Category: All Interviews

Yahoo! Personals, Egon Smola, GM Interview – Delight Your Users!

Posted on January 1, 2008

EgonsmolaOPW INTERVIEW — Jan 1 — Yahoo! Personals ranks as the top internet dating site in the U.S.A. according to Comscore Mediametrix and Nielsen//NetRatings, and #3 on Hitwise. Egon Smola is the new General Manager at Yahoo! Personals after Anna Zornosa's ~two years as GM. I met with Egon for breakfast in Mountain View for this interview. – Mark Brooks

Egon, congratulations on your new role as GM of Yahoo! Personals. What's your background with Yahoo! Personals?
I've been with Yahoo! Personals for the past 4½ years and what an amazing ride its been. I initially joined to lead international expansion before moving into the lead product management role, where I spent time learning more about our users and translating that insight into a vision and road map. Then I shifted my focus to driving customer acquisition from various channels and increasing customer satisfaction. One of the things we did to increase conversion was tweak our search and browse requirements. Non-registered members must now register and create their own profile before viewing multiple profiles. As a result of all our efforts, the most-often-cited reason why subscribers leave Yahoo! Personals is that they "found someone." Now, in taking the general manager position, I truly feel blessed to have such a strong leadership team in place to continue driving innovation focused on enhancing our customers' experience.

How do you think the social networking industry affects the Internet dating industry?
What we see today are people using social networks to find friends, stay in touch and occasionally meet new people. Online dating services such as Yahoo! Personals have a clear advantage in our value proposition. We provide access to a pre-qualified number of people who are serious about finding a mate. We offer anonymity, safety and security up to the point where the user is willing to reveal his or her personal information to someone else. We capture the relevant information of interest to online daters, and we provide users with the tools to make establishing a relationship efficient and fun. Finally, we charge for our service. In interviews with consumers we found that price is a signal of quality, both of the service and of subscribers to that service. Today, social networking services provide none of these advantages and I think they will be hard pressed to do so in the future.

Do you think in the future we'll see online personals services costing $100 a month or more?
I think the prices we see today, in the $20 to $40 range, is the sweet spot for the market. There will always be an opportunity for premium services that appeal to a very niche segment. What we're focused on is both satisfying our existing customers and appealing to potential users. This requires listening very carefully to the customers and making enhancements to the site that best meet their needs. This is no longer a game where we can look at our customer base as a homogeneous mass. Every dater is unique in their own way and requires a personalized approach to dating. We want to leverage our technology so that different subgroups have different user experiences, but the process is still fun.

What's important for online personals companies to bear in mind to make sure they are still around in 2012?
2012 is a long way off, and just look at how the industry has changed and matured in the past five years alone. The way for any online dating service provider to succeed going forward is by delivering a customer experience that truly delights. It delights by providing profiles that are easy to browse, a search algorithm that hones in on people that are of most interest, and tools that allow members to make contact. Scale is also tremendously important. Good services must offer a large number of potential dates in a geographically constrained area. Anyone who is doing this in a straightforward and honest fashion while providing users with safety and security will still be around in 2012.

You seem to be implying the largest sites will ultimately win the game. Yet there a number of niche dating sites emerging and doing quite well. Why is this?
What we're finding is that online dating has rather low points of entry. There are a lot of niche providers that can break-even. However, because these sites are not generating as much revenue, they are finding it is very hard to drive acquisition or reinvest in their businesses. In addition, some of them are employing tasteless and inappropriate tactics that Yahoo! Personals would simply not employ.

What is Yahoo! Personals doing in regard to Reverse-Search?
What we've invested in most recently is new search technology that allows us to highlight more relevant potential dates then ever before. We've added a number of new search features, two of which are We Match and I Match. I Match is what you refer to as reverse search. You can now search for anyone who is already looking for someone exactly like you. To give an example, if you are a single parent you may limit your search to include people who are specifically interested in people with kids. The We Match functionality is a mutual match. It searches for people who are looking for someone like you, but only if you are looking for someone like them.

Is Yahoo! Personals working with the academic world?
We are benefiting from the relationships that Yahoo! has established with a number of top universities across the country, particularly in the search field. We also have a specific relationship with the University of Berkeley. We initiated a research project that was so interesting that the National Science Foundation actually gave the doctoral student that we're working with a grant.

