All Interviews – Page 22 – Online Personals Watch

Samantha Daniels, Matchmaker – Samantha’s Table

Posted on June 6, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — June 6 — Why pay $5,000 to $50,000 for a matchmaker, when you can pay $20 a month for a dating site. Service. Matchmakers are doing well, despite the rise of internet dating. Here’s our interview with Samantha Daniels of Samantha’s Table. – Mark Brooks

What is your background and what inspired you to become a matchmaker?
I started my company, Samantha’s Table, almost 10 years ago. I was a practicing divorce attorney so I was spending a lot of time finding out why couples broke up and what didn’t work for them. At the same time I was working as a lawyer, I was throwing events for my single friends. At those parties I was introducing people to each other and they kept getting into serious relationships and getting engaged and married. I started realizing I had a photographic memory for names and faces and little factoids about people. I felt like this could be an interesting business for me. It was at a time where online dating hadn’t really taken off and there weren’t that many people in the matchmaking business. And I saw room in the marketplace for a matchmaker who would help social people find the person they could marry as opposed to a person they would just date casually, so I went for it.

How does your service work?
I work with people who are very successful, high profile busy professionals. My clients are CEOs of companies, finance people, high profile executives, famous sports people, doctors, partners in law firms, and model/actresses to name a few. I have an office in New York and Los Angeles. People fill out a questionnaire on my website and then if it’s appropriate I would meet with them for a consultation. The consultation takes between an hour and 1 ½ hours. It’s where I get to know them, who they dated in the past, why it hasn’t worked and who they’re looking for. And it’s where they get to know me and my process and how the whole service works.

Then they sign on to become a client. I’m working one on one with them to find them exactly who they’re looking for. I keep a database of more than 15,000 people. The way people get into my database is that they’ve either contacted me and want me to keep them in mind for the clients that I’m working with or because I met them at a social function or charity EVENT in New York or LA or somewhere across the country while I was traveling. So anyone who I meet and is single could be a possible date for my client.

How do you know when you see a good match between two people?
I seem to have this uncanny ability of understanding who goes well with whom. I’m a very analytical person and I’m a people watcher. I feel like I’m constantly watching people and sort of reading between the lines and understanding what they’re saying and what they are not saying, what’s important to them and what’s not.

I set people up based on commonalities because I believe that two people who have as many things in common as possible have more of a chance of having a really successful relationship. I think the people really have to be on the same page and have similar outlooks on life so that they can really connect in a deep way and make a good relationship.

What do your clients think of internet dating and what do you frequently find yourself advising them with regard to internet dating?
I personally feel that online dating is a great thing. My philosophy has always been that you want to put yourself out there and try to meet people in as many ways as possible. Online dating just gives you more opportunities and possibilities, and it’s kind of inexpensive and so why not get involved in it and see what happens.

As I said, I work with very successful and busy people and they feel like they don’t really have the time for online dating. They also feel like it’s a little too public. Another key thing about my business is the confidentiality. So I found that most of the people that I work with just aren’t really interested in internet dating, at least in the form that it exists right now.

Andrew Boon, Director And Co-founder Of BoonEx

Posted on May 23, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — May 23 — BoonEx built the Dolphin platform, the internet dating software that anybody can use to build their own dating site or social network. Here are the people behind BoonEx. BoonEx is launching a new and improved version soon, Dolphin 7. Here is our interview with Andrew Boon, the Director and co-founder of BoonEx. – Mark Brooks

What is the founding story of BoonEx?
I founded the company in 1999 with my wife, Julia, and we’re still running it together. It was just me and Julia when we started a small dating site back then, which was an affiliate site of Soul Mates Technology.

One day we stopped being part of their affiliate program. We decided we could build a dating site on our own. The dating site didn’t work really well and we went onto building software for websites. We started hiring people and the software started to sell and the company took off. It went on to be more of a community software company than a dating software company when social networks started to pop up and our customers started to request more and more features related to social networking.

Just 2 years ago we incorporated in Australia and we have started moving the offices and operations to Sydney. The company is still private and we’re not seeking any venture capital or investments.

How many sites are live on the Dolphin dating platform right now?
Since the software is free and it’s open source software, it’s really difficult to track the number of sites running on this software. We are pulling about 500 downloads every single day and we have just about 50,000 webmasters registered in our community. So normally each of those webmasters would at least install one or more websites based on this software, some of them have dozens of them. So from that figure we can tell that there would be probably somewhere around 50,000 websites running on this software.

