All Interviews – Page 26 – Online Personals Watch

Don’tDateHimGirl.com, Tasha Cunningham – CEO Interview

Posted on May 3, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — May 3 — "This is 1 of the worst people to be involved with. He will lie cheat and deceive. He live off women and has no real education. Will claim someone else's baby but cannot take care of his own then brings another into the world." So goes the testimonial to Mr L.Simon on DontDateHimGirl.com. Here's what the CEO of DDHG has to say… – Mark Brooks

Tell me about DontDateHimGirl.com. What inspired you to create the site?
It began with a conversation that I had with some of my girlfriends in late 2005. We were talking about dating and sharing different bad date horror stories with each other. I thought that there had to be a way that women could get together to have that conversation on a larger scale, a global discussion of women sharing their dating stories.

Your site allows women to warn other women about bad dates. How do you know that the women who post aren't the crazy ones? Maybe she got vindictive because he just wasn't that into her. What if he is actually innocent of accusations? Do you feel any responsibility to protect the innocent?
That’s not for the owner of the website to decide. We provide the forum and free information and discussion occurs among the users, not among the website’s owners or administrators. In addition, it would be specifically impossible for any site to verify every third party posting. We get hundreds of postings a day. That’s why we allow men to fully participate in the discussion and freely post their side or say whatever they want to say uncensored.

There was a Dr. Phil show featuring you and a man who claimed that the negative comments posted about him on DDHG were false. He filed a lawsuit. What ever became of that?
It was dismissed. We are protected by a Federal law called the Communication Decency Act, as is every social networking site out there. We are exempt from liability for third party comments posted on our websites. It’s pretty obvious that I did not make those comments about that guy, I don’t even know who he is.

In legal cases where websites such as Craigslist did not encourage offensive content and in fact took steps to discourage it, doesn't your site, by the nature of it, encourage words that could be libelous?
No, absolutely not. When you sign up for DontDateHimGirl.com and become a member, you have to read and agree to our terms of use, an iron clad policy that encourages people to post the truth. In fact, we explicitly state in our terms of use that users are not to post anything that could be considered defamatory, slanderous, and libelous. It is also explicitly stated throughout our site that we warn users not to post any identifying information such as social security numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, place of work or workplace addresses. Profanity is automatically filtered out and we have IP tracking, so if our site is being used for any purpose other then what its supposed to be used for, we’re able to track the user through their IP address. We put these measures in place specifically so that these kinds of things don’t happen.

What would you personally do if someone posted negative and false information about you and the site owner refused to remove it?
There are outrageous things that are posted about me online. The Internet is basically like the Wild, Wild West of information. People think that they can just post whatever they want anonymously. So, I could spend my time running around trying to prove that all of the false statements about me on the Internet are untrue, or I could focus on things that mean something to me, like our DDHG Empower Fund, which allows us to donate part of our earnings to help with different women’s charities. We’re doing something with the Women’s Fund of Miami and the National Women’s Fund to help with domestic violence.

Have you considered a section for people who want to rave about great dates?
Women are doing it now, whether it’s a friend or a brother, with the intent to fix him up. We’re starting to see that a lot of women put themselves there to be searchable as a way to connect with other women as friends.

DDHG is bursting with great topical content. What are the site's most popular features?
Profiles are strong, but our news section is very popular, because that’s part of the mission of the site. It’s not just to let these women share their negative experiences, but once they’re on the site they can learn how to make better decisions in their dating life. In the Don’t Date Him Girl community, they’ll find experts who can sympathize with their situation and advise them accordingly. It’s also a great place for men to learn how to improve their relationships with women.

Tell me about your new Facebook application, Love Inspector.
We created the application to introduce ourselves to the Facebook audience, which we hadn’t really done before. The application is, what I like to call, a woman’s best friend, because it’s a daily dose of dating and love and relationships. Add it to your Facebook profile and receive the newest DDHG articles and advice (which link back to the site) every day.

What does the future hold for DDHG?
We’re adding new contributors and growing our advice community. If you want to know what’s happening in the world of dating or get advice on a particular relationship problem – users can directly email our contributors with questions. Women write to us about how the site has helped them or how DDHG has touched their lives, so we’re thinking of adding a devoted testimonial section because we get so many.

What message would you most like to get out there?
I think, historically, because of the fact that men and women speak different languages in relationships; many women are lost as to how to effectively understand men. Women really need to assess their relationship goals before they even step into the dating world, and then take proactive steps to get there. The slogan of the site is Don’t Date Him, Girl, until you check him out first.

Interview With Noel Biderman, CEO Of Ashley Madison

Posted on April 25, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — Apr 25 — Ashley Madison is for those already in relationships to find a 'bit on the side' as we say in England. Its the site I most love to hate, but, bless 'em, they fulfill a need and make great money doing so. We asked the CEO of Ashley Madison if he'd be OK with his wife using Ashley Madison. See his answer below… – Mark Brooks

What is Ashley Madison, who are your members, and how did the name come about?
Ashley Madison is the largest dating service of its kind catering to like minded adults who are already in a committed relationship. Our members are people who find themselves attached at this stage in their lives, and in many instances, in otherwise very happy marriages or with great family situations, but they're physically or emotionally unfulfilled. What they seek at Ashley Madison is someone who understands those needs.