What features on your site have been the most successful?
This summer we launched new functionality that allows users to add captions to photos. This allows daters to identify the individuals in pictures that could otherwise be misinterpreted. For example, is that man seated next to that woman her brother or her ex-boyfriend? In addition, the captions allow for more context to be added to the photos, drawing attention from other users with similar interests. The photo and captions features made a big difference for our users and we've seen a four-fold increase in the photos that are added to our service. Again, most people are looking for someone else who has posted a photo so it makes a big difference because it opens up new potential dates.

We've also launched a feature called Who's Viewed Me, which tells users who has looked at their profile. Users like this feature because they know people on this list are likely already interested in them. We've also launched Side by Side, which allows users to quickly compare what they are looking for in a mate with characteristics of a particular profile, side by side, in an easy to read chart. At the end of the day, we focus on enabling our daters to make connections in a safe, fun and easy-to-use environment. And we are proud to have achieved the highest customer satisfaction rating among the major online dating service providers!

HonestyOnline.com, Mark Ezra, CEO Interview

Posted on November 3, 2007

MarkezraOPW INTERVIEW — Nov 3, 2007 — Mark Ezra knows background checks. It's not the online dating industries favorite subject, but background checks are here to stay. Mate1 will be offering them as an option to members on their site. I interviewed Mark to find out what checks work for dating sites. – Mark Brooks

What is Honesty Online’s founding story?
It all started a couple of years ago. I kept hearing story after story from my friends and others about people misrepresenting themselves on online dating sites. People who weren’t really who they said they were or who mislead people with false information. All of these problems and all of the fraud online sparked the idea. We saw there was a need in the online dating world and went out and did the research. We discovered there was no way to properly and accurately authenticate individuals and conduct criminal searches in a high-volume capacity.

What is your background?
My initial background is in the commercial real estate industry. I segued into the technology world when I co-founded a company that constructed technology buildings throughout the U.S. We sold that in early 2001. My partner’s background is technology. He’s built six startups. His last startup, Reliacast, which involved streaming video technology, was sold to Comcast last year.

What kind of background checks do you do?
Our background checks involve a few steps. The first thing we do is validate the identity to confirm that the person on the other side of the computer is who they claim to be. After validating all aspects of their identity, we run a background check and a sex offender search. One of the things that makes our products so successful is we use every possible data source out there to get the most complete data. We don’t rely on any one source. We combine the results from our various sources and use our technology to sort the enormous amount of data we receive. This ensures that we locate all relevant criminal records and match those records to the right individual. We spent a year alone building our proprietary technology.

What kind of background checks would you recommend for dating sites?
We would recommend a process like ours which is accurate, instant, cost effective, and easily integrated. Unfortunately, there are many holes in the data that results from performing a national criminal search. That’s why we have created products that allow us to plug a lot of these holes with technology that can handle gathering data from multiple data sources and then sorting that data so that errors of omission and over-inclusion are avoided.

We built our products so that we could use the data that people already are accustomed to giving on dating sites. We don’t require social security numbers or home phone numbers and our accuracy levels are just as high as if we had that information.

Why haven’t other services in the past been able to provide as much accuracy and speed?
We’re the first consumer-based product built for online properties with high volume. Traditional background checks, on the other hand, are targeted for lower-volume (typically HR) applications and rely on human beings to sort through the records and properly match a criminal record to an individual.

How much does a background check cost?
We charge an end user $10. For large partners, like dating sites, we have sliding scales of commissions we pay out to our partners that are based on volume. The retail cost would be the same, but what we pay the partners would vary.

How fast and accurate are your results?
Our background checks are done in seconds and are nearly 100% accurate in locating the individual and validating their identity and 95% accurate in matching the criminal records. Common names are no problem. Even with all the John Smith’s in the world, we can approach 100% accuracy levels.

I understand that Mate1 is a customer of Honesty Online. Tell me more about how the tests are being offered on Mate1.
We’re waiting for the Mate1 model to be released, but I can tell you that people will be able to opt-in to our process. We’ll be offering two products. One is a verification ID product that we call “Verification”. If you’ve been verified, we will know that you are who you say you are, that you live where you say you live, are “x” years old, etc. The next level up is what we call “Certification” and that ensures that you’re not a criminal or sex offender. Mate1 is going to have people opt-in and is going to heavily market our services as a means of keeping their environment a trusted one. With our products, they’ll be bringing to their consumers what a lot of them have been asking for. They believe our products will help create a market differentiator for them and value for their members.

