of past media estimates and why they are flawed, personal ads' share of total 900/976 number call volume, Marketdata estimates & forecasts of personals mkt. size, 1997, 2001, 2003-2004 growth outlook, based on phone interviews, inherent problems/limitations of personal ads.
Singles publications market: discussion of how they operate, how they make money, avg. subscription price, cost to run personal ads, avg. cost of automated personals for users, etc.
Singles publications: name/address list of the major U.S. singles publications, by state
Radio Station Datelines: status report & discussion/analysis of popularity of radio automated"datelines", Status Report: The leading providers of Interactive Voicemail Systems today, effect of online dating services as main contributor to decline in this market, comments by management regarding withdrawal from market by competitors, profiles of two companies left: Spark Network Services and Telepublishing International.
Reference Directory of Industry Trade Associations & Information Sources
Page 171-173
List of dating service industry trade associations, conferences, consultants and experts, research papers, etc. -- address & phones.
Comments (7)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
April 1, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
I need to respond to an Italian journalist who asked about recommendation engines and how they related to social networking and dating. What better place to ponder on a rainy Saturday morning?
Pandora and Last.fm are music recommendation sites I've been talking about lately.
If you have a pandora and last.fm account you should go to http://www.real-ity.com/pandora. This is a mashup of Pandora and Last.fm. It doesn't look like much but it is the best mashup I've seen in a while. A notable example of two complimentary services working together, where the end result benefits from the best features of each (nature and nurture).
One is not better than the other, they both have their strong points. I like Last.fm because it creates a community, you can send and receive messages and the tagging features really work. The itunes plug-in, called Audioscrobbler, uploads your music listening preferences and it works well.
Pandora's technical foundation and classification taxonomy works well and when I'm feeling lazy that's what I use, because it saves having to find the music or buy it. There are plenty of internet radio stations as good as, if not better, than anything Pandora or Last.fm can come up with, but they are only as good as a single DJ's taste as opposed to a milllion of them.
The future of these systems are best exemplified in the above mashup. Community, collaboration and ease of use, with a revenue stream to support the service that's not just banner ads. From there it's incremental improvements to the user experience and back-end technology and algorithms. Adding your Last.fm recently played list to your Myspace account isn't exactly a mashup until there are some Myspace data or functionalities used by Last.fm.
The two primary examples of people recommendation engines are eHarmony = Pandora and Engage.com = Last.fm (close approximation). eHarmony does all the work, Engage let's anyone be a matchmaker. See also greatboyfriends.com. A big problem with great boyfriends is that you need to cajole you ex into vouching for you, high barrier to entry.
Image gallery: Riya is a new service that performs facial recognition on uploaded photos. The power is in the ability to tag people, not with names, but with attributes. Then others can call up images tagged with "long brown hair", or "at the beach" or "salsa dancing". Imagine a gallery view of a dating site powered by riya, similar to Match.com's Matchwords.
People will do remarkable remixes of this, just think about using your Flickr or oPhoto account as the image source. Riya looked at doing audio recognition inside of streams as well, very difficult.
Recommendation engines work well with the Long Tail when it comes to books and music.
Reputation management works with dating, although the current services lack credibility and thereby value.
The bigger question is how do you measure reputation and compatibility? Compatibility is pretty well covered, reputation has a long way to go.
Opinity is where it's at these days when it comes to reputation management. tying into Microsoft's Infocard is going to popularize the reputation concept to a useful scale.
Mashup Riya and Opinity, or Opinity and LinkedIn. I'd rather use a third party service and an open profile as opposed to a Date warehouse. I think Google Relationships would bomb unless the profiles were totally RSSable and yet protected. There are enough weirdoes on dating sites as it is, no need to make it easier for women to be harassed. I'm really talking about Google Base. You need a place to store profiles and make it easy to get at them with a simple API.
A Pandora-like dating site would be straightforward to implement. I'd love to work on that with a large dating site. Make browsing more exciting, add audio essays, give people more ways to express themselves in their profiles like blogs, but more structured, like a Matchwords/blog mashup.
Sun is out.
Technorati Tags: recommendation+engines, reputation, riya
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March 24, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Mark Brooks took a stab at measuring the success of online dating. I've talked about this before.
He asked for comments so here they are:
The number is far north of 20 million online daters unless he is limiting his exercise to the US.
Include percentages as well as numbers.
Measurement less useful w/o breaking down goals (friendships, activity partners, casual, serious or sex).
Five million people who taking on phone does not = 5 million F2F encounters.
You have email at several million people and phone at 5 million which is backwards. You have to email before you can phone so that number would be higher.
90% of all people that meet for a date have sex? No way.
In the comments, Alexander is right, what about the divorce rate, would be interesting to hear what it is for Eharmony and Match and Yahoo.
Brian says success = I paid and I'm happy, which is more a customer satisfaction metric but still should be included.
Overall, the numbers show that online dating has a long way to to before it's even remotely considered a success.
Technorati Tags: research
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March 1, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Found this about Alexa while looking at different VOIP clients today:
Alexa does not calculate the actual number of users visiting Web sites... what we do instead is release raw data about how many people in a sample population (Alexa Toolbar users, among others) visit a site. The data is normalized to a sample size of 1 million users so that the reach doesn't fluctuate as our sample base grows or shrinks.
Look at how Skype is climbing the chart with close to zero dollar marketing spend whereas Vonage spends millions and remains flat. Viral marketing is simply amazing.
Technorati Tags: skype, vonage, alexa
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research | Traffic
February 23, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
 Today I was greeted by a survey page at Match.com. It had one question. "How likely is it that you would recommend Match.com to a friend?" In Firefox on the Mac, the page is cut off. Perhaps there were more questions? Of all the questions you would think Match would want to ask, generic customer satisfaction is not the first one that comes to mind. Odds are they are going to take this info an use it in a marketing campaign.
Technorati Tags: match.com, survey
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Posted by Dave Evans
Jeremy Wright says Myspace scares the hell out of him. He lays down a few choice comparisons and points I want to riff on.
According to Wright, by the end of the year, MySpace will account for roughly 10% of all web traffic and, by the end of 2006 (if growth and acceleration curves maintain), it will account for about 40%. Mind boggling numbers.
Myspace is definitely the most prominent version of the hive mind. Myspace is accelerating faster than blogging. No doubt more posts per day, but then he compares the number of profiles to the number of blogs. Apples and oranges.
I love the idea of what happens if/when Myspace blows up. How do people reconnect? Simple, they export their data and import it into another social network. I'll take "FOAF to the rescue" for 800. A cottage industry will grow up around Myspace.
Google and Yahoo have Adsense and Overature. Myspace will have similar SEO tools and services. There are already many companies offering ad-ins for profile pages, applications to create pages and so on.
Myspacers connect better and faster. Faster, yes. As fast as you can click "Approve" button. As for better, I disagree. It's perceived as better because connecting with people is easy. Nobody knows a thousand people, it's too easy to click yes or no when someone wants to connect to you.
Myspace is all about your reputation. But how do those dissed by their peers redeem themselves? When you label me a jerk, and then no one wants to connect to me, or lets me connect to them, what then? I've become a social outcast to thousands of people I will never know.
Jeremy goes on to ponder what will happen to Myspace from various angles.
The Myspace elite. What form will it take? My guess is purchasing power (music & clothes), social responsibility and political ramifications.
Jeremy thinks that Myspace will make blogging obsolete. Jeremy has a book out called Blog Marketing, so he knows a thing or two about it. However, I don't buy that. I'm surprised he considers what kids write on myspace blogging. Why are you confusing personal journal entries for, ahem, professional bloggers and citizen journalism? Arguable point of course, A-list blogger vs. 16 year old girl talking about boy bands. Or 1,000 fake profiles created by music industry interns, singing the praises of the next breakout band.
No doubt, it will be fascinating to see who emerges as the A-listers of Myspace. FoxNews will bite first.
Will Myspacers self-organize themselves to preserve their culture, or will that come from outside influence? Could there be a king, a senate, or board of overseers that keeps things in check?
People expressed similar fears when Friendster's growth was exponential. Myspace may well "jump the shark", just like Friendster did.
As we know, Myspace was better to latch onto music and youth culture much more effectively. It has been truely amazing to watch it grow, albeit from a distance due to the fact that if you're over 30 you're probably on another site.
Jeremy may be scared of Myspace but advertisers are too. Major advertisers are freaking out. Schools are blocking it, as well as Facebook. Why? Because the number of assaults on women who meet men on Myspace are growing.
Myspace is the perfect blend of R-rated voyerism, and it's free. I wonder if the porn on myspace and Flickr could start to take away from the revenues of major adult sites.
To think that Match.com had a social networking component years ago and failed to capitalize on it, what a missed opportunity.
Danah Boyd recently wrote about "Identity Production in a Networked Culture," which talks about how teenagers are using Myspace.
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February 17, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Seed.com is taking Chemistry.com for a test ride and reporting the their search for Ms. Right and Mr. Right in ongoing blog-style entries.
According to their female sacrificial lamb, Chemistry makes breaking up easy. You don't have to give your date the bad news if it doesn't work out on the first 20-minute date. Fill out a review through the website, and they do it for you in a "carefully-worded email." Lovelorn singles, prepare for a whole new generation of generic Dear John letters.