The name is fictitious and based on the two most popular girl's names in 2001 when the founder of the service, Darren Morgenstern, came up with the concept.

What makes your site stand out from the competition?
I think we're unique, one of the only sites in this niche, and we're definitely the originator. The genesis of the business itself was a report that stated that upwards of 30 to 35 percent of people on singles dating services were actually attached, and so we thought 'what if you could create a site where you didn't have to lie about your personal circumstances?' You could put your hand up and say 'this is who I am; this is my situation in life. I'm still looking to meet someone else to fill a void and not create any additional risks for myself.' That's the uniqueness of the Ashley Madison model.

How does your service help people improve the quality of their lives?
Ironically, we've actually preserved a number of relationships and marriages in the sense that many people suffer from a lack of physical or emotional intimacy. Other aspects of their lives are going well, great career, incredible children, extended family, but there is just a certain critical element to their life that they're not happy with. With Ashley Madison, they have a chance to explain that and not be judged for it, because everybody knows the nature of the service when they join. Here's a chance to meet someone like-minded. All of a sudden, when that void is filled, they can be an even better parent, a better spouse or partner to whomever they're with in their life.

But why would anyone who wasn't looking for a marital split want to openly broadcast their cheating?
Statistics show that approximately 60% of people are somehow involved in cheating in their relationship. It's almost a DNA pull, a fact of life, and we battle against it all the time.

People wrestle with the whole notion. When they've finally made the determination that this is what they need to do for themselves, the next move can be challenging. The work place is fraught with problems. Someone could lose his or her job; you could misread a cue. If you visit a prostitute, you could end up with an STD. You could have a stigma attached to you for breaking the law. There are so many problems.

If you come to a service like ours, you can at least mitigate the risks. You still take a risk; I want to be clear. Anytime you do this you take a risk, but if you've been thinking about it, then you tend to approach it in a different way.

How do you check for fraudulence?
We review every single profile and photo prior to releasing it to our membership base. We remove anyone that we find to be fraudulent, solicitous, or problematic. Soliciting is veiled prostitution. We just won't allow that kind of behavior to take place. We have a fraud check system that we've built up over years and a huge customer care staff who monitor 24/7. We know what our members need and we need to protect them.

How do you protect members (who post photos) from their snoopy spouses?
Many singles will post a public photo but very few attached people do so. Most photos are posted to a private showcase section. The release of those require a key in exchange with another member only after you've built a relationship and have a sense of who they are and what they're about. I've never, in all of our existence, come across one story of a spouse catching another spouse on Ashley Madison. When they do get caught, it's for other reasons. It could be that they didn't clear their cookie on their computer, or the like.

Have you used your own service?
I'm married with two kids, and I hope that I'm not one of those people who find a need for a service like mine – but clearly it's out there.

Would you be okay with your wife using your service?
No. If my wife were using my service, or any dating service, or if I even found her on Facebook chatting with former boyfriends and not telling me about it, I would be emotionally hurt beyond belief, and would feel that our relationship had severe problems. To me, a healthy relationship is one where there is communication and honesty and emotional and physical connectivity. I would hope that that is what is going on in my current relationship, and if not, I'd have to look at myself, and my responsibilities. But if my wife were engaging in such a service, then clearly our relationship would be in trouble.

Is there anything that you want a perspective client to know?
We do our research. We try to understand what you need, and refine our products and services for that. This isn't about judging, it's an open platform, and what you'll find is that no matter who you are, the housewife who just hasn't been complimented or paid attention to in ages, the woman who just really likes being with married men because that's what she wants, or you're with someone you don't want to marry, maybe you want to trade up; if you relate, then you're going to find someone compatible. It's a wide slice of life with real people, and I think that's the great part of our service.

Interview With Nielsen Online, Alex Burmaster

Posted on April 18, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — Apr 18 — Nielsen Online, comScore and Hitwise are kind enough to give us the official industry rankings each month. On occasion we interview their analysts. Alex Burmaster is the internet dating and social networking specialist for Nielsen Online. Here's the latest news and analysis from him on the market for dating and SNS. – Mark Brooks

How is the growth of the social networking industry effecting the online dating industry?
Alex Burmaster: The growth of SNing in has certainly impacted the online dating industry in the UK. Networking with friends, and friends of friends, has certainly stolen some of online dating's thunder. The sector has pretty much been declining each month over the last year. In the UK it is actually now at a level that it was back at June 2005.

Interestingly, this is not the case in the US. The personals and SNing sectors actually seem to follow the same pattern of fall/growth.

Have the top 3 dating sites extended their lead over the last couple of years?
Alex Burmaster: No, in contrast, the differences between the leading sites in terms of popularity are closer than they were a year ago – both in the EU and the US.