What are your goals for the rest of 2007 through 2008?
I hope to be able to announce very shortly some partnerships with some large sites. Some, obviously, are in the online dating world and some are in the social networking market. We’re in all levels of discussion with numerous online communities that we can help. Our products can help create trusted environments and values to all of these sites’ members.

Author, Myles Reed – Interview

Posted on October 27, 2007

Mylesreedphoto1OPW INTERVIEW — Oct 27, 2007 — Myles Reed wrote Fishing For Love on the Net. Here's my interview with him about why he wrote the book and what he thinks of internet dating. – Mark Brooks

What’s your background?
I’m a seasoned business executive who has worked for Fortune 500 companies for the past 15 years. I’m trained in observing and analyzing and synthesizing information with an MBA from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s in Accounting from the University of Michigan.

I’ve worked in 4 functional areas, which are accounting, finance, strategy and, of course, the 4th area being marketing. From those experiences, I’ve really developed a skill in understanding consumers and how people behave. That is part of my skill set and what makes me tick. That became the perspective I’ve applied to my time in dating online. I spent over 6 years living and breathing what it takes to find love online.

Tell me more, how did you meet your other half
What’s interesting is that the environment for online dating presents a phenomenal number of opportunities that really haven’t existed for thousands of years. What sparked my interest in my soon to be future wife was that she was the first person who had the exact same birthday as I had. It was the spark that led to love.  More interestingly, she happened to live in a foreign country. If it weren’t for Internet dating, I would never have met this person. Traditional dating is typically confined to the physical sphere of influence of the people who are looking for love. Internet dating breaks down traditional barriers. It really opens up a new world of possibilities and potential mates to consider, which is why I’m very bullish and very excited about the opportunities for growth in this particular area.

What internet dating site did you use?
I have, over the 6 years, tried a wide variety of sites that turned out to be very effective. Of course, I used some of the big sites, which were E-Harmony, Match.com and Meetic.com, which is a very big Internet dating site in Europe, but I ultimately settled in on what I call a Specialty site, which was ChristianCafe.com. I talk about in my book Fishing for Love on the Net that there are 3 categories of websites. There are Mainline sites that offer primarily online dating services and those would be sites like PerfectMatch.com and Meetic.com. Then there are also Multi-purpose sites like Yahoo Personals that offers other information like the news, but then there are also Specialty sites that appeal to people who have a particular interests that are really meaningful for them. This could be a religious or ethnic site or any criteria where you have common interests. She is actually from Norway. That’s the wonderful thing about online dating. You can plug into populations across the world.

So tell us about your book on internet dating?
My book, Fishing for Love on the Net, talks about love and how people can find it. That’s the only reason why people sign up for online dating sites, they are thirsty and they are lonely for love. Online dating sites provide an opportunity to satisfy that longing. My book talks about the fact that online dating does work. However, many people are still unsure. The commercials do a great job of enticing people but many people toil for many years trying to find out if it can work for them. I demonstrate that yes it does work.

Secondly, my book highlights the misconceptions about online dating.  I demystify them and I address them head on. There are tons of people who are lonely wanting to find love but they’re hesitant to try online dating because of the water cooler discussions about the misconceptions and fears around online dating. I address these points of discussion to reassure people that there’s nothing really to fear.

And the last set of things Fishing For Love on the Net talks about are the really effective techniques for people to master their online dating experience to make the best use of their time.

What prompted you to write the book?
After spending more then 4 years online, I noticed there was a uniqueness to this experience that was not like my offline experience. There were some repeating patterns of behavior that no one had to instruct the people to display. The herd of the people involved created their own culture.  I recognized that many people, though caught up in the culture, did not quite understand how to make this new world work. So I felt that because I’m good at understanding value and synthesizing where the opportunities are I needed to capture that learning and distill it down to some really effective principles that would help people find love online.  That’s what Fishing For Love on the Net is really all about, helping people find love.

Do you think internet dating really works?
Absolutely.  In this particular day and age in which we live, people are very consumed with their careers.  They put off the decision of trying to establish relationships and now they are at certain points in their lives where they really do want to find love but they don’t have the time to do it. Online dating expands their world of opportunities. They are able to find the love in a very easy and systematic way that can get them the love they desire. So absolutely, I’m a big proponent of online dating.

Do you advise your readers to use social networking sites for dating as well?
Social networking sites can be an opportunity for people. The problem is that many people who participate on social networking sites are not interested in romantic relationships. They want to connect with their friends. I would advocate that if you were interested in finding love online that you stick with sites whose sole purpose is to create a community of people who have decided they want to find someone with whom to establish a meaningful relationship. Mainline sites are the way to go.