Again, with the Dolphin 7 we expect to at least double the download rate of the software because there is much more included, it is much more easy to operate and install and it is a lot more attractive than the current version.

What are the top 3 new features in the new software?
Dolphin has been developed based on the request of the webmasters. This time we’ve taken a very different approach and redesigned the whole package for the end users, not just for the webmasters. We researched the functionality of Facebook, MySpace, PlentyofFish and other websites that are popular right now.

So Dolphin 7 comes with improved navigation, new logic, it’s going to work faster, it’s going to have caching, the proper support of the clusters… It can work for a bigger size and there are quite a few new features that are coming from the latest trends, from things like Twitter. So we have very similar status updates and it will come with the iPhone application, with an Android application and with the desktop application. We have a new mail system, new whiteboards, a video player and a new music player with the visualization features.

When somebody sets up a new site, can they click off what features they want?
Yes, the package is designed in a way that the webmaster can turn off at least half the features.

What would you say are the top features?
I believe it’s the media sharing – the photo, video and music sharing feature. The blogs definitely, and events and groups.

But isn’t this more of a social networking than Internet dating?
These are, yes. And Dolphin, like I said, is moving more and more into social networking. The dating features like search, match and the profiles are staying there no matter what. You can’t really take them off. They are the core part of the system and we are already used to not talking about them as extra features. If you want to build a dating site on Dolphin, all you need is to remove the social networking features and it would work just like a simple dating site.

Are there a couple of sites you could point us towards as demo sites, sites perhaps that you launched personally?
The best example of the software working in action would be our own site BoonEx.us. It is a social network for people who are interested in our software.

Another one, a fairly typical example of our customer, is MilitaryRomance.us, which is a site for single soldiers looking for love online. You can see other examples here: http://www.boonex.com/about/case_studies/

Robin Gorman Newman, Author / Speaker / Relationship Coach

Posted on May 16, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — May 16 – Robin is an expert on Jewish dating and wrote the book “How To Marry a Mensch.” Here’s our interview with this wonderful lady. – Mark Brooks

How long have you been in the industry?
I started as an author 15 years ago. It was never my intent to become a love coach. I always wanted to be published, and the first book I wrote was “How To Meet a Mensch in New York”. The book did very well. I got on the Today Show, CNN and Good Day New York. I also garnered press in London and Australia. The media attention was beyond anything I imagined. Then I did a 2nd edition of the same title in 1996.

I was on the Workshop Discussion Tour when a friend said to me, “Why don’t you do one on one consultations?” So I started offering private consults to singles to help them lead a more successful social life. I own a great domain, LoveCoach.com, so I think I might have actually “coined” the title love coach, though I can’t prove it.

Then I wrote another book which came out in 2006, called “How to Marry a Mensch”, which is all the stories I’ve accumulated over the years, including my own experience, plus advice.

I blog now on my website called “Relationship Rap with Robin” and aspire to host a radio show and/or teleclasses one day. I would love to come on board with an online dating company to serve as their front person.

So your consultation focuses mainly on how to attract and get a mate or is it more relationship therapy?
I work mainly with someone who is looking for a long term relationship, with someone who has made bad dating choices and doesn’t know why he/she hasn’t connected with Miss or Mr. Right. I work with men and women of all ages and backgrounds.

What would companies like eHarmony or Match gain out of working with you?
My focus is to point people in the right direction socially. I can help people write profiles and choose an effective photo. I’ll even go so far as to recommend wardrobe possibilities or a haircut, if need be. I’m available to online dating companies to serve as a consultant for their clients. I could also be their Dr. Phil, and help promote the website in a more public arena since I’m skilled at doing press interviews. Maybe even write a column or host teleclasses for them, as a value added incentive for singles.

The biggest issue the internet dating industry has faced is customer attention. The average customer is on for 3 or 4 months and then go on. The second issue is the revenue itself. They are looking for additional revenue opportunities. If you were the CEO of Match.com, what would you change to increase their revenue?
I see the web dating scenario as a numbers game. You have to have a fabulous photo; you need to present yourself in a way that reads more than just a resume. My clients often approach it in a perfunctory fashion. They just want to get something up. They don’t take responsibility, and then turn around and say the Web doesn’t work. It would help a lot to have someone guide them during the process so they don’t get overwhelmed.