Do you see the market fragmenting, or consolidating?
Alex Burmaster: This is very difficult to predict and one could argue for a case both ways. Volume is the key to the success of online dating so one would think consolidation is the way to go. However, niche's are on the way back in many sectors – particularly social networking, so perhaps fragmentation will be the name of the game

Who are showing the strongest growth here and in Europe?
Alex Burmaster: Over the last year (Feb 07 – Feb 08) these are the strongest growing personals sites in the US…

(Nielsen Online)

…and in Europe

(Nielsen Online)

The four sites with no growth figure means they didn't show up amongst the most popular sites in EU in Feb 07 so their growth must have been good!!

How many people visited dating sites in the USA, and the countries that you cover in the EU, last month?
US = 25.8 million
DE = 5.6 million
FR = 4.7 million
UK = 3.6 million
IT = 2.7 million
ES = 2.3 million
(Nielsen Online)

For Social Networking Watch?
How are the major social networks in the USA, growing in the International markets?

(Nielsen Online)

Who are the standouts?

(Nielsen Online)

What social networks are showing the strongest growth potential in the EU and USA?
Alex Burmaster: We think the greatest growth potential will be niche's around a particular area of interest e.g. business (LinkedIn) music (Imeem) travel (WAYN) etc

Are niche networks undermining the larger networks?
Alex Burmaster: We are seeing a plateauing of the larger networks, which is to be expected as they hit critical mass, and we expect the niche's to grow, although they aren't necessarily the cause of the plateauing.

How many people visited social networks in the USA, and the coutries that you cover in the EU, last month?
Member communities category (social networks & blogging)
US = 104 million
UK = 18.9 million
FR = 17.6 million
IT = 15.1 million
DE = 14.6 million
ES = 11.7 million
(Nielsen Online)

Dateline, Eddy Ankrett – CEO Interview

Posted on March 29, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — Mar 29 — Eddy Ankrett is the Chairman and CEO of Dateline Holdings, PLC, which runs Dateline in the UK. He has big plans for the Dateline brand. (Full Disclosure: WhiteLabelDating.com is a client of Courtland Brooks). – Mark Brooks

What is the founding story of Dateline?
Dateline was established in 1966. It is the oldest established and most respected dating brand in the UK. It was started as an offline dating service when people didn’t have the Internet and was, in a way, computerized before the Internet. It has carried on from offline dating into what is now Dateline.co.uk.

What does Dateline offer compared to other services, and how has it evolved?
Dateline has three services. One is Dateline Classic, which is for people who don’t want to use the Internet – it’s purely a paper driven service. We put adverts into major newspapers and magazines in the UK, and people fill in a profile and send it back to Dateline. We then put them into the computer system; we do matching, and we send them three matches in the post.

We then have the Dateline.co.uk service, which is a typical Internet dating service that is very successful in its own right.

Then we have a brand called Dateline Platinum, which is the combination of the Internet and a personal service. Each applicant is visited in their own home and given background checks and interviewed.

What markets is Dateline focusing on?
Dateline is a UK based company. Part of the plan of partnering with WhiteLabelDating.com is to develop our service throughout Europe, and possibly throughout the world.

What is your relationship with WhiteLabelDating.com, and what made you decide to work with them?

About eight years ago I was Managing Director of Dateline, for about four years. I’ve been in the dating industry for 16 years, and kept an eye on Dateline because it’s a major brand. About six months ago I bought back Dateline with the backing of some fantastic fund managers. So it’s back in the hands of people who know dating. I’ve put a team of experienced dating professionals together. When we put the team together we asked ourselves “Who is the best company to support us from an online point of view?”

After some research, I came across Ross Williams of WhiteLabelDating.com, and found that his member conversion statistics, specifically for converting registered members into paying members, was the best I had ever seen. He also had the ability to make Google AdWords pay-per-click work. So if we spend $200,000 on pay-per-click, he has the ability to get $300,000 back.

He’s young and very progressive, as is his company, and we’ve now formed a fantastic working relationship. Since Dateline has been relaunched on the WhiteLabelDating.com system WhiteLabelDating.com say they’ve never seen a site with such fantastic statistics for not only registrations on Dateline, but also conversions to paying members. To say the partnership is a success is putting it mildly.

Why are you still running an offline dating service? Is there really a future in offline dating?
Dateline, to my knowledge, is one of the only companies in the country, if not the world, that is making online dating work with offline dating. Offline dating has a great future, in my opinion, because of the security check and the face-to-face element. I remember a UK TV program about a dating scam where loads of people, I think in Africa, were joining online dating sites and pretending to be members. So the Internet is open, and I’m sure things are being done to stop those sorts of scammers. WhiteLabelDating.com has some fantastic products designed to stop scammers reaching online members. But I do believe that offline dating has a fantastic future. I’ve spent the last 16 years in the offline/online dating space, and I’m very passionate about it.

At the end of the day you have to find the interviewers. You have to train them. They have to be presentable. They have to have experience. Dating is such a major industry. I know Ross at WhiteLabelDating.com has some solutions to increase the feeling of security and to stop scammers. People must feel secure when they visit dating websites.