What are your top 3 tips for internet daters?
There are 3 things that I recommend. The first thing is for people to know exactly what they’re looking for in a mate. I really can’t overemphasize the importance here. People have to know what are the non-negotiable things. They have to stick to them. They also have to know the other things that are important but be willing to compromise a bit on them. Both of these categories become the filter that is used to evaluate the people they come into contact with.

The second thing that I recommend for people is to have a method for contact management. The online dating world is very different. You are going to meet many more people online than you would ever meet in the offline world. So you have to have a way to sift through the numerous profiles.

And the last thing I would recommend is that people court their prospective mates as opposed to engage in traditional dating. Because you will meet so many people, many of them will not be the right person, so you have to find a way to more efficiently determine if this contact is the right person for you. Courting, as I lay out in Fishing for Love on the Net, requires two things that are different than traditional dating, a mindset change and a behavior change. If courting is deployed consistently, people will really improve their chances to find love online.

Are you looking to partner with any internet dating sites in any way?
I really would like to find ways to partner with the industry. I’m very passionate about the space of online dating and helping people find love. I’m heartbroken often times when I hear of many of my friends and people that I meet for the first time who are lonely and are desperately wanting to have a meaningful and loving relationship. With a few clicks, online dating can change peoples’ lives. They just need to know how to go about it. People would not dare try to assemble IKEA furniture without following the instructions. Online dating is a whole new world where people can benefit from some direction. Fishing for Love on the Net provides that guidance for them so that they make the most of their time and equip them to reach their point of success, true love. This is my mission.

PerfectMatch.com, Duane Dahl – CEO Interview

Posted on October 23, 2007

PerfectmatchlogoOPW INTERVIEW — Oct 23, 2007 — I last interviewed Duane in February of 2007, and before that in June of 2005. I asked Duane about PerfectMatch.com's targeting, positioning, new TV placements, his plans for the future and what he thinks about Match.com launching a high-end matchmaking product. Here's my latest interview with Duane Dahl, CEO and Founder of PerfectMatch.com. – Mark Brooks

How is Perfectmatch different from and better than eHarmony?
We pride ourselves in providing the best results to our members. We’ve worked hard to develop and refine our matching process, the Duet Total Compatibility System (Duet®), which matches members not only on similarity factors, but also on complementary factors as well. I think a significant difference in our approach is we work to be inclusive and transparent in the process, which members (generally 30+ in age) really appreciate. eHarmony has struggled a bit with the holier than thou approach – and I imagine that is driving the changes we see at eHarmony as they work to become more mainstream.  As part of this process, we lay the member’s information over the research and intelligence to ultimately present what should be excellent matches for them. We believe our matching process is superior to eHarmony’s – and I think that has been proven out by the success we’ve had – and the conversion of eHarmony members to Perfectmatch.

Another very important key element which our members appreciate is the supportive environment we provide. This goes beyond matching – for us it really is about being the best approach. It’s a very difficult and stressful process for many – putting yourself out there and trying to pursue a relationship is difficult. So, we work very closely with Dr. Pepper Schwartz (Pepper) to help our members put their best foot forward, to enable them to be in a position to have success. This is accomplished, in part, through our profile review system, and tips and information provided by Pepper.

Lastly, our team strives to create opportunities for members so they can extend the experience through offline events and opportunities. This is a significant component to many of the entertainment-focused promotions we’ve had over the last few years.

Do you allow people to search on the site?
Absolutely. This is another of our unique differentiators. We view our members as adults who’re actively seeking long-term relationships. Although we’ve done an excellent job in creating a matching system for them, we also want our members to have the opportunity and freedom to seek out other individuals.

One of the really distinctive tools we give our members, in addition to traditional searches, is the ability to search on personality types directly linked to Duet®. Members have told us, via feedback, it’s very exciting for those who found themselves dating certain types to go outside the box and search for people who possess a different personality type than what they’ve traditionally been drawn to.

Again, I think it all just creatively weaves into our approach of putting our members in the best possible position for success.

Has Perfectmatch been integrated into any entertainment vehicles lately, and what else do you have in the works?
We just finished the prime-time one hour airing of “Science of Love” with NBC. It aired on June 25th and featured Perfectmatch, Duet® and, of course, Pepper. On the plus side it was exciting because it was an opportunity for us to get involved on the ground floor in the development of a show and fully integrate the brand, our matching system and Pepper. We’re continuing to work with a couple of production companies to secure an opportunity to fully leverage and merge the internet with television programming.

