Marty Zwilling: Six Reasons to Rethink Your Online Dating Site
Online dating sites usually fail because online dating usually fails. The simple reason is that everyone expects quick results, no one can make that happen, and users get very miserable very quickly. Flush the main industry rag, Online Dating Magazine, admits that the accomplishment rate is a mere 1 percent, compared to an estimated fifty percent for startups in general.
I certainly know why everyone wants to take a shot at it — the “need” is huge. In the U.S. alone, the target demographic for these services is 90 million singles that are between 19 and 45. Then there are the 40 percent of frequent users that are already married. Some say that’s a billion dollar “recession proof” opportunity.
But make no mistake about it, this is a tough and oversaturated market to enter at this stage. Here are six key reasons, from a business perspective:
- Direct competition is huge. There is no opportunity for “first mover” advantage here. The same Online Dating Magazine estimates that there are more than 2,500 online dating services online in the U.S. alone, with 1,000 new online dating services opening every year. Some estimates say there are 8,000 competitors worldwide.
- No longer a growth market. After years of dramatic growth in the 70-80 percent range, online dating revenues be inflicted with leveled off in the U.S., according to a recent report. Subscriber numbers are really falling slightly. Lawsuit claims and Nigerian con artists are up, and disillusionment is growing. The honeymoon is over.
- Access cost is very high. This business suffers from what Paul Graham calls the ‘chicken and the egg conundrum’ — no one wants to use a dating site with only a few users. So sites be inflicted with to invest soundly in viral marketing to achieve critical mass, which competes with current social networks, while users expect to join both for free.
- Intellectual property is tough. It’s hard to invent and patent more “scientific” methods on how to match people. Most people, especially women, don’t flush want to feel like they can be ‘matched’ by a computer. E-harmony.com has already defined the 29 DIMENSIONS® of compatibility, how many more could there be?
- Social networks. “Social networking” is really the new term for dating, with mega-sites like Facebook, and the hyperlocal site Foursquare. After all, isn’t dating all about making new “friends,” and finding them in all the right places? If you want a more intimate (virtual) encounter, try the Facebook SuperPoke application.
- Sophisticated quest engines. I’m already considering quest engine parameters that can match image features, so singles will soon be able to quest cyberspace for their ideal partner, without the need to join any dating site. How about the next generation quest engine, answering the question, “Who is my ultimate soul mate?”
Perhaps I shouldn’t suggest that no one can win in this space. But, because 99 out of 100 fail, and because some be inflicted with an unsavory reputation, you won’t find many Angel or VC investors who are interested. Plot to focus on that other standard tier of investors — founders, family, friends, and fools.
Certainly if you expect to get any traction in this market, you need some real innovation. The trend is to more hidey-hole markets. But you better rush, because potential winners like Women Behind Bars, Herpes-Date.com, and eHarmonyPets are already taken.
So delight don’t send me any more business plans along these lines, looking for investor funding, with no marketing budget, and promising huge returns. Investors are looking for real innovation, not copycats with more bells and whistles. So are customers. Let’s give it to them.
Follow Marty Zwilling on Twitter:
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Love Letters: She needs dating site advice
Q: Dear Meredith,
I’m a 30ish graduate student living in New York, and dating is weird to me. I am newly single (after a multi-year, long-distance relationship that pretty much died in a fire) and before that relationship, I’d never really out-of-date. I’m the kind of girl who meets someone, cascade in like instantly, and decides that we are going to be in a relationship. Said relationships are usually long and intense. But I’m normal, pretty, engaging, amusing, and smart, and I be inflicted with a wide range of interests that I like to share with people.
I chose that instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for myself, I would join an online dating website and try to place myself out there. Things be inflicted with been … unsuccessful so far. I’ve been on a few dates, but no one really made me feel the sense of energy and excitement I’m looking for. (If I’m being really honest, I’ve never felt anything close to the fireworks I felt when I met my most recent ex-boyfriend. He may be a cheater, but our “meet cute” was awesome.)