What's your personal goal for Dateline?
Dating is a fabulous industry that brings phenomenal rewards. I’ve always said, I’m 63 now, and when I die, all I want etched on my tombstone is ‘This guy helped millions of people form happy relationships.’ And at the end of the day, what better job in the world could you have than helping people meet other people to form healthy, happy and successful relationships?

TrustPlus, Shawn Broderick – CEO Interview

Posted on March 25, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — Mar 24 — What's your online reputation? Wouldn't it be nice if you could bring your good reputation together into one place to show it off. TrustPlus can help. – Mark Brooks

What is TrustPlus?
Trust Plus is a Webwide Reputation System. We allow people to aggregate their reputations from online communities and take them with them, wherever they go on the net, whether they’re buying, selling, dating, chatting, researching or blogging. We’ve built a platform that enables sites to use TrustPlus as their feedback system, but what’s really cool is that users can bring their reputation built elsewhere into the site. Just imagine – now you can take your eBay reputation and use it to sell more stuff on craigslist, Amazon, anywhere else you sell.

Walk me through how the process works.
Your reputation is based on three key components: behavior, context and network, and it includes explicit and implicit behavioral information. Your feedback on EBay is an example of explicit behavior. You bought something from me, and I explicitly rated you AAA+++. Implicit behavior would come from a site like Wikipedia. Let’s say you are Joe72314 on Wikipedia. We base our rating on a number of factors such as how long your edits stick around.

But behavioral data is just one piece of the equation. Just because you’re the world’s best seller of refurbished cell phones, doesn’t mean I should trust your hotel reviews.. And just because I’ve had a good experience with you doesn’t mean that everybody else in the world is going to love you. So we look at the weight you carry on the network. It may be the case that I’m not very well trusted on our shared network. Therefore, my opinion of you isn’t going to carry much weight. So what we’re really doing is building some interesting data based on people who know you and the people who know them. Finally, people can add to their reputations through background checks and other services.

So how would TrustPlus be used on a dating site or a social network?
The dating sites that we’re talking to want to be able to leverage a 3rd party rating process to allow people to rate each other. So a user will go out on a date and afterwards will be able to rate the person that they dated. What really matters in the dating world is truthfulness – did they look like their picture or was their marital status correct; that sort of jazz.

It strikes me that there’s major potential for abuse here. In the dating business, I can be a perfectly nice person and go out with another perfectly nice person and we can clash like cats and dogs and one of the parties could get very vindictive. How do you prevent that?

We’re not per se in the business of policing what people say about each other. You might have a valid opinion and there’s absolutely no way that I can tell whether your opinion is valid realistically speaking.

So what is important is that the system is architected so that if people don’t behave well, their opinions don’t matter much. If I say you are the biggest jerk that ever walked the face of the earth, my opinion only matters if somebody trusts me. If the network doesn’t trust me, my rating of you isn’t going to be very important. So applying the whole networking component to this exercise really helps to isolate people who behave badly to everyone.

What’s your revenue model? Does the consumer pay or does the site pay?
It’s actually a bit varied. Some of the dating sites that we’re working with are planning to offer ratings as a premium service so when you search for that 5’ 11” blond haired, blue eyed woman, the people with good reputations will bubble to the top of the results list and the people who don’t have good reputations might not even show up on the list. Some sites want everybody to have access to the reputation data and we would drive revenue by selling other value-added services.

Where do you see the online reputation industry going in the next 5 years?
The reputation business barely exists, so doing a 5-year projection might require a little more fortitude than I’m willing to do at this point in time. But I’m happy to share my opinions. Today reputations are very vertically siloed. You may have a stellar rating on eBay, but be a jerk on a dating site. The two reputations never meet. I think that 18 months from now people will be amused with the fact that there used to be these big silos of reputational information that you had no access to and no control over. Three years from now I don’t think we’ll do anything online without some understanding of the people that we’re working with, dating, talking to or buying or selling with. So I think there will be a reputation layer of the Internet that develops just like there will be a social graph layer and there will be identity layers. All of those will be horizontal; all of those will be owned by the end user; and they will be pervasive.

Userplane, Michael Jones – OPW Interview

Posted on March 15, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — Mar 15 — Userplane has been busy. I interviewed Mike Jones, the CEO, to see what they've been working on since our last interview. – Mark Brooks

Why would a social network or Internet dating site choose Userplane IM over third-party software?
Userplane’s value as a publisher-oriented solution set hasn't changed. The technologies we’re developing and implementing are fairly complicated to build and tricky to maintain. With chat or IM, you have huge volumes, active and live server- intensive traffic that requires many resources. Even if open source or packaged solutions can be found, they can’t compare to the value of what Userplane IM has to offer.

The main benefit of using Userplane IM compared to developing/maintaining systems internally is that we can’t be beat on a pure cost analysis basis. If you post a large chat infrastructure internally, the labor cost alone will be much larger than Userplane’s costs. Publishers use us for expanded functionality, increased engagement, and large sources of revenue. They use a free product with ads, and substantial amounts are registering those advertisements back to themjb.