Also, on September 21st, a film called “Good Luck Chuck”, starring Jessica Alba and Dane Cook, will hit the theaters. We have integration and placements in the film. It, looks like a hit – very funny film and nice placements for us – kudos to Lionsgate.

Any plans for introducing instant messaging, anonymous calling, or any other communications?
We’ve tested instant messaging off-and-on over the past three years. Our members, who skew from early 30’s through 40’s, and even a growing segment of the 50+, just haven’t embraced instant messaging. They much prefer the more traditional email approach.

We are looking at numerous solutions in the area of communications. Certainly one of the related challenges all of us face in 2007 and beyond involves deliverability. We’re working to find new ways to engage our consumers, to extend their experiences and visit times on the site. We expect to have an announcement shortly on furthering the perfectmatch experience.

What are your thoughts on Match.com’s new high-end matchmaking service, and do you have any plans to offer something similar?
It’s a natural step for the space. We think it’s a terrific idea and have been looking at it since the Kiss.com days. I would expect as we get into Q4/Q1, you’ll see us introducing something of a premium nature. We’d want to ensure that whatever premium service we offer our members, embodies our high touch approach and leverages Pepper as the leading expert in the space.

Who is Perfectmatch’s ideal client these days?
As we continue to see the site grow and the relationship/dating space evolve, we’re finding we continue to have success with the 35-year-old professional. This segment of the market continues to be a very important part, and driver of, the business. We’re having a tremendous amount of success with acquiring members who are 45+. And that’s natural when you step back, look at the evolution of the Internet, and then combine both with our messaging and approach. I think the 45-50+ member finds our message of relationship versus a casual approach to be one they can embrace. And I think it’s important to them to be in a community of like-minded people versus a community of 20-25 million people with assorted goals and desires. It’s all sorting out I think…social networking has played an important role in developing members. It used to be we depended heavily on members graduating up from Match.com, and those who hadn’t had success or were frustrated with eHarmony. Now, as the online community is introduced to consumers much earlier in life than even just five years ago, we see kids graduating from MySpace to the very casual dating and down market hook-up sites, then up to Match.com and finally to Perfectmatch and eHarmony.

Dating Direct, Alistair Shrimpton, CEO Interview

Posted on October 16, 2007

Alistair_meetic_3OPW INTERVIEW — Oct 16, 2007 — Dating Direct is the UK's top straight internet dating site (Gaydar is #1 according to Hitwise, and PlentyofFish is #3) and was bought by Meetic back at the beginning of 2008. Here's the quick interview I did with Marc Simoncini, the day I heard they were to buy DatingDirect.com. And here's my recent interview with the CEO of Dating Direct, Alistair Shrimpton… – Mark Brooks

What is the founding story of DatingDirect.com?
DatingDirect.com was founded in 1999 and was, I believe, the first UK online dating service. It was created by an entrepreneur, Darren Richards, who went into this market because he was frustrated with the poor online dating choices available at the time. He thought he could better and did just that.

DatingDirect.com was the historical first mover in the UK and, in many metrics, has been the brand leader ever since. The company was running successfully when Meetic bought it earlier this year.

Could you tell me more about DatingDirect.com’s new platform?
When Meetic took over, we had to migrate the 5 million plus registered users on DatingDirect.com onto the standardized global Meetic platform. It was quite a challenge because millions of people who are used to the look and feel of one particular service are now presented with something completely new. But the product, especially in terms of features and usability, is an enormous improvement and consumer reaction has been phenomenal. Our growth since migration has been impressive. I can’t put figures on it, but I think all of our UK internal targets are higher than our best forecasts.

In terms of these new features, the word that I would use for the new DatingDirect.com on the Meetic platform is “live.” Dating is impulsive. Nobody knows why people suddenly get the urge to talk to somebody. But when members do, they can see right away who is online, who is available. Members can enter their post code, see who’s online in their area, and chat to them with an instant messenger that is built into the Meetic browser system.

I know a lot of sites offer this, but this is a really important feature for us and one our users really appreciate. When we did the research for the new platform, 82% of our users said that, of all the proposed changes, instant messenging is the killer application. And that has proven so in our post research results. Instant messenger is what’s really moving the needle for our business.