My question is really quite specific: What should I write to guys whose profiles I find fascinating? I’ve messaged a couple of people before, and it just seems like on these online dating sites, it’s not the culture for women to friend men. Or I could be completely doing it incorrect, because no one has responded to me. Every guy who I’ve gone out with has been someone who messaged me first, and I just don’t seem to be attracting the kinds of people I’m interested in. Am I being too smart in my messages? Too smart in my profile? Should I comment on something in their profile? Tell them I reckon their profile picture is cute? Is it really right that I be inflicted with to dumb it down? Frankly, if that’s the case, I’d rather go it alone.
– Tongue-Tied for Once, NY
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Dating Site Lets You Virtually Court Your Fantasy Mate [INVITES ]
Remember Cloud Girlfriend, that mysterious startup we covered whose tagline was, “The best way to get a girlfriend is to already be inflicted with one”? Water supply, it’s finally launched, and we’ve got invites.
The initial conceit of the site, according to founder David Fuhriman, was that it would use a legion of women to write on men’s walls as “cloud girlfriends,” demonstrating a dude’s popularity to all of his female friends (who would apparently glide into jealous rages over the digital flirting and snatch #SarcMark).
[More from Mashable: Want a Girlfriend? This Startup Can Hook You Up … With a Virtual One]
The current iteration of the site is a bit uncommon — what Fuhriman describes as a mix between Match.com and Second Life. Users log in through Facebook and make a profile using a selection of headshots of striking people (not their own snaps). They then fill out a rather simplistic profile, which allows one to choose between such options as “Books or Movies” (what if you like both?), “Lady Gaga or Lady Di?” (for women only — and there’s no sexual preference options) and “Sunday Church or Sunday Football” (for dudes — apparently it’s church or sports, no in-between).
After looking through a bunch of photos of fake people and their accompanying profiles, you can choose someone to chat with. “We allow people to mark out their ideal self, find their perfect girlfriend or boyfriend and connect and interact as if that person existed,” Fuhriman says. “It can help in culture how to manage a real relationship, and they then can take it into the real world.” The site makes money by selling virtual gifts and goods.
[More from Mashable: OkCupid CEO: We Will Not Charge Users Following Match.com Acquisition]
While we admire Fuhriman’s intentions — he hopes that the site will build confidence and increase sharing and interaction (he’s also co-founder of volunteer site 5000Hands) — the whole thing seems a small counterintuitive to us.
By choosing photos that are not, in fact you, the thought could be perceived to be that looks don’t matter. But if that is, in fact, the case, why choose a photo of someone much more striking than you are in reality when looking to score a date?
The words “ideal” and “perfect” are inherently perilous when applied to dating and relationships (as rarely anyone is either) — in fact, a recent study by dating site OKCupid shows that women who are more divisive (a.k.a. men find them either hideous or hot) get more attention. Why? Because they let their personality — along with what could be perceived as flaws — shine through.
Why build all your hopes on fantasy when you could get to know a more fascinating — albeit flawed — reality?
Still, I guess we can’t really knock it wholly till we try it. Cloud Girlfriend has provided us with 500 invite codes (use the language “mashable”) for men looking to join the site. Apparently, women can join sans language, since the site was initially marketed toward men.
Photo courtesy of Flickr, Don Hankins
This tale originally published on Mashable here.
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Dating Site Match.com Will Now Check Users Against Sex Offender Database
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Dating Site Match.com Will Now Check Users Against Sex Offender Database
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Woman sues online dating site over alleged sexual assault
A Los Angeles entertainment executive who says she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on Match.com filed a lawsuit Wednesday asking that the standard dating site start screening its members for sexual predators.
Attorney Mark L. Webb, who represents the woman identified in the lawsuit only as Jane Doe, said he will question a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge for a temporary injunction barring the site from signing up more members until his client’s demands are met.
“They are a very powerful and successful online dating service, and they be inflicted with the means to do this,” Webb said.