Can you tweak the look and feel of your IM application?
You can’t re-layout our buttons, but everything from language settings to graphics on the user interface, chat and IM are scannable. Our new mini-chat is a lighter application, with a smaller input and output window. It allows a simpler implementation of technology that’s still brandable.

Who would use Mini-chat instead of the full Userplane IM version?
Mini-chat is a complement or alternative to the Userplane Webchat. Users can drive more activity by copying and placing a version of the chat room anywhere on their site. Mini-chat can be built in a very small footprint, so users can easily place it on their social networking pages. Many sites use Mini-chat as an entry tool, allowing access to our full chat functionalities only when the user becomes a member. Mini-chat encourages users to test their sites/technology, and then they’re up-sold into full memberships.

What kind of money are Userplane partners earning at this stage?
Some partners are making substantial revenue, earning well above tens of thousands a month. Smaller webmasters are creating dedicated sites, driving traffic to the sites, which drive up the Userplane revenue as well.

Interesting. Any sites you could recommend looking at?
We’re now working with media savvy publishers like CBS and MTV, but as far as those who are doing smaller blogs and creating dedicated chat-oriented sites, it would be hard to single out one above the others. There’s a lot of outstanding work going on.

How is the Desktop app coming along?
We launched our first Desktop application (built in C++) last year, and recently re-released an upgraded Desktop as an Adobe Air application. This has enabled us to have a full multi-platform version (Mac and PC), easier download and upgrade process, advanced scanning capabilities and functionalities that enable large website pieces to be truly integrated onto a desktop.

Clients who use the C++ version got minor traction. From a positive perspective, clients seeing a 30 percent download–to-install rate were driving additional traffic from those users to return to the website while increasing overall website activityjb.

The Adobe Air Desktop version will be a solid competitive advantage to sites that truly embrace it because it’s easier to install, is Mac/PC friendly and has expanded functionality. You’ll see our marketing and sales efforts driven around Desktop for the next six months.

Is the social networking industry starting to peak?
I pay attention to numbers. Facebook is still growing, just not as quickly as the last few months. Across our entire network, I’m seeing growth from many big partners, along with new social networking clients who see expansive growth through our platform. We may see some fragmentation with those primarily using MySpace, Facebook and Friendster – users who want to complement their experiences with more niche-oriented sites. We’ll also see some fragmentation in traffic, but not a decline in the amount of social networking activity.

I don’t have specific metrics, but one in every “x” Americans visit a social networking site daily, unlike three years ago. The big deal is that when people open their browsers now they have more options. Five or ten years ago, they went to a portal news page and email account. Now, they’re going to their social networking site, email account, and portal news page or personal aggregator like Netvibes. Consumer behavior has changed quickly, insofar as where users spend their Internet time. Time spent online is not declining, and I don’t see another category rising to offset that behavior.

Are there any products in the works or new product features that you can leak to me?
Yes. Desktop was our big release, but we’re also putting out a Board product with a skinnable, Flex-based, bulletin boards application, with full SEO. That will be followed by a gifting product that will facilitate user-to-user gifts. In addition, we also released a media player product that enables users to upload customized videos and playbacks, with full chat built in and a revenue sharing option back to the publisher. We’ll host and maintain all video streaming, a big advantage to publishers. Finally, we’re releasing full AIM interoperability in our IM suite.

Currently, Userplane has substantial reach within the ad network space. We’re a social ad network that represents ad inventory for quite a few large and small publishers considered online dating social networking sites. We haven’t formally put out a big push to find more publishers or market ourselves as a social networking advertising platform, but our volume is substantial. In fact, we’re within the top few networks dedicated to reaching social media websites. In the next few months, many of our publisher-oriented services will begin to include monetization around social networking inventory, and we’ll actually make a formal claim in the market there.

Mike Kahlowsky’s Handwriting Analysis – OPW Interview

Posted on March 8, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — Mar 8 — Last week we introduced OmniDate as a way to make your site stand out from the crowd. This weeks it's time for Mike K's Handwriting Analysis. Do you believe in personality profiling? How about handwriting analysis? I really think there's a strong correlation with certain character traits and handwriting. Here's what Mike has to say. – Mark Brooks

Your company provides online handwriting analysis to people to help them find the perfect mate. How exactly does that work?
A visitor to my website, HandwritingProfiles.com, registers, and is given a 16 question online handwriting analysis assessment test. The text takes about 10 minutes. We ask them to write out a handwriting sample of about 1-2 paragraphs in length. They then read and answer online questions based on the handwriting sample they created. For each question, we provide three possible answers, each with pictures of samples. The test-taker chooses the picture which is most like their handwriting sample. For example, the first question asks about handwriting size. The test taker rates their sample as small, medium or large based on comparing to the pictures we provide.

So they finish the 16 questions and then what happens?
First, the user is given an overview of how handwriting assesses compatibility. It tells them about compatibility, which traits within the handwriting are being evaluated and what compatibility traits can be shown through handwriting analysis. Then, for only $4.99, they can purchase the complete assessment and compatibility profile. The first feature is a self assessment. It contains a 5 – 8 page report about their personality and their compatibility traits. It also rates 4 specific compatibility traits on a scale from low to high. These 4 traits are introverted/extroverted, sexual interest and energy, emotion expression, and finally, emotional maturity.