Seed, how about an RSS feed to track the progress of the article?
Technorati Tags: chemistry.com, seed.com
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February 15, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Traffic up 8%, pricing $59, 16,000 marriages, $80 million ad spend. IPO planned. Eharmony has stopped mentioning the number of paying members and instead publishes the number of monthly visitors as the metric. Lame but understandable as their growth has flattened out along with almost every other site in the dating category. Last public figure I read was that Eharmony had 300,000 paying members but that was many months ago.
Eharmony is becoming more blatant about their "acceptable singles" standards. I can understand not letting those under 21 join. But not being able to join the service if you have been divorced more than three times? How are they going to enforce that? They won't match taller women with shorter men either, and don't bother if you're a Log Cabin Republican.
How many married couples will spend $239 on the new marriage wellness program which consists of a 310-question quiz and exercises? That's a lot more than Match's FindBindMind.
Employee Discount: The program seems to work. Dr. Warren took his own medicine and found out that after 47 years he didn't know his own wife thought he wasn't sharing all his feelings.
Technorati Tags: eharmony
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February 10, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Hightlights and lowlights:
76% of singles nationwide who use Internet dating sites have met someone special. You have got to be kidding me.
The survey found that 16% of singles met their last date online, besting more traditional meeting places like work (15%), bars and dance clubs (11%), school (8%) or coffee houses and bookstores (3%). The leading way to meet a date continues to be through friends and family, with 21% of singles saying that was how they met their last date.
It's just as easy to meet people at work than online at a dating site and barely better than a nightclub. That is not a promising number.
24% more people use internet dating to find a last minute date. I wonder what the initial percentage was? "Hi, I have last minute tickets to a show and you look hot, want to join me?"
20-30% of men and women think it's ok to date the boss. That's why we have National Secretary's Day.
File under 127% non-scientific:
New York taking a turn from a “Best Dating City” in 2005 to a “Worst Dating City” on this year’s list.
Washington D.C. going from a top ten “Best” ranking in 2005 to achieving the dubious honor of being the number #1 “Worst City For Dating” in 2006. Atlanta continues to earn its “Hotlanta” nickname, holding its position as the No. 1 “Best Dating City” for the second year in the row. Los Angeles also holds steady, keeping its second place ranking for the second year.
Funny how AOL, which is in a great position to sell products to daters, hardly mentioned Valentine's gifts, whereas Eharmony, which doesn't have a good sales channel, talks mostly about how much people spend on Valentine's Day.
Technorati Tags: Love@AOL
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| Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
I've received a ton of Valentine's Day survey's. It's interesting that the only time most dating sites tend to do these survey's at Valentine's Day. Do dating sites gain more paying customers during this pre V-day time period?
I have to say the Eharmony survey is more thorough than most. A lengthy end note goes into the methodology used in the study. However, after reading 10 or so survey's, the late entries start to become slightly nauseating. Statistic after statistic pertaining to consumerism, gift guilt and percentages of age groups going out to dinner, buying cards and the like.
These surveys are an effective way to get a some stats good for a few news articles and make it easy for reporters to bang out a few hundred words.
Once you get past that and into general relationship statistics of the Eharmony survey, there are some nuggets of interest.
I want to hear what is wrong with the industry and what people think should be done to fix it. Not how much people plan on spending on chocolate.
Let's get back to customer conversions, better marketing strategies, pricing and retention. Everything else is just noise at the moment. We're a week past the only dating conference in the US, this should be a time to reflect on what we've learned.
Technorati Tags: survey, valentines+day
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Posted by Dave Evans
A few people were nice enough to provide a copy of their iDate presentations, check the left sidebar and keep them coming. I would like to post copies of the traffic/stats presentations.
I looked that the Jupiter Research report and the GMI poll briefly this week. As usual, some interesting, and not so interesting takeaways.
GMI poll says we look for friendship (21%) more than we look for love (19%) or sex (16%).
Plus or minus a few percentage points due to errors and you have a pretty even balance, but what about the other 40%?
45% of people in the world consider online dating somewhat or extremely important. That should be middle-class internet users in countries with a strong economy. Kind of a throwaway number, what does that tell us? Sounds like America innovated the industry but does not lead.
Nate Elliot says there was a drop from 6% to 5% in paying subscribers.
The industry has flattened out, we knew this 12 months ago. Where are we in terms of hitting that $520 million mark for 2005? I bet not even close.
1/3 of non-converts say dating sites are too expensive. People who think $20 a month is too expensive are not serious daters. My stock answer is that casual daters will do just as well on free free niche sites and social networking sites.
Elliot says only 14% of non-conversions use free sites. That seems quite low to me. Where do the rest go? Back to the bar?
We know several large dating sites gained hundreds of thousands of paying members, which is good news to them but doesn't say anything about tier 2 and 3 sites.
I think this puts to rest once and for all the the argument that current ranking systems are useful.
Analysts have been relying on ineffective and misleading data, and it shows. Primary research is the only way to go.
I don't believe for one second that social networking sites pose little threat. That's a nice quote for sure, one that free dating sites will shout with glee. What about the 60 million Myspacers that aren't on dating sites? People will argue that they won't pay for anything, but Myspace has effectively taken them off the market for paid services in the future for good. Where does one go after they outgrow Myspace? Will they graduate to paid services?
Targeted discounting strategies. Nice idea, but too complicated for most dating sites. If targeted advertising on dating sites doesn't even work, how can they be expected to implement variable discounting?
Technorati Tags: jupiter, GMI
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| Category: Research
January 31, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
I just read that over 33,000 eHarmony members got married in a twelve month period ending August 31, 2005.
Dr. Neil Clark Warren:
Soon-to-be-released research has found that eHarmony married couples are significantly happier than married couples who met by any other means. Our unique ability to marry quantity with quality is the reason why eHarmony continues to hold the distinction of more marriages per match than any online dating service.
I wonder what factors were considered in gauging that "eHarmony married couples are significantly happier than married couples who met by any other means?"
Curious to see what the surrounding questions were, because it's common knowledge the the questions that lead up to and follow specific keystone issues factor into the over responses, especially when the same question is asked several different ways.
In any event, 33,000 people is impressive.
Technorati Tags: eharmony
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| Category: Research | eharmony
January 25, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Starbucks has finally picked a dating partner, and it's Yahoo Personals. This is a fantastic pairing of two market leaders with incredibly strong brands. Yahoo Personals has always been very shy about partnering, good to see them opening up a bit.
I've met more dates at Starbucks than anywhere else. I have their quick-pay card, I get my internet access at the cafes through their partnership with T-mobile as well as about 4,000 milligrams of caffeine each week. Talk about brand loyalty. New subscribers get a Starbucks card loaded with $10. Super.
The new service, just in time for Valentine's Day, is called the Espresso Dating Guide. But it's not really a guide. Yahoo has hired Logan Levkoff as a relationship advisor. Never heard of her but then again she's on MTV and is gorgeous in that blonde, appealing to middle American men way. They could have hired anyone, really. And where are the male relationship advisors?
Recently, StrategyOne did a survey for Starbucks which found singles choose coffeehouses as the perfect place for first dates. I cannot believe they actually paid to have that research conducted. They only interviewed 300 people.
Starbucks has also announced it is also starting to offer MP3 audio files in stores, which customers can download to their iPods while waiting for their overpriced coffee.
Technorati Tags: starbucks, yahoo personals
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January 11, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
Parship.co.uk, a British subsidiary of Europe’s largest dating service with more than 1.5 million members, says that 3.6 million Britons used online dating services last year. That is 65 per cent of the 5.4 million Britons who are looking for a relationship and have used a dating service.
[tags: parship.co.uk]
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January 4, 2006
Posted by Dave Evans
I found this answer at GoogleAnswers. Some of the information is dated but worth a few clicks. Match.com on skimmers, conversion numbers, banner CTR's and more.
[tags: dating+site+marketing]
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December 15, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Corante has been listed as the #4 blog network according to Blog Network List. Here are the details behind the ranking. I have a lot to say about methodology they use, but my point here is to show how two dozen existing metrics can be utilized to provide a well-rounded ranking tool.
I previously wrote a call to action for a consumer-centric dating site ranking system that measured more than traffic ranking from sources such as Alexa.
Keynote Systems is on the right track, and could be a reference point for such a ranking list, but much more information is needed to get a full 360 degree view of how a site performs overall.
In a previous life, I tracked all of the datacenters around the world. Once you knew who was in each datacenter, you could to some degree begin to make assumptions based on how much new bandwidth or rackspace they were ordering. Often, Yahoo would expand their presence in an Exodus datacenter, and shortly after would announce a new product or service. This sort of analysis led to some important insights for my team and clients, especially when other data were layered on top to enrich the overall scenario.
There are many different ways to go about designing a meaningful ranking system. To begin, do dating sites participate by providing user data or do we rely on external information? Either way, the data would need to be freely available. No hidden panels or special software. Hitwise and Comscore should participate, and search engine PageRank and the like would need to be added into the mix.
I have low hopes that dating sites would agree to provide a certain baseline of information on a regular basis unless a strong case was made that sharing the information would clearly benefit them.
Overall, I don't think it would be very difficult to implement a ranking system, the hard part would be getting dating sites to agree on the measure-points and handing over the data. Easier to design a ranking system that relied on external data. In the middle, there is the option of a special Biz Rate-style pop-up window that's displayed on member's home pages.