Max McGuire And Mark Semaan, co-CEOs Of RedHotPie

Posted on May 9, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — May 9 — RedHotPie is a top 10 dating site in Australia. Here’s our interview with the co-founders, Max McGuire and Mark Semaan. – Mark Brooks

What’s your founding story?
Max: Back in 2002, we had a brainstorm that we wanted to get into the digital industry. At the time there was a need for online dating in Australia, particularly with a community feel. Australia was being serviced mainly by the international products that weren’t speaking with an Australian voice. We combined our relevant talents in IT, web development, and sales and marketing, and built RedHotPie.

Tell us more about the Australian voice. How is that different from America and the UK?
Max: Speaking with an Australian voice means the user is able to identify with what the site is saying. In particular, we speak about Australian events or Australian places and in Australian colloquial terms.

Mark: We do offline gatherings, events and parties to get people together and tie the online with the offline aspect.

But you don’t run them yourselves; you let other people run them, correct?
Max: It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement but yes, we have our party and event partners, and we support and promote them. We hand pick them. People approach us and we look at their bonafides and what they’re trying to achieve with their event, and if it fits the RedHotPie model, we jump straight in.

So if you get complaints about a particular brand of event or a particular provider then you would tend to pull it?
Max: Oh absolutely. If there is some problem, we would no longer support them. It’s a very important aspect of taking the cyber out of your product and actually having real world events.

I’m intrigued with the name RedHotPie. Can you tell us how you came about the name?
Max: I think everyone would agree that trying to come up with a name is always a challenge.
We wanted something interesting and quirky. So in the name, the ‘Hot’ part was more saying that we’re edgy, we’re a product with passion, and the ‘Pie’ part was where we wanted to go with having a community. Get your slice of the pie, be part of the pie. So we ended up with RedHotPie.

How are you situated against the likes of RSVP? I think they’re still the number one in Australia.
Max: Yeah, RSVP is a very significant brand name in Australia. They’ve been around the longest and have been brand building an awful long time. They’re sort of what we consider to be a little less flamboyant, or you can call it “vanilla dating”. We like to have a more party feel, a more passion feel, and then again we’re very much more about this community and creating the stickiness and the sense of belonging.

How much would say the webcams have contributed to RedHotPie’s success?
Mark: With the webcam, we focus a lot on the reality aspect of the site. We started on a small scale and every 6 months we add a bigger pipe for the room because it keeps on growing. There is a definite shift that people want to see who they’re communicating with and that it’s real.

Max: And in the Australian marketplace, we were the first with webcam chat where some other Australian based start-ups are still playing around with Java applets and Java chat.

You also have a couple that give advice, Bessie and Geoff. Can you tell us about Bessie and Geoff?
Max: Bessie Bardot and Geoff Barker are partners in life and they have a celebrity status in Australia which makes them recognizable to our users. They’re published authors of books on dating and relationship advice. Geoff’s last book was “What’s On a Man’s Mind?” which was directed more towards giving girls some insights into how the male mind works. It was important for us to have someone our users could identify with.

You have recently launched in the UK I understand.
Max: Yes, we went live in the UK in 2007 so it’s fairly recent in the age of RedHotPie, which is 6 ½ years old now. We’ve spent some time and effort and considerable money branding the product in the UK. We’re working towards traction and market share there.

Have you found the Brits to be different from the Aussies?
I think that most people who are interested in meeting other people, no matter what their cultures or nationalities are, have the same sort of desires or requirements, and probably not too different.

Gavin Potter And Nick Tsinonis, Founders Of Intro Analytics

Posted on April 11, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — Apr 11 — The founder of yesnomayB and Netflix Prize finalist, Gavin Potter, have joined forces to bring behavioural matchmaking and personalization to online dating and social networking sites. Here’s our interview with the Founders of Intro Analytics. – Mark Brooks

What is the founding story of IntroAnalytics?
Gavin: For the last couple of years, I’ve been working in collaborative filtering loosely based around the $1m datamining competition called Netflix Prize for the best collaborative filtering algorithm that predicts user ratings for films, based on previous ratings. Nick got in touch with me and said, “do you think we can apply the same type of approach to internet dating?” So we gave it a go. We found that we could get some very accurate results just by looking at how people browse a particular dating site.

