MARKETWATCH – Sep 13 – "Dating algorithms match two sets for data,” says Amy Webb, author of “Data, a Love Story: How I Gamed Dating to Meet My Match. “That doesn’t mean that the algorithms helps us find the perfect mate. In order to match people based on more than preferences, you’d need more sophisticated machine learning,” she says. "Making sense of dating algorithms is a virgin science and is still more miss than hit, says Mark Brooks, a dating-industry analyst and the editor of Online Personals Watch. "When people do find somebody they like, sites don’t often know why or how they’ve been successful, he says. “So we don’t really know when the algorithm has worked. That will change soon, with the rise of mobile and wearable computing. We’ll be able to survey singles when they leave dates to know just how well it went. That’s critical for us.” Dating sites are more likely to work if people are who they say they are. 54% of users say dates have “seriously misrepresented” themselves in their profiles, according to a 2013 study by Pew Research Center.
Month: September 2014
The Fast Rise Of Mobile Dating Apps
THE WASHINGTON POST – Sep 12 – Americans now use dating apps more than online dating sites, according to Flurry Analytics. In June, Julie Spira, an author and cyber-dating expert, organized a first-of-its-kind mobile dating boot camp during the iDate mobile dating conference. Six participants tried two online dating apps for two weeks and provided honest feedback to the online dating industry executives. The perception about mobile apps, which is not totally inaccurate, is that they're meant for casual dating. A new wave of apps such as Coffee Meets Bagel and Yoke focus on common friends and use Facebook profile information to match people. "You can judge a person by the company that they keep," said Mark Brooks, analyst and consultant to the Internet dating industry. There is no secret formula for an app to succeed, said Brooks. But "the more you can model the real world, the better you'll do," he said.
by Amrita Jayakumar
See full article at The Valdosta Daily Times
It’s Just Lunch! To Face Another Lawsuit
ENTERTAINMENT LAW DIGEST – Sep 12 – Lead plaintiff Sarah Dunphy sued It’s Just Lunch!, along with its corporate parent Riverside Partners and director Loren Schlachet. Dunphy claims she paid $2,7K for the service, only to be provided with men who were married, unemployed and otherwise unsuitable. Dunphy says the company makes many other misrepresentations about its service. She seeks class certification and damages for fraud and unjust enrichment.
by Chris Fry
The full article was originally published at Entertainment Law Digest, but is no longer available.
Some Notes From The 39th Internet Dating Conference, In Cologne
OPW – Sep 12 – Here’s a smattering of 26 things I learned at iDate Cologne, the 39th iDate Internet Dating Conference from Mon/Tue this week. The highlights were Facebook and Match/Meetic speaking.
- Facebook cut all Internet dating advertisers a year ago because the rate of people clicking the x on ads to get rid of them, was 2.7x the average. This is called the XTR rate. Internet dating ads were running 0.0081% vs 0.003% for other ads. This was not acceptable to the head of user experience at Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg.
- Users also complained about the ads being inappropriate. There’s a term for that called MOSI. Misleading, Offensive, Sexually Explicit, Inaccurate. The Internet dating industry MOSI rate was close to three times the average. Again, completely unacceptable to Mark Zuckerburg, of course. So he said, if iDating is ruining the experience, we have to cut it off. And they did!
- Then Facebook white-listed 25 Internet dating companies and reviewed all their ads manually. They’re expanding the program again and its 50 companies strong now. Only pure PG, with extremely non-offensive ads will make the cut. The current MOSI rate is now under the site-wide Facebook average.
___
- People in the Netherlands spend the most on dates in Europe. Typically 66 Euros per date.
- Niche dating leads are twice as expensive in the Netherlands but convert twice as well compared to generic dating.
- Internet dating comparison sites are the #1 source of traffic in the Netherlands.
- People on the UK spend the most online and on mobile phones of any European country.
___
- Net Dating Assistants is a service that charges a monthly fee plus a per hour fee to Internet daters to help with their profile, and get them out on dates with people. They have 15 employees and were started 3 years ago. 70% of clients are male, typically age ~35.
___
- In a talk from ScamSurvivors.com they suggested that the Internet dating industry would never fully eradicate scammers, but are best to manually review profiles and automatically look for phrases that are most often used in profile scripts.
- e.g. scammers will often use the words…“I hate scammers” or “scammers keep away” in a profile text. These words actually indicate that it is indeed a scammer, and that other scammers should not bother trying to scam that particular user.
- The one thing scammers never seem to change is their profile scripts and communication scripts.
- The more attempts a person makes to mention their email or IM, the more likely it is to be a scammer.
- Most scammers claiming to be from the UK will use a +44 70 number. It’s a premium rate ‘follow-me’ number.
- Use images.google.com to check on profile images.
- Give users a simple way to report scammers
- Don’t just delete the profiles. Post them to scamsurvivors.com/dsf.html so they can be searched.
___
- We learned about various regional payment providers and trends. e.g. Internet+ is an ISP based billing service that is now becoming popular in France. It is now the most popular alternative billing method in France.
- Regional billing options can vary greatly, so its worthwhile reviewing regularly and offering the key options in each country.