If you could create such an index, what data would you use to feed the ranking algorithm?
[tags: ranking]
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December 5, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
James Currier, the Founder the Tickle, emailed to share that Tickle's dating service, LoveHappens, got the highest customer satisfaction rankings from online customers of any online dating site. The study was done by Keynote Systems, who you may remember as a presenter at iDate last year.
James mentioned Keynote was just looking at the satisfaction of people using the site, not the overall numbers. That said, it's clear that Monster drives a ton of traffic to LoveHappens.
I was quite surprised to learn of LoveHappens' ranking, so I spoke with Keynote's Dr. Bonnie Brown, in charge of Methodology & Research and Bonnie Morris, product manager.
We covered a lot of ground during our conversation, here are some of my notes. Thankfully, the press release is very thorough and contains a lot of interesting information.
According the Dr. Brown, the customer study was the most surprising.
Keynote measured responsed from 1,500 customers as they interacted with various popular dating sites.
They gather their data from a research panel which screened for having dating site accounts and can log into their existing service and provide feedback.
They polled 100 customers per dating site and constantly cycle the panel participants.
Yahoo! Personals is king when in terms of success in online customer acquisition.
Nearly twice as many prospective True customers described the site as "safe" and "trustworthy" as those prospective customers visiting other sites.
I was confounded at their inclusion of HappyMarriage (part of Tickle) and Lavalife and that American Singles edged out Eharmony.
Keynote's Dating Services Report was done on a custom basis beginning and will be an annual report going forward. Contact me if you're interested in learning more, as I'm trying to put together some research materials affordable by dating sites that may not necessarily have the $10,000 - $30,000 the larger dating sites pay for competitive research studies.
[tags: keynote+systems]
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December 2, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Rocketboom does great Firefox vs. Internet Explorer people on the street interviews in Washington Square Park in New York City. The majority of people said they like Firefox's features and security better. The rest tended to admit that they used Internet Explorer because it is the status quo or preferred a brand they were familiar with. Obviously the interviews were hand-picked but I would think the sentiments would be similar for the people they interviewed who didn't show up in the video.
I wonder how people would react if they had asked what dating site you use and why?
[tags: market+research]
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November 19, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
At one point I moved all my bookmarks to the social bookmarking service del.icio.us. They have a browser toolbar-based bookmark drop-down menu that displays my server-based bookmarks.
If the originating file is removed, I'm basically back to Google to re-find the page. I moved from del.ici.ous to Furl, which is similar but stores a copy of the page on the Furl servers. Redundant, yes, but hard drives are cheap and having a navigable storage space makes more sense. Plus, the del.icio.us user interface remains about as ugly as it gets.
I bring this up because I've been deep into a project and I let my desktop fill with about 100 shortcuts to interesting (or not) links sent from friends and associates. Now that the initial rush-phase of the project is winding down, it's time to do my monthly parsing of everything I've held in a holding pattern.
One of the better dating-industry related links I've found is this market development projections from 1993- Loic Le Meur Blog: the dating industry - a closer look. If you're working on on a dating site business plan, you need to read this, good insights into data not usually released by dating sites, including some calculations I haven't seen before. You may want to check out the Research category as well.
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November 3, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Last week Match.com launched a Singles Observatory in France that it intends to use as an "independent" body to publish data about singles, their lifestyle and the hunt for the perfect partner. This just shows how much they want to be able to soundly claim #1 status over Meetic.
Yahoo News Release
[tags: match.com]
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November 2, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
A reader named John Brown left a comment stating that Dr. James Houran did not in fact create the True personality test.
According to Brown:
The test was developed by Plumeus, Inc. and the “brain” behind the test is certainly not Mr. Houran but Ilona Jerabek Ph.D.
Plumus was recently re-branded PsychTests. PsychTests main product is MatchScale. According to True, Jerabek is an advisor, however nowhere does it state that she created the test. Some digging and I came across "Psychometric Description of the True Compatibility Test™ -- A Proprietary Online Matchmaking System", which seems to show that Jerabek did in fact create the test. Regardless, a fascinating read until my eyes crossed.
Jerabek posted a comment here recently.
[tags: personality testing, true.com]
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Posted by Dave Evans
Bad boy Gary Kremen, original founder of Match.com, is slated to receive $65 million from Stephen Cohen, who has been arrested by Mexican authorities in Tijuana after being on the lam for four years after illegally taking over sex.com, a domain owned by Kremen. More at SiliconBeat.
[tags: siliconbeat]
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October 30, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Dr. James Houran, the brains behind the True.com Compatability Test, shares his thoughts on the infancy of compatibility testing, Rasch scaling, classical test theory and how new technologies and research are driving applied psychology.
[tags: compatability, psychology]
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October 12, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Gada.be is a website which aggregates results from traditional search engines, blog search engines, flickr, and various RSS aggregators.
My An Analysis of Online Dating Behavior post this morning is #1 of Google blog search engine, but of course there are a bunch of spam, pr0n and useless links thrown in but overall I'm impressed with the service so far.
Here's the Dating link. Hint, add your search term to ".gada.be" so dating would be dating.gada.be.
I'm always on the lookout for good dating newsfeeds because I don't have enough time to parse all the dating site press releases as much as I used to. These days I find that 90% of them are launches for new sites launched by people who didn't seem to get the memo about consolidation in the industry.
Subscribing to a Yahoo News search for top 10 dating sites seems to do the job and the results get pushed to my desktop RSS newsreader which saves some back and forth to My.Yahoo.com each day. Good stuff.
[tags: gada.be]
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Posted by Dave Evans
This is a few years old but An Analysis of Behavior in Online Dating Systems looks like a good read. Written by Andrew Fiore when he was at MIT, here's the abstract.
Online personal advertisements have shed their stigma as matchmakers for the awkward to claim a prominent role in the social lives of millions of people. Web sites for online dating allow users to post lengthy personal ads, including text and photos; search the database of users for potential romantic partners; and contact other users through a private messaging system. This work begins with psychological and sociological perspectives on online dating and discusses the various types of online dating Web sites. Next, it presents an analysis of user behavior on one site in particular, which has more than 57,000 active users from the United States and Canada. A demographic description of the population is given, and then 250,000 messages exchanged by the active users over an eight-month period are analyzed. An examination of which characteristics are "bounding" finds that life course attributes such as marital status and whether one wants children are most likely to be the same across the two users in a dyadic interaction. To understand which characteristics are important to users in deciding whom to contact, regression models show the relative strength of a variety of attributes in predicting how many messages a user with those attributes will receive. By far the strongest predictor of messages receivedis the number of messages sent. For men, age, educational level, and self-rated physical attractiveness are the next most important qualities. For women, they are not being overweight, self-rated physical attractiveness, and having a photo. Finally, a discussion of the design implications of these findings and other design issues follow the results.
[tags: dating thesis]
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October 6, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
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September 20, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Yahoo! Personals is celebrating National Singles Week by inviting singles to take an exclusive look at The Yahoo! Personals Singles'™ Voice Survey which includes brand new research that provides insight into the dating preferences and characteristics of today's™s singles. We are also offering a Free Seven-Day Trial to the world's most successful online dating site! To take advantage of this offer click here.
[tags: survey]
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September 19, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
National Unmarried and Single Americans Week is September 18 - 24. “National Singles Week” was started by the Buckeye Singles Council in Ohio in the 1980s to celebrate single life and recognize singles and their contributions to society. The week is now widely observed during Sept. 19-25 as “Unmarried and Single Americans Week,” an acknowledgment that many unmarried Americans do not identify with the word “single” because they are parents, have partners or are widowed.
- Number of unmarried and single Americans: 95.7 million
- Percentage of unmarried and single Americans who are women: 54%
- Number of unmarried and single Americans age 65 and over: 14.5 milion
- Number of single parents: 12.2 million
Data from unmarriedamerica.org and the US Census Bureau.
What is your dating site doing to help celebrate with singles? I haven't seen any specific marketing except for a Match.com press release.
[tags: single, research]
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August 23, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
ZDNet research department quoting a traffic report from Comscore that quotes a Jupiter analyst:
Top online dating sites: Yahoo! Personals, Match.com, Spark by ZDNet's ZDNet Research -- The US online dating industry is expected to grow by 9% YTY with revenues of $516 mln in 2005 coming from consumer subscriptions alone, said Jupiter Research. That's slower than the 19% growth in 2004. There are 86 mln single adults who control annual spending of $1.6 trillion, according to Date.com. Online dating sites reach about 30% of that market currently.
Visitor-based stats based on flawed measurement algorithms don't do anyone any good. I'm all for comparisons, but month after month Comscore continues to include sites that have no business being on the Top 10 lists. I expect the situation to get worse before it gets better because obviously nobody at Jupiter or Comscore is paying attention, they crank out these traffic rankings and move on to the next one.
Of particular interest, -5% growth for True, Tickle (LoveHappens) at #5 and 0% growth for Spark. Spark's bankers must be freaking out about that, with their IPO looming on the horizon.
Number9, Zencom, is not even a website, nothing on Google or Technorati that leads to a dating site. It seems as though Zencom might host DemocraticPeopleMeet.com and RepublicanPeopleMeet.com.
Who is running these stats? Are they phoning them in from vacation somewhere?