Officials with Match.com could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. But in a statement to KABC-TV Channel 7 last week, officials that they provide safety tips on the website and warn members that they are responsible for screening the people they meet.
“While incidents like this one between those who meet on Match.com are extremely rare, it doesn’t make them any less horrifying,” the statement said.
Webb described his client as an Ivy League graduate who works in film and box. He said she met her alleged assailant last year at Urth Cafe in West Hollywood. He seemed charming and she agreed to see him again. After the second date, but, he allegedly followed her home and forced himself on her, Webb said.
“This horrific ordeal completely blindsided me because I had considered myself savvy about online dating safety,” the woman said in a statement released through her attorney last week. “Things quickly twisted into a nightmare, beyond my control.”
After the man left, the woman went online and cultured that he had been convicted of several counts of sexual battery. Charges are pending in the Match.com case, Webb said.
The attorney said his client wants Match.com to check members’ names against public sex offender registries. “It’s not a guarantee,” he said. “But don’t you reckon something is better than nothing?”
ALSO:
Man arrested in wife’s death — 30 years after the fact
Admissions suspension lifted for UCLA Islamic studies curriculum
– Alexandra Zavis
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Dating site treats members like prostitutes
WhatsYourPrice
The WhatsYourPrice.com homepage clarifies to prospective members that “everyone has a fee.”
Signing up for an online dating site and finding physically facing constant rejection is a frustrating experience. It’s flush worse if you’re certain that all those cyber-strangers would see what a catch you are if they would just give you a chance to impress. A new dating site offers a solution to this conundrum — by treating its members like prostitutes and clients.
The site is called WhatsYourPrice.com and it divides its members into two categories: “generous” and “striking.”
The reason these categories exist? Because “generous” members are supposed to make offers to the “striking” members in order to negotiate the terms of a first date. Yes, you read that right. According to this site, it should be perfectly commonplace for someone to pay a man or woman just to go on a date with him or her.
The way the transactions work is simple. A “generous” member finds an “striking” member he or she is interested in and makes an place forward. The striking member then has a chance to accept, reject, or counter the place forward with a new fee. (Mind you, it’s also possible for “striking” members to deal with “generous” members and suggest how much they should place forward.)
Once everyone agrees on the cost, the date is set and WhatsYourPrice.com’s part in the transaction is done — but not before it provides a few warnings to daters:
- NEVER send money to anyone you be inflicted with not met in person, no matter how believable their tale may be.
- When paying for a first date, we suggest paying 50% at the start and 50% at the end of the date.
- Any transactions involving Western Union (other than paying us) is 99.9% Fraud.
- Protect your privacy. Do not pay for a first date with a personal check.
WhatsYourPrice.com is free to join, but there are plenty of expenses associated with using it beyond the costs of dates themselves. Members are expected to buy credits just to unlock the ability to communicate with their prospective paramours and there are also options for premium memberships which place forward additional account features.
Brandon Wade, the founder and CEO of WhatsYourPrice.com and several other websites such as SeekingArrangement.com and SeekingMillionaire.com, clarifies that this is all worth it even if — and possibly flush better than throwing money into habitual dating communities:
Yes, this sort of deal with to dating seems grubby to most of us and yes, it feels like WhatsYourPrice.com treats its members like prostitutes and clients — but as Gawker’s Adrian Chen clarifies, the site isn’t really suggesting entirely genuinely new:
Sugar daddies and their babies be inflicted with been around since the dawn of commerce. But Whatsyourprice.com offers a slightly uncommon form for those too busy for habitual romantico-financial relationships: The casual ”mutually beneficial arrangement.”
Related tales:
- Wanted: Virtual dating assistant
- Online dating maps reveal kinkiest and loneliest places
- New site helps students arrange casual sex ‘hookups’
Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She’s a bit obsessed with Twitter and likes to be liked on Facebook.