So the idea of this is to help people get better results from their browsing?
Gavin: That’s absolutely right. Most dating sites run and work on profiling information. If you can use profiling information and browsing information you can get much more accurate recommendations.

If I’m only clicking on images of women with red hair, as a result you’re going to give me profiles of women who only have red hair?
Gavin: That’s almost right. What we try and do is capture a person’s actual behavior rather than base it on the information in the profile. So, if despite what they say on the profile, they only click on women with red hair than our algorithms will tend to recommend women with red hair. If they only click on women with an income above a certain level, then our algorithms will tend to recommend women with an income above a certain level etc. This is the beauty of this technique, it captures what people actually do rather than what they say that they want. When you combine the two together you get a better result.

Nick how did you get involved with IntroAnalytics?
Nick: We launched a dating site called yesnomayB.com about 2 years ago. The whole premise of the site was to make a first-impression choice of people based on a high-quality photo with keywords. We then use a collaborative filter algorithm to recommend new dates to you (just like Amazon recommends books on what choices you have made in the past). We found this an extremely challenging task and I was starting to lose hope until I met Gavin in March last year. He presented me with incredibly accurate results based on user browser behaviour.

Further, it was more amazing to see very good 2-way recommendations being presented to members who had never clicked on each other before.

Does it also look at the text of the profile?
Gavin: It only captures what people are looking at – if they are basing their results on profile information it will capture that. If they are basing their browsing behavior on attractiveness it will capture that. It is true, however, and slightly to our surprise that after the location of the potential date, attractiveness appears to be the most important characteristic regardless of the information provided. We’ve now worked the algorithms on dating sites that contain substantial profile information as well as websites that contain very little and this finding doesn’t seem to change.

How many clicks will it take until you really start identifying what this person likes?
Gavin: You can start from just one click but clearly that’s not going to give you a very accurate result. As soon as we identify 10 individuals that someone has expressed an interest in, we can start getting some quite accurate results in terms of predicting who they would be most interested in.

In terms of identifying their interest, is it both just clicking on images or also initiating communication?
Gavin: You can use anything that expresses an interest. Right now we are working with a couple of sites who are looking at combining browsing behavior with messaging or going on a date with someone.

You said it’s a mathematical algorithm. How do you quantify its results?
Gavin: There are 3 ways. The first way that we’re trying to quantify is to see if the users are interested in using the recommendations that come out of the algorithm. The second way is when we are looking at whether people have messaged. We’re trying to predict whether someone will message someone and then we see how accurate those predictions are. The third way, we are still experimenting with, is to look how many people we’ve converted based on using this technology.

If some new person joins a site, we can quickly identify who that person might be most interested in and we can then make some accurate recommendations to those people.

Are there any other sites using your service at this point except of yesnomayB?
Gavin: There are 3-4 companies evaluating our technology at the moment.

The technology right now is at yesnomayB.com. Nick, what are your observations so far?
Nick: We can say with certainty that our users are definitely using the recommendations and we have received som every positive feedback. We believe that recommendations will play a major role in converting our members to subscribers.

If you look at other industries like Amazon and Netflix: Amazon’s recommendations create 30-35% of its overall sales. I also know that Netflix rents two thirds of it’s movies through recommendations.

Recommendation and discovery of products and services is complex but easy to implement with the right algorithm – all dating sites of the future should be doing it as users and dating sites both win.

Brendan O’Kane, CEO Of Messmo.com

Posted on March 21, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — Mar 21 — Messmo does mobile and now serves the personals industry by extending dating sites onto all mobile phones.

What is your background?
20+ years at large UK and US software companies in senior roles, particularly in sales and marketing. For 7 years I've been an active Angel investor, based out of Australia, in both the mobile and social networking space: Blue Sky Frog, Australia's first multi-million user mobile property, and KidSpot.com.au, Australia's #1 parenting and social networking site.

Tell us more about Messmo
A couple of colleagues and I made an investment in some interesting technology for mobile. The easiest way to think of it is SMS Version 2; if you have mobile Internet, SMS should be free.

Messmo did an 8 month beta test, in the consumer market and picked up over half a million users. We also started a dialogue with one very large global personals player based out of Australia, and we realized there were some significant opportunities in the personals space. We created Messmo Media to help personals sites extend their experience to mobile in a very simple, elegant way.