Then the user is given an email invitee link so they can invite friends or lovers to take the test. Once their friend or their significant other takes the test, that individual’s information is stored in the Handwritingprofiles.com database. Using a compatibility algorithm that I created, we compare the two analysis results and tell the test-takers how compatible they are.

How would this be used on dating sites?
The compatibility algorithm I created has 141,000 unique combinations when comparing 2 people. This occurs because within the 4 key traits, there are multiple possibilities. What I would like to do is license out the algorithm and test to online dating sites, which would then be able to instantaneously produce a compatibility outlook based on how the 4 traits of person A compares to the 4 traits of person B.

Some of our readers will wonder, is handwriting analysis really scientific?
First of all, handwriting analysis is a branch of psychology. So it’s not going to be a mathematical equation like, x + y = z. But like all branches of psychology, research and case studies show expected behavior trends. Handwriting analysis research has shown that there are clusters of traits in one’s handwriting that represent a certain personality trait or psychological disposition. In studies, people with clear personality traits have provided handwriting samples. Then correlations have been derived between particular handwriting traits and particular personality traits.

Do you see a credibility issue? How do you overcome that?
In Europe, handwriting analysis is more widely accepted, but in the US the majority of people do want to know more about the validation behind it. So the way I overcome that is through example. I give the test to hundreds of people I have never met, often at trade shows and singles events. I then tell them what the test shows about them. People have been amazed at the accuracy. I did this at IDate and the success was remarkable. Personally, I am certified through the National Society for Graphology and I’ve been studying and performing handwriting analysis for about 15 years.

How would a dating site use your product to increase their revenue or attract new users?
If you were the CEO of a dating site, I would offer the handwriting analysis matching system as a fun and enlightening product to differentiate themselves from the competition and to make the site more sticky. It also creates PR value. I would offer the compatibility analysis as a premium service so people who have paid for the analysis will quickly see how they match up to others who have paid for the service. This too would be a differentiator as well as a revenue stream.

For a larger site, we would be open to licensing an exclusive offer. We could also do a revenue share or a flat fee for a year, with an option to renew. At this point, we are open, as it depends really on the goals of the company to which I am talking.

OmniDate, Igor Kotlyar – OPW Interview

Posted on March 1, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — Mar 1 — How does your dating site stand out from the crowd? In a sea of ubiquitous features, OmniDate stands out as a feature that dating site owners can use to get their members talking. It's an avatar based instant messenger. Here's my interview with the founder/CEO of OmniDate, Igor Kotlyar. (Full Disclosure: OmniDate is a client of Courtland Brooks)

What is OmniDate?
OmniDate is a simulated dating environment where two people go on a virtual date, in a bar or café, from the comfort of their own home. Imagine a cross between a 3D avatar chat and a highly-realistic virtual environment. It’s a fun way to facilitate a conversation after reading someone’s profile, but before you are ready to meet someone in person.

We’re introducing OmniDate as an application that can be easily integrated into a typical dating site. It keeps users engaged longer (typically 30 minutes or more per date on our test site) and thus, increases conversions and retention. OmniDate also offers dating sites several revenue opportunities: premium pricing, product placement advertising fees, and gift fees from users who want to buy their dates a virtual gift.

What is your founding story?
I’m an Industrial Psychologist by training and in my previous business we built simulation-based assessments for business applications. When I sold the business in 2006, I saw an opportunity to apply similar innovative concepts to the online dating world. I was aware of a Jupiter Research survey that said only 1 in 4 users was satisfied with online personals sites, and I felt “virtual dating” could help online sites engage their users better and provide a more satisfying experience. My goal is to help dating sites achieve these objectives.

When did you launch and how is it going so far?
We opened our beta site to the public a couple of months ago and we are receiving a lot of positive feedback from our beta users. They really like the “virtual component” and how it helps them get to know each other before meeting face-to-face. It creates a level of comfort when they meet other singles and it facilitates a fun interaction. We are already getting thank you notes from people telling us about great relationships they found through our application. I am particularly pleased to see that our application appeals to both genders and all age groups. Fifty-one percent of our users are women and one-third of our users are 35 or older.

How does OmniDate help online dating services make money?
Two ways actually – it provides sites with a terrific differentiator and a completely new revenue model.

First, OmniDate helps our partners capitalize on huge growing trends – such as virtual reality, animated entertainment and online games – with minimal work. OmniDate improves traffic and conversion rates because daters get excited about “virtual dating”. Among our users, virtual dates last 20-40 minutes each, with many going over an hour. We are also finding that a “virtual dating” experience is a great conversation piece and increases word-of-mouth referrals.

Second, dating sites can make money with OmniDate in both the traditional way, as a premium service, but also using with product placement advertising and virtual gifts. Think about being on a virtual date when the sailboat that goes by has a McDonald’s logo (paid product placement), or I “buy” my date a drink (which costs me a $1) and the waiter serves a Corona (more paid product placement).