[tags: match.com, true.com, yahoo personals]
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August 3, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Head on over to Technorati to read part two.
- 900,000 posts created each day. That's about 37,500 posts every hour, or 10.4 posts per second.
- On average, public blog posts are indexed by Technorati in less than 5 minutes after they are created or modified, and are thus available in our search and tag results.
Some dating service should start tagging dating profiles with Technorati tags. I know the VC behind the the Del.icio.us bookmarking server were thinking about doing something similar.
That would be a cool way to filter profiles without having to add questions to your profile systems, which has proven to be a real stumbling block for the industry.
Link
[tags: del.icio.us, technorati]
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August 2, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
From Technorati- The blogosphere has just about doubled again in the past 5 months (7.8 to 14.2 million). 80,000 new blogs a day, roughly one a second.
55% of all blogs are considered active, they contain a post within the last three months. See how easy it was for the blog world to come up with a definition of activeness?
Yahoo seems the be the only major dating site with a blog feature, albeit via their 360 service. AEWebworks has included blog feature in their latest release. Anyone else planning to integrate blogs?
Check back daily for the next few days for more trend analysis and stats.
Link.
[tags: aewebworks, blog, technorati]
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July 7, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Much ado about Alexa rankings lately. It's time to take a hard look at developing an industry standard for ranking dating sites. This is a first pass, hopefully it can be refined over time with feedback and turn out to be something helpful to the industry, advertisers and consumers.
The dating industry, and one could argue that website in general, need a ranking system that is resilient enough to react to changing traffic inflation tactics like spyware, toolbars, link farms and other more uncommon methods on the horizon.
One that takes into consideration the myriad sites out there, paid, free, inexpensive, credit-based, subscription based. Long duration members vs. short, high value vs. low. Getting nookie vs. getting married.
A question to you then. What are the metrics you would use to develop a ranking system that fairly and accurately represents the entire online dating industry?
Some example metrics:
# visitors
# members
# paying members (customers)
% conversion rate
membership duration
customer satisfaction
customer success
Before deciding on the metrics, we need to think about the overall goals of a ranking system. Why is a dating site's Alexa, Comscore or Hitwise rank so important?
An Excel spreadsheet from your CFO and another from the membership director can give you a good look into how your company is doing. Does it really matter if a competitor has N number more profiles than you do?
As long as you're making money and growing your business and delivering what the customer expects, what's the big deal? Consumers most certainly don't judge their decision solely on traffic ranking. They don't say, "this site is free, but it's large and I like the ads, so I'm going to join it." They watch tv, listen to radio ads, surf the Interweb and ask their friends for advice.
If the industry is infatuated with traffic rank, to what ends?
Pre-money valuation?
Preparing to sell your membership list?
Advertising?
Marketing?
Sale of company?
More eyeballs = more ad dollars. However, more members does not necessarily mean better customer experience.
Small niche site with high-value members = more ad dollars.
How would Userplane's ad network value different sites? If I understand correctly, at the moment it's a run-of-network deal, in the future it will be more targeted, at least one would hope.
As an advertiser, things are shifting. I used to think I wanted 50,000 eyeballs. What I really want are the 500 that matter most, that are ready to buy. The high-value eyeballs.
Free sites are made up of relatively low-value members. They are not so serious about dating, mostly giving it a try. Arguable point, yes. Let's have at it. Free dating sites rely on advertising, it's all about the eyeballs. Free sites like Plentyoffish and WebDate make decent money off of advertising, at least that is what I am led to believe.
What about geographic ranking? 500,000 members. Whatever. How many are in my aggregated zip code area? Dating sites would never publish this kind of information, it's too transparent. Consumers would love it. The old "N number of people online" is only useful if you have chat, otherwise who cares if/when people are visiting the site?
Mid-priced subscription-based sites are geared more towards serious daters, although a good portion are casual daters.
Some subscription-based sites try to undercut the competition on price. This hardly ever works. They end up with low-value members. A certain slice of the online dating demographic use price as a filter. Not enough sites leverage this. Price point is a metric as well. Value-per-dollar would be an interesting way to measure a site, but too much trouble to figure out.
If Site A charges $9.95 per month and has 500,000 member and Site B charges $24.95 and has 34,000, which site should be ranked higher? It's a quality vs. quantity argument.
How do you define satisfaction or success? Success for the dating site company is rarely aligned with the goals of it's members. Customer satisfaction is not something we hear about often enough in the industry.
If you're a top 10 site, your popularity is based on the total amount of active profiles and paying members and customer satisfaction. [Insert discussion about definition of active profiles.]
More members tends to attract more members.
High quality members bring additional high-quality members.
Define high-quality members. 450,000 free members means absolutely nothing to an advertiser, it's just a number, and they have no way of judging it past what you tell them about your membership demographics. You're never honest with them anyway, because you would never get their money if you were, and they know that.
Is a dating site "better" because people vote with their wallets and stick around longer?
"I've been on this dating site for 6 months and I can't find anyone decent."
You have extended the lifetime of the customer, yet have failed to satisfy their objective. The promise has been broken, unwritten or not. And your site gets the reward of getting ranked higher than a site that does it's job faster and more efficiently.
Is a higher-percentage of long term customers a good or a bad thing?
One would think from a consumer perspective that high churn rate is a good thing.
Do you think people actually enjoy the online dating experience? That number is probably a lot lower that we would like to think.
How can a dating site improve the experience for members and extend the duration of the membership? What metrics can we use to gauge how effective a dating site is? Relying on # of marriages is one way to look at it, but not the only way.
There's a lot more to this discussion, like I said, this is a starting point. I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Maybe I'm way off on this, maybe all the industry need is Alexa and Hitwise, why air the dirty laundry or bother self-policing or becoming more transparent when things are going along just fine as they are?
Technorati Tags: alexa
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance | Marketing | Research | Traffic
June 30, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Social bookmarking is all the rage right now in the early-adopter circles. After a flurry of using the service, I'm re-categorizing my Dating bookmarks on the popular social bookmarking service Del.icio.us into several groups: apps, search, value-added, marketing and advertising to start. Look in the right column, down a bit and you'll see "Del.icio.us Bookmarks." It's set to dating apps right now, will add other categories later.
Recently, an analyst with Union Square Ventures, who funded Del.icio.us, contacted me about using the service as a dating tool. He had that dismissive "I don't see the business model" view of their competitors, which I've grown to ignore, but he did open my eyes to the value of social bookmarking in a way I hadn't thought about it previously.
If open profiles a la Mark Pincus (ex Tribe.net CEO and founder) take off, Del.icio.us is in a position to be a central aggregator of profiles. The problem there is that people have to actively submit their profile to the site, or have someone else bookmark their profile. A crawler could be built to crawl profiles, grabbing the meta-data and implementing search functionality. Mike Jones are you reading this?
Del.icio.us is a good example of a Web 2.0 application. The path the viable revenue model is unclear. Advertising dollars would be the easy way. Who are they going to charge? Pay for placement in a social bookmarking service? If they want to position themselves as collaborative-filtered search, thats another option. When the service stops looking like Windows 3.1 and is marketed(beta forever), perhaps the groundswell of popularity will make is useful enough to regular users. Someone needs to show me where the reward is for posting bookmarks. Del.icio.us reminds me of the DMOZ open directory or early Yahoo!- submit a link, and if we think it's appropriate, we'll post to the directory. Until it's better than Google, it's a curiosity for most. How long will it be until people start going to Del.icio.us instead of their favorite search engine?
In the meantime, go read yesterday's article in the NYTimes about Yahoo My Web, which discusses Del.icio.us, Technorati, and how Yahoo hopes to capitalize on the popularity of viral marketing and group filtering.
Comments (1)
| Category: Research
May 19, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
I was able to access the survey and the results without a JDate login. One of the questions is actually "rate your interest in new features and content." Usefulness of actual questions aside, it was good to see them ask about level of interest in expanded profiles. I was surprised to see them pose the question about offering more live events, which we all know doesn't work for dating sites because they can't control the quality of each event. Has anyone attended the LavaLife Click and a Flick events?
JDaters are most interested in:
- chatting through instant message
- doing advanced searches to find the best people for them
- getting new features on the site to help them connect more easily with potential dates and new friends that truly suit their style
Members are also interested in:
- a new look for the site
- easier-to-use menus to help them navigate when online
Prediction- In a few months we'll see chat on Jdate, perhaps from Userplane and [already there] enhanced search, again from Userplane through their deal with Transparansee.
Results of JDate Survey are here.
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May 3, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Thanks to those who took the time to participate in our short survey. Here are some of the results you might find interesting. I'm putting together a series of reasonably priced reports which will address the topics you have identified as most important.
85% of you read Online Dating Insider regularly
54% of you indentify as entrepreneurs
41% would like to see us offer webinars and conference calls
Topics included Mergers & Acquisitions, customer conversion, service differentiators and the future of online dating.
58% want Top 10 traffic reports added as a feature.
77% would read a weekly best-of digest.
45% read news with an RSS client.
36% have no idea what RSS is.