What functionalities have you built into Messmo so far?
It's very much like SMS. It's highly interactive; messages can contain pictures and all things you would expect if you were using an Internet backbone.

Messmo has built a very closed environment. Using Messmo with personals, members can't see each other except when they come through the personals site. It's a no-spam environment, no external advertising.

How can you help Internet dating companies make more money?
In three ways. Firstly Messmo has patented technology that can trigger a mobile transaction which means the user gets billed on their mobile bill. This opens the door to tempt all those non paying members, when they receive a new message, to make a quick impulse transaction, such as a day pass, via a single click. Secondly increased interaction – most members spend 20 or more hours away from a PC each day, but usually their mobile is with them night and day. Delivering messages and replies at zero cost, increases interaction and the likelihood of the member quickly returning to the site. Thirdly Messmo has very sophisticated viral and recommendation technologies (all you friends are in your contact list on your mobile) that were proven in the test period. These have enormous potential to help drive down the cost of new member acquisition for sites.

Who would you say in reality are the end users in mobile dating in your experience?
Mobile dating can mean two different things. To a mobile operator, any on-deck solution that makes them money is mobile dating. But to an existing site owner, with their own membership, mobile dating should simply mean extending their existing communication to their member's mobiles, when the member is not at a PC. We think the second definition is what mobile dating is about.

What countries do you serve?
Messmo is global; in any country that supports mobile data you could reach a Messmo user. This is significant because let's imagine that there was a personals site we'll call "Cupid Make Friends". If they were visible on Messmo, a user anywhere in the world could, when running Messmo, see Cupid Make Friends straightaway. Their interaction with the site would be identical, whether they were in the UK, Italy, Thailand or Australia.

How would you differentiate the Messmo offerings from a company like Trilibis?
The most popular experience in the world on mobile is of course SMS. We replicate that experience and add extras like much richer messages, but the interface and integration is very very simple. think days, not weeks or months compared to alternative approaches.

Greg Pierson, CEO Of iovation

Posted on March 14, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — Mar 14 — iovation helps dating sites and social networks work together to beat scammers, spammers, and those that would be abusive towards our communities. Here's my interview with Greg Pierson, the CEO of iovation. (Full Disclosure: iovation is a client of Courtland Brooks). – Mark Brooks

How is iovation funded at this stage?
iovation raised $15 million in growth capital in 2007 and the financial partners we have include Intel Capital, SAP Ventures and European Founders.

What markets does iovation serve?
We serve customers in a range of markets with very different types of fraud and abuse. In addition to online dating customers we serve organizations that are more pure social networks. We have organizations in gambling and online gaming, in financial services and in online retail.

How does iovation help dating companies work together to beat scammers and the like?
The way we serve all of our customers is with a platform that exposes the reputation of internet devices that are connecting to their businesses. What's different vertical to vertical is the types of problems that our individual customers are dealing with. Of course, that varies. But the base technology and infrastructure that we provide is the same. Let's say you're an online retailer. Would it be valuable to know that independent of the identity or transaction information that a consumer is giving you through an internet connection, what if you knew the device they're using had defrauded you in the past? Or would it be valuable to know that that device has defrauded some other iovation customer in a way that is something you care about?

Do you see much cross over between the other industries you serve and the dating industry?
We absolutely do. One thing to think about is that the bad guys, if you will, are much more prolific and much more active in their abuse. Someone who is spamming and advertising competitive services in the dating space are going to be doing it on every network they can get access to. The same thing if someone is running scams. We see a surprising amount of cross over in individuals and organized groups that are defrauding businesses in vertical A and are also defrauding businesses in vertical B. We also see linked frauds where individuals are using organizations to get data from users to steal identities. Then using those identities to launder stolen credit cards in a different vertical. So absolutely we see cross over within and across verticals we serve.

How does the iovation service work from the user perspective?
If you're a good average Joe and not causing problems at a particular online dating site you're going to see nothing. The only thing you might see is that the sites that you're using that are using iovation have less abuse and less folks who are scamming and spamming the community.

Dating sites that we're serving set up rules. They decide what's right and what's wrong and when an end user is violating one of those rules and that site decides to keep them out, now what they're going to see is when they try to connect to that business from any device they've used in the past they're going to get some kind of message saying they're not getting access. When they get frustrated and say fine I'll set up a new account they're going to find that doesn't work either. So they're going to have to completely start over and go out and use completely new identities and completely new devices.