What makes OmniDate interesting to consumers?
Going on a virtual date is less time consuming and emotionally straining than meeting every person who seems “perfect” in a profile. You can get a really good sense for a person by going on a virtual date. If he is funny, he’ll make you laugh; if he is interesting, he’ll capture your attention; if he is boring … well, you don’t have to sit through the date.

Also, it reduces stress and awkwardness associated with dating in general. It allows you to ease into a conversation and get to know each other better before you actually meet. And, OmniDate has a tremendous “cool” factor! Like the iPhone, it has a “gotta-have-it” appeal.

Tell me about some of the interesting product features.
There are many, but let me mention a couple. First, OmniDate’s “virtual dating” component has a very intuitive user design. It doesn’t require learning or “figuring out” on the part of the user. Actually, it doesn’t even require installation – it’s a web app. Second, our users love how the avatars respond to typed text. For example, as you type “lol” your avatar actually laughs out loud. Or you can reach over and touch the other person’s hand. Our users have a lot of fun with that.

How do you see the online dating business changing over the next 5 years?
You’re probably not surprised to hear that I see a trend toward more entertaining, richer communication online environments. I think online daters want more from their dating site than “search profiles” and “email a member.” They want to have more engaging ways to interact with other singles than “send a wink.” I can see how over the next 5 years, the industry will evolve from a “database” toward the “entertainment” end of the spectrum. I think we will see a proliferation of game-like experiences that will allow singles to get to know others in an entertaining way.

Do you see any applications for this product outside the dating business?
Right now we are focused on the dating market and the design of our current product reflects that. However, the technology itself can be used in any industry where people communicate with each other over the Internet and could benefit from a more natural interaction.

SpeedDate, Dan Abelon – OPW Interview

Posted on February 10, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — Feb 10 — Speed dating is fun, but wouldn't it be cool if someone bottled it and put it online. Turns out a couple of companies have done just that. Namely WooMe, Camlink and Speeddate. Here's our interview with the founder of Speeddate.com, Dan Abelon.

What is the founding story of SpeedDate.com?
I was at Stanford Business School with a good friend of mine and co-founder, Simon Tisminezky. He had used a lot of different online dating services and found them frustrating. We also kept hearing these same stories over and over from many of our friends. On most sites, there’s a long process you have to go through before actually interacting with someone. We really liked the offline speed dating idea, but found nobody was doing it online. We thought of the idea about a year ago and the site launched this past October.

How is it going so far?
It’s going really well. People seem to be responding and joining very fast. We have a bunch of success stories so far and a lot of people are signing up every day. I think people in general are looking for a new way to meet people that is more interactive and that’s what SpeedDate is providing for them. It’s spreading rapidly via word of mouth.

How does SpeedDate work?
You fill out a little information and it takes about a minute when you sign up for the site, which is completely free by the way. Then we take the information you’ve given us and match you with relevant people based factors such as age, location, gender and gender preference. Basically people pop up on your screen for 3 minutes at a time using live video, live audio and instant messaging. At the end, you vote yes or no. If you vote yes and the other person votes yes, you are considered a match and you can connect with each other through our site through email or instant messaging for as long as you want afterwards. If either side votes no, then you have a little break and go on to dating the next person.

What makes SpeedDate.com unique and better then some of the other services?
I think it’s because it’s such a fast way to meet people face-to-face. There really aren’t any other sites where you can quickly give a little bit of information and immediately be matched with someone who has also opted in to wanting to find someone for a romantic connection. There are a lot of sites out there that are starting to add more interactive features, but SpeedDate is completely focused on interaction. We’ve had over 300,000 dates take place on the site since we launched in October.

How did you decide on 3 minutes?
We went to offline speed dating sessions and tried them out at various different time intervals. We settled on 3 minutes because we thought that it worked best. Most people seem to think it’s an appropriate amount of time.

You used yourself as guinea pigs on speed dating sessions?
Exactly!

Now you mentioned a few times that your service is free. What is your revenue model?
We’re planning to introduce premium features potentially in the future. Right now it is completely free and we’re focused on user acquisition, and then refining the site and adding features.

Who is your typical member?
We have all different kinds of members. We have members of all ages. There are a lot of people in their 20s and 30s primarily because there’s a higher penetration of webcams and early adopters in that age group, but we do have a very wide range of people on the site. We have people from every state and almost every country. I think the commonality among people who join is either they have been frustrated with other dating services or they don’t want to fill out lengthy profiles and questionnaires. Any many are just looking for something new that’s a fast and effective way to meet people.

Now you don’t need a webcam to use SpeedDate right?
That’s right. We do encourage people to use a webcam. Live video with live audio is as close to the real world as you can get in terms of determining whether you have a connection with someone. But we do think that interaction in general is so important so we do let people instant message as well or just use their microphone if they don’t have a webcam.

Do you have any success stories?
Yes we do. I have people writing in a lot about how they really like the site and have met boyfriends and girlfriends on it. And actually, several people have written to tell us that they got engaged on the site which is really, really exciting. We’re a young site so I guess these people decided they wanted to move quickly.