Additional topics you would like to see us cover more:
Industry Expert commentary 75%
Outside Experts 58%
Marketing 58%
Customer conversion 50%
Finance 50%
I'll let you know when the first report is ready. Should be a few weeks at the most.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
I spoke with Dr. Mark Thompson at WeAttract today. As the lead author of the paper, "Consumers are having second thoughts about online dating", Dr. Mark is full of insight opinions about the industry and not afraid to share them. Each time we talk I come away looking at the dating industry differently and today was no different.
I picked the paper up this weekend and started reading again and I'm glad I did. The first time around was more of a quick scan. Supposedly 6,000 people have downloaded the in-depth look at the online dating industry. I imagine that a good number of those people are consumers because 250 television stations picked up a show that weAttract and Dr. Mark put out on the wire mentioning the paper.
If you haven't read it yet, the paper is here. Highly recommended.
Interesting note: Yahoo! encouraged WeAtttract to write the whitepaper, actually a series of whitepapers, on the online dating industry. Lorna Borenstein, General Manager at Yahoo! Personals, evidently was upset with the original whitepaper and asked weAttract to remove any mention that Yahoo! endorses the ideas set forth therein. WeAttract went ahead and republished the paper without referencing Yahoo!
In other weAttract news, the Physical Attraction Test version 2.0 out soon. 1/3 the length of the current version and 10x better according to Dr. Mark. As I've mentioned before, weAttract has more offerings for the dating industry in the pipeline.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
April 29, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
I have been running a survey at ProfileDoctor.com for a while now and wanted to share some of the results. By no means scientific, I was attempting to gauge what types of value-added services consumers were hungry for and where their pain points are. the next survey will shed additional light on customer satisfaction and brand awareness.
30% spent more than 30 minutes writing their ad
70% said their ads were not attracting the right kind of people
When asked what they would like to change about your online dating experience, people told us:
9.4% - I wish my ad was viewed more often
28.2% - More emails from people I’m interested in
5.9% - Less emails from people I’m not interested in
7.1% - I’d like to go on more dates
42% - All of the above
88.4% are interested in having online dating experts review their profile.
30% would pay $50 for Profile Writing services where they would answer questions online and expect a written personal ad essay in 72 hours.
100% of the people wanted to get off of their dating site(s) as quickly as possible.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
April 22, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Survey Says. We are currently conducting a survey to learn more about our readers and how we can improve Online Dating Insider. We value your feedback, and would appreciate if you took a few moments to respond to a few questions.
Click here to take survey
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Blink › | Research
Posted by Dave Evans
Here are the bullet points for my speech at BU this week.
Social Capital in the Networked Era
Dating sites- "Introduction services"
Current strategy
Increase value of customers, not to customers
Focus on getting more customers
Leave money on the table
Offline partnering with online
Crowded marketplace- thousands of sites
Difficult to differentiate
Cheaper ain’t better.People use price as a filter
“Yahoo! Personals Premiere”, eHarmony $50/month
Adding personality tests- less than 1% take them
WeAttract- personality tests linked to Yahoo! profile
Free services
High attrition rate during move to paid subs
Lack of accountability & transparency
How many dates? Value of dates?
Better rating for adhering to 3rd date rule?
Legal- True.com
Future trends & success factors
Market contraction- stale sites and profiles (DEFINE)
Deeper alliances- Relationship Exchange, federation.
What is the value of a profile?
Better marketing- don’t insult visitors
Targeted advertising (know their habits and preferences)
Niche sites
Cowboy date
Consumating.com
From web sites to web services
Exposing services for consumption
ProfileDoctor is website to customers
Webservice to partners & affiliates
Maturation of tools
- rss, lamp, ajax web services
- Tagalicioius folksonomies
RDF RSS ENFP FOAF AJAX blogs
Yahoo! Personals, RSS partner feeds
“Beta is the new Black”
Delicious- built by consumers. Where is the line between what I own and the site owns. Not just data vs. features & functionality
Nice social networking/dating site hybrid
Movable Type - CMS
RSS feed from partner
Subscribe to value-added services provider
Join ad networks
Sites to Watch
8 Minute Dating
Started the speed dating craze
Networking Match- trade show speed dating
Del.icio.us
Technorati
I use Technorati almost as much as I Google.
Tribe.net
Pincus – dynamic, open profiles – 18 months
I call them blogs.
PROBLEM: centralized blogs.
Consummating.com
Tags
“23 people would sleep with so and so”
Location-based
Dodgeball
plazes
Social networking
Sitting at a computer is not social
Lot to learn from social networking sites
Social networking sites searching for answers
Friendster on 3rd CEO?
$15M funding
Myspace eating their lunch
comScore says 7th largest internet property in Feb.
9 million unique visitors!
Site’s best feature originally a software bug
Ability to change Look & Feel.
Deja vu 1995 Sixdegrees.com, Geocities
LinkedIn
Degrees of separation- more than a few a waste of my time
Recommendation engines need to get smarter
Lack of effective Aggregation, Filters, Granularity
REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
Identify, Track, manage your online persona
Trufina
Id Verification, background checks
First line of defense: Ax murderer 50 pixels from husband material
Examples
• GreatBF/GF- testimonials
• Rateadate- negative feedback
• Slashdot article rating system- threshold
• eBay- primitive reputation management
Early Days
Match, Friendfinder
Pay to get highlighted
Frequency of login is only way to get to top of search results
Blogs
Going from LinkRank(Link early, link often) , trackbacks and comments
to Earn the right to connect to me, publish me in your blogroll.
Contexta
External business Environment
www.corante.com/dating/files/prefuse
Visualization of Google zeitgeist
Press releases, stock prices, alliances & partnerships, hires/fires.
Open access is important component of reputation management systems
Contextually- aware open profiles- FOAF
Closing Remarks
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
April 15, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Through a generous deal with Marketdata Enterprises we are able to offer this exceptional report to you for only $1195 $995, that's $700 less than MarketData's list price. Publication Date, April 2004, 173 Pages. Concern over the age of the report is easily balanced by the fact that there is no other report out there like it. Online and offline. If you want traffic stats go to the usual suspects. The is a market forecast report and good overview to the industry. Recent customers have included dating executives, law firms and a few women who bought the chapter on dating coaches (smart!). Report details and table of contents here. If you need up-to-the-moment information about the industry, contact us for details on how we can help.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
March 16, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
March 15, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Mark Pincus, founder of Tribe.net says:
I believe we are close to the point where people will start to be organized online into a 'peopleweb' where browsers will surf and search through people not pages.
This is an interesting concept. Companies like Social Grid have proposed the idea of decentralized social networking communities linked together by search engines however I think it's going to be a long time before search engines will be able to display group affiliations and credibility ratings on the fly as Mark states.
Mark thinks that "big portals will all succumb to their audience's desire for openness and transportability of online identities." While the idea of an open web is appealing, in the context of the online dating space the reality of the situation becomes apparent if you replace "big portals" with "dating sites." I cannot imagine that Match or Yahoo! or Sparks will open up their database to anyone who wants to access their members, whether it be paid-for data-feeds or advertising rates. Big dating sites currently feel they need to lock in their members, making it easy for them to leave for another service is not in their best interest.
I will continue to watch how the this evolves. Fascinating stuff!
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
The results are in. Thanks to all who participated.
Are you going to SITRAConIII?
Yes - 28%
No - 58%
On the fence - 14%
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research | conferences
March 10, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
The dating industry is made up of hundreds of companies, thousands of people and the countless number of transactions and events that made the industry what it is today. Keeping track of all the going's-on is time consuming and difficult. The graphical display of the relationships between high frequency and dynamic information such as stock prices, blog entries, press releases, job openings, regulatory issues and other data can enable us to better analyze and observe changes in the external business environment.
What if you could visualize the market, your competitors, partners and those companies just out of range of your radar?
I've added a handful of companies, people and events that shape the dating industry to our database which you can see here. Over time we'll be adding new data sources, views and controls to enable people to add to the display, correct errors and contribute to the network.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
weAttract.com, an independent research and development firm, announced today the formation of a new Science Advisory Board. This multi-disciplinary team of nationally renowned psychologists, mathematicians, and educators will advise weAttract as it designs a new generation of search engines and decision-making tools for the Internet.
weAttract has built search systems for leading online dating websites, including the recently launched, Yahoo! Personals Premier service. “When we first started, the industry scoffed at the idea of applying science to online dating,” recalls Dr. Mark Thompson, President and CEO of weAttract.com. “They said: It’s not rocket science! But it’s much harder to connect people online than most expected.” This Board brings new skills and insights to finding relationships, jobs, and information online.
WeAttract licences their personality testing systems to both Match and Yahoo! Personals for several hundred thousand dollars per year. They have 4 patents pending.
Comments (1)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research | Seniors
March 1, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
There is a lot of talk throughout the dating industry about identity verification and background checks. We've heard a lot about how important safety is to online daters, as well as the minutia concerning data retrieval issues and the adjudication process.
As a service to you our loyal readers, ODI is throwing down the gauntlet and inviting several ID verification companies to demo their services in our testing lab.
An independent investigator will go through the ID verification and background check process for each vendor. The goal of the shootout is an unbiased review of ID verification vendors. The idea is to review the process, reliability, effectiveness and overall user experience of the verification process. We'll also take a close look at the data sources used by each service. Because the benchmarks for measuring and comparison differ from vendor to vendor, we will attempt to create a review format that works for all involved.