How does it work from the the internet dating abuse managers side?
Let's start with value. Let's say you had a million dating accounts and the only way you had to understand the relationship between accounts was if someone started to use the same email address or physical address. But scammers go out of their way to make sure they're not using identity information that can correlate them. So we help you understand that account A and B are related because they've logged into your network using the same or related internet devices.

Many of our customers have sophisticated tools that are either 3rd party or they've built them themselves that catch problems. We can say, guys if you're concerned about one problem you better go look at these other 50 accounts because they have used the same physical devices to access your site and they are therefore related. So in this example we've provided the 50 to 1 uplift on their other tool, whether it be some automated tool or a manual process.

Then we stop the revolving door. On many social networks the only thing you need to access a site is an email address and account name. So its pretty hard to use many 3rd party services to protect yourself when that's the case. So once you've identified a problem and iovation has helped you realize that that is related to 50 other accounts and you've shut them all down, now how do you prevent the individual from simply coming back 10 minutes or 10 days later and trying to pretend to be somebody else? That's where we come in to say no, no guys don't allow this new account to be set up its coming from a device that has in fact defrauded you or done something inappropriate in the past.

We are building a shared infrastructure. So the other value that our customers see is that when a device is associated with a problem they care about that has taken place on some other iovation customer's site, we can bring that to their attention so they can act in whatever way they feel is appropriate. It's a real time platform that is answering reputation inquiries in under an 8th of a second. But it's not just that.

In addition our individual customers have access to our fraud team here in Portland. So we are working with them in terms of training and looking over their shoulders and helping run special reports to make sure they get the most out of our system and have their rules set up in an optimal way.

What is in the works for iovation? Are there any new announcements coming up?
Up until this point our reputation manager platform has been all about exposing problems with certainty, problems that our customers can react to in real time. We have been testing a risk scoring service for the last few months with a small group of about 20 of our customers. This is going to be a very nice compliment to our existing platform. Organizations will be able to react in real time to devices that we know have caused a problem for them, or some other iovation customer, as well as, flagging new account set ups or logins or other interactions on their site that we suspect for a number of different reasons from indirect relationships to problems. i.e account velocity, log in velocity and those types of things. We know from testing with the initial group that we're seeing some very good results that our current and future customers can look forward to.

See all posts on iovation

Dominic Senn, CEO Of BasisNote.com Interview

Posted on March 7, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — Mar 7 — Basisnote is into DNA matchmaking and they have an interesting test. It doesn’t require the user to mail back a mouth swab or DNA sample and the test will be under $100. One to watch. I talked with the CEO, Dominic Senn. – Mark Brooks

Tell us more about Basisnote.com
It is a story of 3 friends that worked as researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and decided to start their own business. The basic idea behind building our own business was to bring olfactory to Internet dating.

How exactly do you match people?
We match people based on their individual scent profiles. This individual scent profile has a genetic basis with a link to your individual immune system. There is an attraction when the immune systems of two people are compatible. The way we realize whether or not the potential partner is compatible with others is through the smell, through the individual scent profile of this person. It is clear that that a lot has to match for a working relationship, but without a matching chemistry in the sense that “you like my scent and I like yours”, intimacy, the foundation of a working relationship is unlikely to evolve. Hence, basisnote helps people to find someone with a better matching chemistry faster and more reliably.

Are we talking pheromones?
No, its totally different from pheromones because those are the same for all people. The scent profiles are individual. Everyone is unique. It’s also chemically speaking a different type of substance that we emit.

How does that work from the end user perspective?
Our users order the test kit through a dating site. We ship the test kit to them within 24 hours. The test is simple and secure. You put it in your mouth for a few seconds and 5 minutes later you get the result, your individual chemistry or scent profile. Then you read this profile from the test kit and add it to your already existing personal profile at the dating site. We provide all the IT interfaces to get the matching with other people at these dating sites that have also already done the test. So the implementation of the whole system into existing sites is very simple.

What exactly are you matching?
We have a scale from 1 to 100 for how well you match. We also create a virtualization of the matching which gives you a visual representation which is kind of a bar code that represent your scent profile. If you put two scent profile on top of each other, you see how well they match.