Where do you see online dating going in the next 5 years and what is your place in it?
I think online dating in general will become more interactive. I think we’re one of the early sites that is completely focused on live interaction. We’ll start to see the industry transitioning too, especially as webcams have a greater penetration in society. More and more people have them and I think online dating will be most successful when it facilitates the richest interactions possible given existing technology.

How do you see social networking affecting online dating?
I think there’s a lot of talk about social networking taking over online dating but I don’t see that being the case. I think you’ll still have sites that are focused; we’re trying to be as focused as possible on romantic interaction. And the social networks, while they’re a place where a lot of romantic interaction takes place, they are not only about that. We do have a Facebook application that we’ve launched that allows people to SpeedDate from Facebook. So it’s a good way for us to acquire customers, especially of younger demographics.

Stephen Stokols, WooMe, CEO Interview

Posted on January 13, 2008

OPW INTERVIEW — Jan 13 — WooMe is bottling speed dating. (So is Speeddate.com.) Here’s OnlinePersonalsWatch interview with the CEO. – Mark Brooks

What is WooMe?
It’s an introduction platform that allows people to meet in fast-topic speed sessions via voice and video. Users create their own sessions on any subject that is of interest to them. An example might be Nature Lovers in San Francisco. Each session melds 5 men and 5 women and each topic draws different personalities. Users enter the session and talk with each person of the opposite sex for 1 or 2 minutes (depending on what the session leader specified) and then are automatically transferred to the next person in the group. For now, WooMe is online speed dating platform, but we see many other applications in the future.

Tell me a little bit about your founding story.
My little sister and her friends were talking about how lame traditional dating sites are. It takes too long; they don’t like the stigma associated with it; and they thought all profiles sound the same. My little sister had actually been to a speed dating event last Christmas and she was telling me how fun it was and wouldn’t it be great if it could move online.

At the same time I was at British Telecom as VP in charge of new wave revenues. I had been looking at browser voice and video and trying to think of new applications. When she told me about speed dating, the light went off.

Who is your target audience?
Actually, it’s deliberately the younger, more casual setting. Our tag line is Enjoy the Minute. Our audience wants a more fun, less intense meeting experience. We consider ourselves an introduction platform on which dating is the core application, though many sessions are not about dating at all. Before Thanksgiving, we had a few sessions for people trying to find travel partners. We want to keep it very open-ended and a bit lighter. It doesn’t have the pressure of having to find your soul mate. Instead, its fun and allows people to connect in the way you would connect in person, without all the pressure. I think this has more appeal to the younger demo, who are as interested in meeting new people as anybody, but are turned off by the hardcore dating sites.

Do you find that when most people set up sessions that are geographically based?
Actually, only about 25% of the sessions are regional. The other 75% are interest-based only. There are a lot of people just looking to have a good time and they’re not as concerned about geography. We have built geographic specification into the product and we expect it to get a bit more regional as times goes by.

Why do you think online speed dating is better then offline speed dating?
First of all, there’s sort of a self selection. If you go to an offline speed dating event you don’t know who is going to be there. A typical session might be Catholic singles Los Angeles Age 34-46. It’s very broad. We are much more granular. We have had sessions called People Who Hate Bush and People Who Love Film. Each session is very different. It’s a far deeper level of segmentation. In addition, WooMe is quicker. You can log on whenever you want. And it’s free. You can also meet people from anywhere. For example, I might want to meet people in Europe or in Brazil. You have all kinds of different options when you webify something the way we have.

What makes you better then some of the other speed dating sites?
The biggest one out there is Speed Date, I think. They have a different model. In their model, the user enters and gets put into a blind session with somebody for 3 minutes. Then, they get switched to someone else that they might not have anything in common with. What we’ve done is a much more sophisticated platform. Our interactions are session based by interests, so it gives users greater ability to self-select. Users can create their own sessions with their own interests and invite people to their sessions. Plus, we have much more traffic. Come to the site at prime time and you’ll see 10 or 15 sessions all starting within the next 20 minutes.

How do you plan to monetize this?
After I interact with someone I have the ability to Woo her. If she Woo’d me as well, the system sends a message that says, Congratulations Steven, Annie 21 was also Wooed by you. At that point it’s $1 to get her contact information. So I pay a buck, get her email address and I can take it further myself. If she pays the $1, she gets mine as well. Right now we’re giving people unlimited Woo credit, so it’s currently free.

How do you prevent abuse by users?
We’ve got two functionalities. If someone is being abusive to you in a session, you block them and they can no longer interact with you or see your profile. Or users can report someone. If someone gets reported 3 times, we kick that person off the site.

You’re still in Beta right now. When are you planning on going live?
We’re open, but we’re officially in Beta because we are adding new functionality every couple of days. We’ll probably be in Beta for another 3 to 4 months. Whereas a month ago, we had just opened and we were adding about 200 people a day. Today, we are adding thousands of new users each day. We’re still learning from our users what we need to tweak and what functionality we need to add.

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