Several companies have already agreed to participate. If you would like to have your company considered for the review, contact me to learn more.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research | Safety
February 23, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Scott Rogers launched Toronto-based LavaLife's web business and then like most entrepreneurs, got bored. His next venture, Lemontonic, integrates MSN messenger with the usual dating site features. $5.4 million in private placements later, Lemontonic 2.0 was released on Feb. 21. A few weeks ago I spoke with Business Edge about Lemontonic. We talked about the role IM clients play in dating sites, the huge opportunities for a custom branded IM clients, and that we're glad they didn't call is Orangetonic.
Comments (2)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Research | Technology
Posted by Dave Evans
Valentine's Day-related Web sites gained visitors in January and early February, according to Feedback Research. For example, online personals sites like Match.com and Yahoo! Personals were viewed over 29 million times by GAIN Network users between December 28, 2004 and February 7, 2005, with the average viewer coming back 7.45 times and spending over 40 minutes online. CupidJunction.com had an increase in traffic of 43%, while eHarmony.com experienced a 24% increase in traffic.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
February 22, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Claria Corporation, which used to be called Gator, has a subsidiary called FeedBack Research, that put out some statistics on Valentine's Day:
Surfers looking for gift ideas and potential lovers online contributed to significant spikes in traffic for sites in the 4 weeks leading up to the holiday:
-- ProFlowers.com experienced a +418% increase in traffic;
-- RedEnvelope.com's traffic increased by +122% and;
-- Bluenile.com had a +128% increase.
-- Dating sites also saw an increase in traffic: CupidJunction.com had a
+43% increase in the weeks leading up to the holiday and eHarmony.com
had a +24% jump.
Other domains with large increases were: 1800flowers.com (+414%), Diamond.com (+120%) and Avon.com (+91%).
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Marketing | Research
February 15, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has published an paper titled "Assortive matching and maritial quality in newlyweds". If you are interested in the science of matchmaking, personality profile systems and testing, this is for you.(Thanks Fernando!)
Comments (1)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
February 14, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
The latest online dating report from Jupiter is out.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Blink › | Research
February 11, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Contracts Blog has a posting from August 12, 2004 which contains links to sample employment contracts for several Spark Networks executives. Historical context for those interested in these things.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance | Research
February 7, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Just in time for Valentine's Day, online matchmaking service Tickle Inc. today released findings from its Valentine's Day Bedroom Behavior Study. The study reveals that 69 percent of respondents to Tickle's TrueMatch Personality Test have an exceptionally strong sex drive and 70 percent like to "get creative" in bed. 69% eh? That wasn't too obvious.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
February 5, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
I received an email from a student looking for online dating research. Email me and I'll pass along any info you can provide.
I am interested in doing reasearch on online dating in the London area, specifically focusing on the role of the internet as a new media in this cultural/communication "phenomenon". Another interesting idea that I am looking into is how much people are looking towards their own culture when dating online as London is very international as I'm sure you know! I am trying to review current and past research on this topic and was wondering if you could point me towards any helpful websites with research and/or case studies in this area? I need to determine what has already been done in order to develop a unique question that I can research and write about.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
February 3, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
This report is for historical purposes only. MatchNet with a $17M market cap, $8 million in cash on hand. Match (TicketMaster!) has 3M members when it acquired oneandonly.com and Matchmaker had 45% growth numbers. A testatment to the speed this industry has expanded, and how quickly fortunes can change.
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| Category: Finance | Research
February 2, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Center For Media Research has posted several charts, including Top Online Personals Destinations, at Home Week ending Jan. 9, 2005 US, and the corresponding demographic data. According to Alexa (which should marginally be trusted as a valid datasource), Myspace actually overtook Match for a while in the middle of December before dropping back. How did Tickl, MySpace and Thefacebook get in the list? And where is Plentyoffish? Just goes to show that traffic ranking is an exact science and several datapoints should be used to get a reasonable view of the leaderboard.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
January 10, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Here's recent Alexa data for eHarmony, Match, Lavalife, True and PerfectMatch. The Dating Site Traffic link in the left sidebar has more dynamic traffic stats for comparison purposes. Your mileage may vary in terms of how realistic the data are.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
I received a press release from Meetic which states they are the #1 dating destination in Europe. an hour later I read this:
Independent Internet audience measurement firm Nielsen/NetRatings has named Match.com and its affiliated sites as the leading online dating provider in Europe. According to Nielsen/NetRatings data, dating sites owned or provided by Match.com drew 2.3 million unique visitors in November 2004, 35% more than Meetic, its closest European competitor, which had 1.7 million unique visitors during the month. Match.com has more than nine million registered users in Europe.
When I asked Meetic about the disparity between the two releases press release, I received this:
If you read carefully the match’s PR you'll see “dating sites owned or provided by Match.com drew 2.3 million unique visitors in November 2004, 35% more than Meetic”. Witch mean they have add match’s and ALL their partner’s reach (owned or provided by Match.com ) to compare with meetic’s reach WITHOUT reach of our 60 partners all over Europe. This comparison is quite unfair ;) and totally wrong (see bellow Nielsen November 2004 figures!)
If Match measures their entire network, it makes sense that Meetic does the same, Otherwise it gets confusing.
Meetic starts down the slippery slope of taking a competitor to task for aggregating the numbers across partner sites:
“All the indicators measured by Nielsen prove beyond any doubt that meetic is indeed the leader of dating websites in Europe contrary to what you may be led to believe by one of our competitors who, in a recent communication on the subject of the Nielsen findings, added together its own visitor figures and those of all its partners to compare them to the results achieved by meetic alone, excluding our 60 partners! In any case, and despite the fact that Meetic is visited by 420,000 more UV than this competitor, the notion of UV is not the sole criterion by which to evaluate the performance of a dating website. From a quality point of view the visit length is also highly significant and, on average, the duration of a visit to meetic is 13 times longer than visits to match.com” explains Marc Simoncini, CEO and founder of meetic.
I do not know if users pay per session or minute in the chat rooms. If they do, that's a good thing for Meetic. Match chat has always been underutilized, partially because it's blocked by pop-up blockers, so I can see Meetic users sticking around 13 times longer than Match users.
Not only is there a lack of standardized metric to measure top 10 dating sites, we still have to figure out how to keep the Friendster and myspace out of the mix and stick with pure play dating sites.
Link to JPEG of the Nielson numbers in question.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Research | Weekly
January 6, 2005
Posted by Dave Evans
Stats for June 2004, according to Hitwise. Stale, but historical perspective is always useful. I'm trying to get Hitwise and Comscore to provide monthly stats to better gauge movement within the top 10 sites. Not as easy as you would think, several top 10 sites pay Comscore $60,000 for their research.
1. Gaydar.co.uk (19.04%)
2. Udate (13.92%)
3. DatingDirect.com (4.64%)
4. Yahoo! UK & Ireland Personals (4.37%)
5. Friend Finder Inc. (4.00%)
6. FriendsReunited Dating (3.65%)
7. Love@Lycos UK (3.21%)
8. Match.com (3.05%)
9. Loopylove.com (2.72%)
10. iSingles (1.96%)
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
December 11, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Every since the checkbox and radio button were invented, websites have polled visitors about their experiences and desires. Dating site surveys range from psychologically-revealing (if you were an animal, what would it be?) to the mundane (boxers or briefs?).
Date and Match survey their members on regular basis and promote the findings. The Match survey is more in-depth and as a result frequently shows up in blogs, business plans and quotes in major publications.
Date.com has published the results of their latest Love, Sex and Relationships Survey. While it's not exactly Kinsey-style insight into human sexual behavior, we learn that one-night stands are out and that being single is not trendy.
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December 7, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
From Vladimir Savchenko @ compatti.com:
After analyzing the compatibility results of 156,334 unique pairs from over 30,000 Compatti.com users using astrology we found very profound symmetricity in distribution of the compatibility scores. It was hard to ignore consistent and symmetrical distribution of the compatibility results for pairs of users collected from 4 years of operating compatibility evaluation, social networking and dating services http://www.compatti.com.
The research showed that: most of us (over 70% of pairs) are capable of living in harmony with each other. Each of us could be in relationships with an equal number of others at the same level of compatibility. The chances of meeting absolutely incompatible as well as absolutely compatible person are 1 out of 10.
This research is based on the empirical data analysis and clearly justifies our existence as a society with various relationships between us and a desire to live in harmony.
You can get the report here.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
In its first report of pan-European Internet behaviour, independent measurement firm comScore Media Metrix ranked Match.com as the leading online dating site in Europe. According to comScore data, Match.com sites drew nearly four million visitors in October, more than 60 percent than its closest competitor.
When taking into account the company's partnerships with a number of Europe's leading portals, Match.com's reach in Europe is even larger than the core numbers indicate. comScore Media Metrix estimates that when Match.com's partner sites such as MSN, Tiscali, AOL and Wanadoo are combined with Match- owned properties, the company reached nearly 5.9 million visitors in October.
Unique visitors (000)
1. Match.com sites 3,960
2. Ilove.de 2,404
3. Meetic 2,209
4. MSN Dating and Personals 1,792
5. Matchnet 1,310
Kevin Cornils, Managing Director of Match.com in Europe:
We are delighted by this independent third-party confirmation of our European leadership position - highlighting the tremendous growth we have experienced and more importantly the invaluable service that we are providing to our more than nine million registered users in Europe.