Are we talking about the likelihood of having healthy offspring or are we talking about the actual compatibility and the chances of two people getting on?
All of it. The basic driver behind this mechanism is healthy offspring. That is the reason why we feel attracted to those people that have a good match in terms of this scent profile. There are a number of reviews that clearly show that if the compatibility is high in terms of this chemistry matching, it increases physical attraction first but also the stability of relationships.
The mechanism goes this way; your DNA determines your scent. The scent is then unconsciously recognized by your partner. We can’t read the DNA of our potential partner that is sitting on the other side of the table. But we can smell their typical smell and this smell gives us a positive or negative sensation and we experience attraction or not based on this smell.

I came across GenePartner.com and ScientificMatch.com. Are you looking at a different part of the DNA via the scent?
No it’s exactly the same part as they do and we measure the same thing. What is different is the way the analysis is done. They do the analysis in a laboratory where people have to send in their whole DNA, which is complicated, expensive and brings along data privacy issues, which, depending on the country, can severe. To replace this laboratory test, we have developed together with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH an instant test that is as simple to use as a pregnancy test. This test analyses only the part of the DNA that is actually relevant and it is an over-the-counter product, so it does not cause the data privacy problems that go along with a DNA laboratory test.

What does it cost for the end user?
We are now negotiating with the company that does the production of the test and it will certainly be below $100.

Can you see it being used on a couple as they’ve entered a relationship and have been on a few dates and they want to do this as a fun thing?
At the end of the day the best measurement instrument is your own nose. So if you already know someone and you’re together with this person, we would say trust your nose and don’t go for some kind of scientific genetic compatibility testing.

Julie Spira, Cyber Dating Expert And Author

Posted on February 14, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — Feb 14 — Julie Spira is a cyber dating expert and has a book coming out on February 13th which is called The Perils of Cyber Dating – Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking For Love Online.

Why are you a cyber dating expert?
I was on the Internet before most people even knew there was an Internet or even had an email address. I first started on Love@AOL in 1994 when I was the first one on my block to put up an online dating profile. Since then, I went on over 250 dates and received four marriage proposals, which included one husband and one fiancé. Suddenly I became an expert at cyber-dating and was instructing my friends on how to successfully put up their profiles.

What inspired you to write the book?
I wrote The Perils of Cyber-Dating because I felt I had compelling stories to share with other online daters. I wanted to encourage singles of all ages with an email address to join an online dating service. I had to start my life all over again and I believed that I could make a difference in the lives of others by sharing my real life stories in cyberspace. The stories are humorous, witty, and very relatable.

Are you a fan of online dating?
I am absolutely a fan of online dating. Though I had some perilous and heartbreaking stories; I had some heartwarming stories as well. I’ve always embraced the Internet and was an early adopter. I think the Internet is a fabulous way to meet someone online. Most people suffer through a few bad dates or event a heartbreak like I did from online dating, but it shouldn’t discourage them from trying to go back online again.

What do you love about Internet dating?
What I love the most about it is that it’s so instantaneous. I live a very busy life and as a busy professional, I don’t have a lot of extra time. The Internet is available 24/7 which made it very easy to connect online.

What advice are you giving in the book to people who are considering Internet dating or how can they do better with the services they use?
I have my Rules of “netiquette” in the book and hope to teach people to see the red flags from my personal experiences. I believe that finding the right partner online is like finding a piece of real estate. If it’s marketed well, both in real estate and on your online dating profile, you will get a lot of activity and hopefully a match will be made. It’s very important to have a profile with good photos. Recently I had my profile photos taken by LookBetterOnline.com and as a result the response rate to my cyber-dating profile has tripled.

So what do they do differently? What kind of photographs did you use in the past?
My profile photo was actually fine but a few years old. With a professional photographer, they were able to capture my image with excellent lighting. It is important to stand out in the huge sea of online dating profiles. I believe that your first photo should be a headshot and fairly recent.

Do you encourage people to put up photographs in general?
Absolutely! Photographs, videos, anything interactive will get noticed. Men are very visual. Either they will like what they see or they won’t. They will pass over the profiles without a photo.

What do you think is most important for guys as they’re looking over profiles?
Men scan through the bouquet of photos and often don’t take the time to ready the profiles. They need to realize that a woman can get hundreds of emails from men, especially when their profile is brand new. If a man writes something personal to a woman mentioning something specific in her profile, he will have a greater chance of receiving a response. You’d be surprised at how many men “copy and paste” the same introduction letter to the same fifty women. Women have figured this out, and tend to ignore generic emails from men.