- Get your marketing people to talk to your payment people! You’ve got to research the best local billing options, and do AB testing on them!
- Neteller, Onebip, PaySafeCard and Dimoco were on the panel. All have strong products for the Internet dating industry, worthy of your attention. Ask them which country they’re strongest in, and test their first.
___
- Meetic/Match spoke and said “Tinder is the biggest game changer in our industry for the last 10 years.”
- Match Group now have 3.5m paid subscribers globally. With the highest growth rate in international members, an 8% growth year over year.
- Efforts should be made to raise ARPU, rather than chasing down new members, and overspending.
- Match is Tinderizing its products. i.e. match.com mobile integrated swipe and a constant stream of profiles, and its working well.
___
- Dating sites should be using Whatsapp and SMS for marketing. i.e. message notifications. Go cross channel for better results.
___
- Overall, the Internet dating industry is growing in terms of membership growth, and declining in revenues. The largest growth is in mobile dating. Zoosk is a monetization leader, with 41% of its revenues coming from mobile.
___
The Internet Dating Conference is about meeting peers, and learning and sharing. Both from people presenting, and from people in the corridors, and from picking the brains of exhibitors. And, oh yes, its fun to meet like-minds in the same industry. 🙂
I hope to see you at the next one in Vegas in January. It’s the main event of the year.
Marc announced that there will be an iDate in Beijing China in 2015.
If you have any ideas for improving the conference, or people you’d like to refer to Marc for speaking. That would be great! We appreciate your feedback and ideas and contributions. Please email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com or Marc Lesnick at info@internetdatingconference.com. Marc Lesnick runs the conference. I help out here and there.
Post by Mark Brooks @
Privacy & Security At SCRUFF
HUFFINGTON POST – Sep 10 – The privacy and security of location-based apps has become a major concern for smartphone users around the globe. Grindr security glitch exposes gay users in regions that criminalize homosexuality. Any app that shows relative distance between members can be used to pinpoint the location. It is called "trilateration". When a user elects to hide his distance on SCRUFF, the app not only remove the information from his profile, but they also randomize his location on their servers. In addition, SCRUFF partnered with ILGA, a non-profit that publishes an annual report of gay and lesbian rights worldwide. Coming soon, when a user travels to a country included in the ILGA report and launches SCRUFF, he will see an alert informing him of the presence of local laws criminalizing homosexual activity.
iHookup To Adapt New App Release For iWatch
ETELIGIS – Sep 10 – iHookup Social, a mobile social dating app, is going to release an iWatch compatible version of its iHookup app. Apple Watch is due to ship in early 2015.
The full article was originally published at Eteligis, but is no longer available.
Jess, Meet Ken: A Female-Friendly Online Dating Site
FAST COMPANY – Sep 10 – What women want, is to meet men who are pre-vetted by other women, according to Jess and Ken Deckinger. On their new site, called Jess, Meet Ken, women can recommend eligible bachelors they know; single woman browsing the site can then either reach out to the man himself or to the woman who vouches for him. Jess, Meet Ken is designed to redistribute power in online dating by requiring women to initiate contact: Men are not allowed to send unsolicited messages to women. In 2001, Ken founded the first speed-dating website, HurryDate, which was later acquired by Spark Networks. Jess is a marketer with a Harvard MBA.
Jack’d CEO Adam Segel About Changing Times
NEXT MAGAZINE – Aug 29 – Jack’d has polled its 5M users recently. 80% of their users are ages 18 to 25. 40% of them are actively looking for long-term relationships, according to the poll. “What we found was surprising”, said Adam Segel, CEO of Jack’d. “I’m 42, and when I was growing up, you couldn’t think about getting married. We were meeting in bars where all the windows were blacked over.” He noted that people write a lot about themselves on Jack’d. They write about concerts, books they’ve read, musicians they’ve liked. It then leads to entirely different opening lines.
by Benjamin Lindsay
The full article was originally published at The Next Magazine, but is no longer available.
Internet Dating Jobs Listing Update – September 2014
OPW – Sep 10 - The new Internet dating jobs listing is live on the Internet Dating Jobs blog.
Below see a couple of this month's most interesting offers:
____
From our esteemed Courtland Brooks clients:
DatingFactory
Customer Communication and Marketing Manager
Global Personals USA (Webdate, Fling, WealthyMen)
Product Manager (Caliente.com)
MillionaireMatch
Marketing Managers
____
eHarmony
Vice President, Technology Operations
Jiayuan
VIP sales
Match.com, Chemistry.com, People Media
Director, Mid-West Advertising Sales
POF
Director of Growth and Analytics
SpeedDate
Director of Marketing – Display
To see more open positions go here.
Do you have an idating industry job offer which is not included? Please, send it to petra@courtlandbrooks.com and we will add it to the list.
Online Buddies Bought Gay App Dandy
WINDY CITY TIMES – Sep 10 – Online Buddies, parent company of gay dating site Manhunt.net and social-dating app Jack'd, announced the acquisition of the gay mobile app Dandy.
by Andrew Davis
See full article at Windy City Times
See all posts on Online Buddies
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.