27 million people across Europe - nearly one in five Internet users - use an online dating site each month.
Comments (1)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
December 6, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Andrew Draper has undertaken an interesting piece of work, analyzing the network of the most popular dating sites. Some of the numbers are off, notably Matchmaker supposed 12 million members, however I applaud his attempt at this type of analysis.
Andrew says:
...knowing the amount of members each site had accumulated was a good way to base the popularity of the sites on, however this did not necessarily mean that the number of links these nodes were attached to would be directly associated with its popularity.
I started with MatchMaker.com and to my surprise, a site with over 12 million members only acquired 1,060 IN links. How does this make sense? So I continued on to the next site which was Match.com and a whopping 70,500 IN links showed up. This was more like it I thought, maybe there was an error with Google when doing the MatchMaker search. Neither Yahoo Personals or OneAndOnly.com came up with any IN links whatsoever, so I Moved on to Lavalife and DreamMates which both posted around the 1000 IN links mark. The rest of the results were skewed, raising and falling with very little relation to the number of members each had. Although the last site ePersonals.com with the fewest members did post the least amount of IN links, a connection that makes sense.
Next was finding out the number of OUT links, which I was hoping for some better results. MatchMaker.com again proved to be a disappointment with only 270 OUT links. Why? It is leaning towards the IN side for sure, in the directed network model which is appropriate for a website which is under a highly controlled environment with little information getting out. But nevertheless confuses me. Next was Match.com which came up with 6,800 OUT links, indicating that Match.com is also leaning towards the IN continent. Again this is most likely due to its strict upbringings. Lavalife, American Singles, PerfectMatch, and ePersonals were on the other hand favoring the OUT continent by having far more outgoing links compared to incoming ones, indicating that they are more extraverted than their competitors (again due to the structure and technicalities of the sites themselves).
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December 1, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Partial October visitor stats from Reuters press release on the Friendster/eHarmony deal:
Yahoo Personals: 6.2 million unique visitors
Match.com: 5.5 million
eHarmony: 3.2 million
Friendster: 945,000
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November 23, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Guinness World Records officially recognises Match.com as the largest online dating site in the world. More than 42 million singles globally have registered with Match.com since its launch in 1995 and worldwide there are now over 15 million members using the service. In the UK alone over 1.2 million singles are using Match.com to help them find love, with nearly 50,000 singles registering with Match.com each month.
Link
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| Category: Research
November 7, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
It's about time a an easy-to-understand metric was put in place to measure industry performance. ComScore gave a good presentation at SITRAS this summer which touched on the idea that we should be observing the interrelationship between several critical metrics to measure performance. How do you measure the top 10 sites? By monthly visitors, paying members or total profiles posted? How do we compare a site with lots of eyeballs and ad sales revenue with a site with fewer paid members? What about smaller sites with much higher customer satisfaction ratings? The ideal blend of metrics remains to be seen, at least until customer satisfaction ratings are taken into consideration.
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November 5, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
TouchGraph has a free service where you can enter in the address of a dating site (or any site for that matter), and a Java window pops up displaying the site and all sites that link to/from it. The clustering is fascinating, and it's a lot nicer than pouring over text-only referrer logs.
How a particular site is perceived, it's status, and popularity becomes quite clear from the nature of the sites linking to it. Yahoo! Personals, for example, tends to link to clusters of other Yahoo! properties. Date.com is all over the place, lots of news organizations, european and asian links, which I suspect are affiliates. True.com has links to Careerbuilder and other dating sites. Match.com didn't work, perhaps it's popularity overtaxed the software.
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October 25, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
I received an email from Match to participate in their survey. Mark Williamson, Director of Research at Match.com, is responsible for the survey. I took it, and here are my initial comments.
Ideas they are testing
1) Ability to turn off ads on the Match.com site
2) Opportunity to have higher placement in search results
3) Stand out in search results with a different color profile
Match website is definitely too crowded and busy these days, removing ads might help with the clutter.
Higher placement and colored profiles is straight from FriendFinder playbook, nothing new there. Higher placement in search results is interesting, although no info on how they would do this. Currently the only way to stay on top is to log in several times a day.
Be one of the first profiles that a new member sees
Profile highlighting
$37.95
Priority Placement in Search Results & Profile highlighting & turn off ads
$37.45
Be the first to be seen by new users
$34.19
Priority Placement in Search Results
Profile highlighting
Be the first to be seen by new users
Turn Off Ads
$39.29
Priority Placement in Search Results
Be the first to be seen by new users
$35.95
Priority Placement in Search Results
Profile highlighting
$36.69
General Membership
$29.95
Lot's of other variations I won't go into here.
Proposed prices for these services are confusing and the survey was tedious. They asked the same questions overand over with slight tweaks to price and offer. By the 12th page I was just clicking buttons to get over with it The last page is totally out of place, asking you 20 or so questions about your personality. You can't finish the survey without clicking a radio button for each selection. These questions definitely belonged in a separate survey.
We'll see what they do with the data they gather. Upping prices could be a disaster, but the highlighting stuff is a good move, as proven by several other services already.
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October 12, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Spearheaded by TRUE's chief psychological officer, Dr. James Houran, the paper, entitled "Do Online Matchmaking Tests Work? An Assessment of Preliminary Evidence for a Publicized 'Predictive Model of Marital Success,'" is the first academic publication to explore the growing acceptance of online matchmaking as a scientifically legitimate approach to mate selection. The paper further explores the claims of several online dating sites that their services and testing methods derived from scientific foundations.
This stuff interests me, it's definitely going to be a major factor in the success of online dating services. In a few years.
Call it marketing through scientific journals. I'm surprised that eHarmony didn't write this first. The major online dating services have proven that psychological testing doesn't mean much when it comes to finding out if your partner is compatible. For most people, that happens during the first date. All the tests I've taken are either too long, the questions sound like they were cooked up in a lab full of people in white coats who got married as undergrads or they insult your intelligence. "Celebrity I resemble most?", come on. Nobody takes these things seriously. Women get far too many emails from unsavory characters and men complain that nobody responds to their emails. Let's fix that first before we worry about inkblots and predictive modeling. Hopefully I'll be able to post a free link to the article when it's published and you can form your own opinion.
Link
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Posted by Dave Evans
I'm back after 4 days unplugged in the Virginia countryside. Good article in E-Commerce Times titled "Signs that online dating growth is slowing down."
Highlights (or lowlights?)
In September, market leader Match.com, a property of IAC/InterActive (IACI), laid off 30 people and replaced its longtime CEO. Rival True.com cut 90 employees, or 60 percent of its workforce. In August, MatchNet, which owns dating sites JDate.com and AmericanSingles.com, canned its initial public offering. The outfit cited unfavorable market conditions, and its president and CEO has resigned.
Growth rates for the established players are slowing rapidly. The U.S. market will expand a mere 19.4 percent this year, to US$473 million, according to market consultancy Jupiter Research. And growth will rise only 32 percent, to $623 million, over the following five years.
"The big growth in the U.S. is over," says Nate Elliott, an analyst with Jupiter in New York. "Things are going to get a little bit tougher. Companies are going to have to buckle down."
There's a lot of good info about mobile, AOL and Playboy's plans, so go read it.
Link
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September 30, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
In August, more than 16 percent of those active on the top five dating sites, including Yahoo Personals and Match.com, were 55 and over, and more than 5 percent were 65 and over, according to Nielsen/NetRatings Inc. That's up from 15 percent in the 55-plus category and 4.8 percent in the over-65 group a year earlier. Overall, the number of people active on top dating sites grew to 22.53 million in August from 22.28 million a year earlier. So much for growth in this segment.
This kind of reporting drives me crazy. "Imatchup.com, a dating site with 2.5 million members, said the number of users 55 and older is rising as much as 30 percent faster than its total population."
Thats like MatchLive stating revenue is up 200% and then shutting down operations a few months later. Where's the baseline? Link
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Posted by Dave Evans
I spent some of the $75 on music in iTunes. While listening to my purchases I decided to research Matchmaker a bit to shed some light on the events which led to their recent acquisition.
1996- Jon Boede -- who wrote the original Matchmaker BBS software -- developed Matchmaker.com. Previously, the Matchmaker system existed as a national network of BBSs began in San Antonio in the early 1980s. Link
2000- Lycos bought Matchmaker from MetroSplash for $44M. At the time, Matchmaker had a community of more than four million members who exchanged close to eight million e-mails each month and enrolled approximately 160,000 new members each month. Rated as the most engaging site of 1999 by the Industry Standard, Matchmaker.com was the stickiest of all online dating sites and the fourth stickiest of all Web sites with users turning an average of 100 pages per month. Link
2002- Terra bought Lycos for $12.5 billion. Ka-ching! Link
Feb 04- Lycos announced that it planned to exit the search space and focus on becoming a social networking site. Mark Stoever, executive vice president of Terra Lycos, U.S., explained that the move would allow Lycos to focus on the company's experience in online dating and publishing. Link
April 04- Lycos was put up for sale in April at an asking price of $170 million with investment bank Lehman Brothers acting as advisers.
August '04- Terra sold most of Lycos to South Korea's top website operator, Daum Communications for $95 million. Daum, the fifth-biggest stock on the junior Kosdaq exchange, said it would finance the deal with 70 billion won of its cash reserves and a bond issue. In the past, Daum also tried to acquire Mail.com. Link
Today- Who knows if Daum will be able to capitalize on MatchMaker. South Korea is a long way from Waltham, MA.