Do you talk about various Internet dating sites within the book? The different characteristics of the different sites?
I do mention the sites that I was on in a specific story line or chapter. My book is more of a personal tell-all memoir and romantic journey with my personal Rules of “Netiquette” and stories of those who broke those rules. I married a man who I met on Matchmaker.com and was engaged to a man I met on JDate.

What sites do you personally prefer?
For me it really depends on the season. I have been on probably over 10 sites in the course of 15 years. I was quite successful at meeting quality men on JDate and Match.com. For those who are just starting out, they may want to try Plenty of Fish as it is free and easy to use. There is something for everyone now and if you are looking for a serious relationship, you should join a site that caters to that crowd. If you are looking to “hook up” there are plenty of sites for those singles as well.

Andrew Weinreich, CEO, Meetmoi.com

Posted on January 31, 2009

OPW INTERVIEW — Jan 31 — Andrew Weinreich is the CEO of an interesting location based mobile dating service. He was also the founder of SixDegrees.com. – Mark Brooks

You’re the founder of SixDegrees.com. Why did MySpace steal your thunder?
We started SixDegrees in 1995. We sold it in December 2000, well before Myspace started. I think we were the first to define that space on the Internet. Social networking was invented and reinvented and reinvented again. We were the leading social network and then it was Friendster, Myspace and now Facebook.

Did you have it in mind when you started SixDegrees.com that it would help people with their dating prospects?
No. There were only a handful of websites, and I was looking into opportunities on the Web. What was compelling to me was publishing a database that wouldn’t have existed but for the Web. There has always been this notion of meeting people you don’t know through the people you do know, and that’s really what SixDegrees or any social network is.

What inspired you to start Meetmoi?
What excites me are spaces where something’s about to become reinvented. Online dating is one of those areas that generate real revenue and where people have shown a real inclination to change their behavior. Instead of limiting yourself to meeting people in an offline context, it may be that you can meet more people, present yourself in a better light, if you do it online and if you have the time and patience to be deliberate in what you say and how you say it.

Everything is going to go mobile. Dating lends itself to being reinvented from the online medium to a mobile medium. That is exciting, an industry that can be reinvented and a new player has a chance to dominate.

How does the Meetmoi service work from a user perspective?
You can register from your PC or phone. Some users can self-identify their location or we have a tiny snippet of code that you download and it’s all permission-based, but you have the ability to share where you are on an ongoing basis so we can look for people that meet your requirements that are around you. We will show you people not just based on the online criteria of, for example, age, but distance from you. Making dating more efficient because we incorporate location is really what mobile dating is all about.

Are people concerned about stalkers? What are the concerns with mobile?
I have a very simple principle. Users control every single aspect of their information. They control what they share, when they share it, to whom it’s shared and for how long it’s shared. If you stick to that rule, users will trust you and you can deal with a lot of these very legitimate privacy and safety concerns.

How is the service growing and what kinds of people are using the service so far?
We’ve been very pleased. I would say 20s and early 30s, these are people that are very comfortable on their phones, they have a bit of technological sophistication and their time is precious to them. They’re looking for someone who can have a cup of coffee with them now. They’re not interested in setting things up 2 or 3 weeks down the road but being able to plan last-minute and that’s what Meetmoi offers.

How does the service make money?
Meetmoi has free and paid memberships. With free memberships, you can browse profiles, people can contact you. The paid membership allows you to initiate contact with another member and that costs $9.99 a month. We have relationships with the carriers that allow us to charge you directly on your phone bill.

Do you have plans to extend internationally with the service?
The service works internationally now but not with SMS messaging; it works with email. We absolutely intend to extend SMS alerts and SMS interactions internationally in the near future.

Is there a way that other internet dating sites can work with you?
Yes, we will in 2009 announce partnerships but we’re absolutely open to helping dating sites extend their brand and extend their offering into the mobile arena.

What would you say your goals are through the end of 2009?
To expand membership, expand the functionality that we offer and to structure partnerships with other communities looking to work in the mobile arena and generate revenue in the mobile arena. Those partnerships can take many forms but I would expect us to announce a number of them both domestically and internationally over the course of 2009.

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