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Need a new ‘study buddy’? University of Chicago dating site makes splash
Friday, March 18th 2011, 7:08 PM
One new dating site is making it simpler for people to meet at a school with a reputation for awkwardness.
Students at the University of Chicago made UChicago Hookups, a dating site in which users must be at smallest amount 18 and students at the prestigious school.
Fittingly enough, it sparked from a group of students who were just looking to learn web programming, one of the site’s founders told the Daily News in a phone interview.
“We had some people who wanted to learn [web programming] and we were just trying to make some social site as an conduct Conduct experiment for our school,” the founder, who like the other founders be inflicted with insisted on remaining anonymous said. “We never expected it to run away like this.”
The site launched Feb. 8, and thanks to a recent spate of publicity its membership has increased to 400 users – or about 3% of the overall student body.
While it’s not exactly rolling in dough, the site does be inflicted with a few ads — the founders’ goal right now is just to cover costs, they said.
The group has also been approached to make the sites at additional schools around the country, the founder said.
“We’re about to start Spring Break, so we might just develop it over then,” the founder said.
In the website’s class, it says it’s just trying to help out the like lives of students who may not be inflicted with calculate – or the courage – to deal with classmates outside of the library. And it wants to change the university’s reputation from someplace that’s nicknamed “where fun goes to die.”
“We’re trying to change the ages-ancient stereotype that UChicago students are severely sexually deprived. With that in mind, if you’re looking for ‘where fun comes to die’, you’ve come to the incorrect place,” it says.
The site is so confident in its ability to be the best way to hook up that it flush includes links on where to get safe sex supplies (the student distress center, like most schools).
Because, after all, the creators just want their fellow classmates to be inflicted with a small fun.
“People might say that the student body here is ‘really unattractive’ and that UChicago girls only rate a C-plus, but chances are that the guy/girl you hook up with is going to be a lot more fascinating, a lot more intelligent and a lot more fun than that weird ancient guy you randomly met on the Internet,” the site says.
nmandell@nydailynews.com
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New dating site will find your look-alike
Opposites attract, except when it comes to appearance. Or at smallest amount that’s the premise of a new dating website which claims that it will find you your ideal “face-mate.”
New York Magazine reports that Findyourfacemate.com — don’t bother heading to that relate, the site hasn’t launched just yet — is based on the thought that couples are more likely to look alike than non-couples:
In a 1989 study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, male and female “raters” were questioned to judge the faces of 60 couples (some real, some strangers built-in as a control) on a nine-point scale, where 1 represented no similarity and 9 indicated the hypothetical case of opposite-sex twins. The average score for non-couples was 3.52; among actual couples, the average was 4.05. Concluded the study: “The results suggest that the observation of facial resemblance among couples appears to reflect a real phenomenon.”
So following the reasoning that facial similarities seem to help with initial attraction, Findyourfacemate.com chose to use a “facial-recognition technology developed by Face.com, which zeros in on nine points on each face — the eyes, ears, nose, chin, and the corners and center of the mouth — to find similarities” between potential romantic partners.
The result? Small more than you get from any other dating site.
As Findyourfacemate.com founder Christina Bloom clarifies, “chemistry and the face matching is the required first step.” All beyond that is up to you and your partner.
Or as Jezebel’s brilliantly blunt Anna North place it:
Ultimately, dating is a crapshoot, whether online or off. Whether going out with your face-mate is more likely to principal to lasting like than dating, say, your favorite-kind-of-cheese-mate is anyone’s guess. One thing’s for sure — it’s more likely to get you mistaken for your lover’s sister, which is always a fantastic recipe for romance.
Findyourfacemate.com will be launching sometime this month. There don’t appear to be details regarding whether there’ll be any membership fees or what you should do if you’re matched with your evil twin.
Related tales:
- Creepy Facebook app automatically tracks breakups
- 1 million Facebook friends buy this woman a jerk
- Game developer proposes marriage … in a game
Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She’s a bit obsessed with Twitter, likes to be liked on Facebook, and really wouldn’t want to date a mirror image of herself.
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