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September 13, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
I love Spring Street Networks, and that fact that they run the personals side of great sites like Nerve and Salon.com, not to mention our local Boston.com. Lavalife seems to be doing ok with the contact-for-credits model, but I have not seen a press release from SpringStreet in ages. so I started digging. Along the way I found this link , which has some good historical information about the industry...
Match.com grossed $10.7 million in Q2 2001, for an EBITDA profit of $2.8 million, back when Cindy Hennessy was president Match.com.
Rufus Griscom saying "You may see people laying out $20 a month today, but when you layer in two-way television, people are willing to spend $50 or $60."
A newcomer to the space, entertainment network eUniverse, boasts 41,300 active paying users in the first 90 days of its CupidJunction, and claims the site went profitable in just 10 days, drawing more than $200,000 in fee-based revenue a month.
SpringStreeter's, tell us what's up.
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September 10, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
July 2004
1) Yahoo with 7.1 million unique visitors.
2) Matchnet, which owns American Singles and Jdate.com, stood at No. 2, with 6.7 million visitors
3) Match.com had 5 million.
4) Monster's Tickle Personals had 4.6 million.
5) Microsoft's MSN Dating had 3.1 million visitors.
Sites that had less than 3 million visitors:
Friendfinder.com with 2.8 million
Vintacom, which owns Dating.com, Singleme.com and Dreammates.com, with 2.3 million
Eharmony.com, at 1.4 million
Friendster, with 700,000.
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September 8, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
MarketingSherpa's Publisher Anne Holland just held an in-depoth teleconference with email deliverability expert George Bilbrey of Return Path. A good overview of how spam filters, ISPs and challenge-response are changing (for the good and the bad) how companies do email marketing.
Link
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August 30, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Mercedes- Benz USA and Match.com have teamed up to take advantage of the unique relationship between people and their cars, using cars as the "vehicles" for potential relationships. In Miami. The "Wheels of Attraction" event added a new dimension to a popular dating trend by offering the first-ever SpeedMatching event on wheels. A Match.com survey found that 66 percent of surveyed singles said their car is somewhat or very important in their dating life. Men, remember to open that car door for her.
Link
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August 2, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Terra Lycos is selling its Lycos assets to Daum Communications. Lycos represented about 16 percent of its total earnings in 2003. Terra originally purchased Lycos, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, in May 2000 in a stock deal worth $12.5 billion.
How will this affect Matchmaker? Will Daum pump some marketing dollars into it or leave it alone? Perhaps spin it off and rebrand, or market to Asian demographic?
Link
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July 20, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
FirstMonday has an interesting article called a Manifesto for the Reputation Society.
As I've been saying, identity verification from the likes of Trufina, Rapsheets and Verified Person is the next big thing that dating sites will add to address low customer satisfaction and as a byproduct add an additional revenue stream.
Extracting dubious/spotty information from government data silos is one thing, and a good start. Adding a reputation management system is where it's at, who's going to launch something fine-grained enough to be useful?
Abstract
Information overload, challenges of evaluating quality, and the opportunity to benefit from experiences of others have spurred the development of reputation systems. Most Internet sites which mediate between large numbers of people use some form of reputation mechanism: Slashdot, eBay, ePinions, Amazon, and Google all make use of collaborative filtering, recommender systems, or shared judgements of quality.
But we suggest the potential utility of reputation services is far greater, touching nearly every aspect of society. (online dating sites for example- ed) By leveraging our limited and local human judgement power with collective networked filtering, it is possible to promote an interconnected ecology of socially beneficial reputation systems — to restrain the baser side of human nature, while unleashing positive social changes and enabling the realization of ever higher goals.
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July 13, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
The Online Dating Research Center held a conference in Vienna in April with the title, "Online Personals: "Scientists, designers seek same for good conversation."
About the workshop
Online personal advertisements have shed their stereotype as matchmakers for the awkward to claim a prominent role in the social lives of millions of users. This one-day workshop will bring together social scientists and designers to discuss:
1. How people are behaving in online personals systems and how best to study this behavior.
2. How different personals systems handle self-expression, searching, matching, and communicating.
3. How the design of personals systems interacts with individual and cultural constructs of relationships and attraction.
4. New methods, metaphors, design paradigms, and gadgets for finding and communicating with dating partners.
Extended abstract (pdf). I'll post more after I've talked to the organizers, this looks like it could have been interesting.
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July 8, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
David Trastour, Claudio Bartolini and Javier Gonzalez-Castillo have written an interesting paper titled A Semantic Web Approach to Service Description for Matchmaking of Services. The paper (350k) is a super-geeky look at what will undoubtedly become a key technology driving a future version of online dating infrastructure. Give it to your CTO and watch them smile.
Abstract. Matchmaking is an important aspect of e-commerce interactions. Advanced matchmaking services require rich and flexible metadata that are not supported by currently available industry standard frameworks for e-commerce such as UDDI and ebXML. The semantic web initiative at W3C is gaining momentum and generating technologies and tools that might help bridge the gap between the current standard solutions and the requirement for advanced matchmaking services. In this paper we examine the problem of matchmaking, highlighting the features that a matchmaking service should exhibit and deriving requirements on metadata for description of services from a matchmaking point of view. We then assess a couple of standard frameworks for e-commerce against these requirements. Finally, we report on our experience of developing a semantic web based matchmaking prototype. In particular, we present our views on usefulness, adequacy, maturity and tool support of semantic web related technologies such as RDF and DAML.
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June 11, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
For trend analysis, growth patters, etc. Link to other historical reports are here.
Price: $750
Published on: July 2002
Published by: Hitwise
Do you want to understand how UK surfers interact with the online Dating industry? Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service that monitors each day how more than 30% of the UK Internet population interact with over 150,000 online businesses across 150 industries.
For strategists who require the latest trends and insights as to "what works" online, The Hitwise UK Internet Report: Online Dating industry is a comprehensive overview of last month's trends how UK surfers visited hundreds of Dating websites. The report includes information such as: rankings of the most popular websites, new players onto the scene, traffic analysis, most popular surfing days and average session duration, effectiveness of search engines, and an overview of customers' interests and mindsets before and after visiting the online Dating industry.
Hitwise defines the Dating industry as websites related to dating or relationships, including online advice columns and Internet personals services.
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June 9, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
It's dated 2001, but this PDF report (432k) from MSN covering the Canadian dating market might be of interest for historical purposes.
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May 27, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
The survey was conducted during June 2003 by Knowledge Networks, using its web-enabled consumer research panel, a randomly recruited and nationally representative sample of the U.S. population.
• Full report (182 pages)
• Executive Summary (16 pages)
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March 1, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Online dating sites are increasingly attracting 18-to-24-year-old lovelorn singles--offering prime opportunities for marketers to target the younger demographic, according to a new report on online dating by Hitwise. Report available here (registration required). Story here.
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February 22, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
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March 3, 2003
Posted by Dave Evans
Eight million workers seek romance between the spreadsheets. The comScore Media Metrix analysis revealed that 7.9 million at-work Internet users visited Personals Web sites in December 2002, accounting for 35 percent of all time spent at these sites. In addition, the average workplace visitor to online personals spent 51 minutes at the category, in sharp contrast to the 37 minutes spent by visitors at home. more...
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February 19, 2003
Posted by Dave Evans
PBS Newshour segment about online dating. Covers an couple who met on match.com back in the stone age as well as the de rigeur psychologist interview.
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February 17, 2003
Posted by Dave Evans
But what about the plight of the single guy? According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, it's single men, not single woman, who now face the longer odds of making a match. For every million thirtysomething single women, there's a ''man surplus'' of some 80,000-with things looking even worse for men holding out for younger mates. More...
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| Category: Research
January 14, 2003
Posted by Dave Evans
Katelyn Y. A. McKenna in the Department of Psychology at New York University has published a paper in the Journal of Social Issues titled Relationship Formation on the Internet: What's the Big Attraction?(PDF). This is a heady read, 23 pages of why people like each other more when they meet first on the internet. Intimacy Interactions, Being the Real Me, presence-control exchanges, whoohoo!
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Posted by Dave Evans
MSNBC has put together a special section which examines the business and cultural impact of online personals.
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| Category: Research
December 10, 2002
Posted by Dave Evans
MSNBC article. Is on-line matchmaking really the third killer app of the internet? Over 18 million people visited online personal Web sites in June, according to research firm Jupiter/Media Metrix. Market leader Match.com now has 600,000 customers forking over about $25 a month. What do you think?
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| Category: Research
November 8, 2002
Posted by Dave Evans
In 1994 Gary Kremen joined forces with partner Peng Tsin Ong to start Classifieds Inc. They raised US$1.7 million from Canaan Partners and started a service called match.com. I bet the partners at Cannan are very happy with their long shot. They also mention starting jobs.com, which is now a monster.com property. File under "do one thing right." Trish McDermott, then of the International Society of Introduction Services, is now the Vice President of Romance for Match.com. While at ISIS The she co-wrote an industry Code of Ethics and helped consumers select dating services that would best meet their individual needs. Anyone have a pointer to a copy of this document? E-mail.
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