Are people in Europe making money from mobile?
In 2006, just under 7% of Meetic Group’s total global revenue was mobile revenue. The mobile solution provided by Meetic across its platform is probably the best execution that I’ve ever seen of a web proposition delivered to a mobile phone. It works really well and almost perfectly replicates the website functionality. Users can see new members, get messages, search for people who are local and online, and then chat with them in an instant via mobile. It’s really exciting and I believe the mobile-phobic UK is actually going to produce significant revenues for us in the years to come.

Across Europe, I believe we’re working with 21 operators. Within the Meetic Group, we’re already working with Vodafone, Orange, O2, and most of the other major operators. Within three weeks of launching our new platform, we signed a linking agreement with Vodafone and my commercial sense tells me that we’ll probably close out the other major operators in the UK by the end of 2007.

What are your thoughts on future online dating in the UK?
When I first looked at the UK market, I was amazed at the number of online dating companies. If I look at comScore numbers, there are hundreds of UK-focused online dating services. A lot of these companies are very focused, niche players and I think the niche players here have a great opportunity to make a very good business out of continuing to focus on those niches.

If we compare markets in Europe, we see that the UK is probably the one that has the lowest credibility for individuals who want to date online. People are still a little embarrassed to admit that they’re doing it, but there’s been a huge escalation in acceptability, particularly in the last six months. My belief is that this will continue and, as online dating becomes more of a mainstream industry here, there will be two or three major brands that will push through and be able to deliver scale operations. And it’s honestly pretty obvious at the moment who two of those companies would be.

What are your goals for DatingDirect.com for 2007 through the end of 2008?
I think that we have completed phase one, which is the successful migration of the current DatingDirect.com users onto the new platform. For the rest of the year, I think we’ll probably work on two key objectives. The first one is to continue to educate and help the DatingDirect.com users who joined from the older platform. We want to help them understand how the new site works and make them as loyal to the new DatingDirect.com platform as they were to the old. It is very important to us to reassure these millions of users and this will be our number one priority for the remainder of 2007.

Almost equal to that is our ambition to win more market share. I think a prime target market of 30-35 year olds is beginning to move more towards online dating in the UK and we want to grab the lion’s share of this new market. In 2007, we’ll have activities that are actually focused on us beginning to win that piece of the market.

In 2008, we are planning a pretty big offline media campaign in the first quarter that will involve a substantial investment above the line, i.e. TV media.

Dating-Central a.k.a Bonefish, Mike Fitzgerald – CEO Interview

Posted on October 2, 2007

MikefphotoOPW INTERVIEW — Oct 2, 2007 — So you want to start your own internet dating site? You can build it yourself, use a white label service. White label services look after the technical and customer service end of things and allow you to have fully stocked shelves, right from the day you start your site. This leaves you to do the marketing work. For a roundup analysis of services email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com. Here's my interview with Mike Fitzgerald, CEO of Dating-Central, a.k.a Bonefish. – Mark Brooks

What’s your founding story?
Me and my business partner Graham started Dating-Central back in 1999. We both graduated from the university with business degrees and somehow ended up in technical positions at the companies we worked for. I was from an insurance background and developing white label sites, so I sort of developed the idea of doing the white labeling we do today. Graham was in more of a programming role.

Although we both enjoyed our jobs, we realized the IT and Internet markets were still quite young and the companies we worked for didn’t really fathom how sites could actually go with the Internet. So, around 1999, we both left our positions. We saved up some money and basically developed the Dating-Central service.

We tried to develop a system that wouldn’t put us in one market. Rather than competing with major sites, like Kiss.com and FriendFinder, we tried to develop an application that fit into each niche market. We had various markets, like gay, lesbian, adult, and romance, which protected us from being forced out of any one market by one player.

After we did that for about six months, we had some 50 or 60 partners from a few of the big niche areas. We had gay, Christian, disabled, and obviously romance customers. They, in effect, launched the service for us. We were both self-financed and didn’t have any backing.

What does Dating-Central do?
We’re basically a white label service that provides a very niche market to each of our affiliates. Instead of just a white label romance site, we can provide our affiliates with a white label romance site that specifically targets a certain age range in a certain location with a certain fee. For example, if an affiliate wants to target brokers in London, we’ll provide them with a romance site with members that match the profile they want, in the area they want. And, of course, the site will match their brand. Since the application we use has been around for about six years, all the bugs are gone and we’re able to provide pretty much any type of site to anybody.

What do you do best?
I would say that in addition to providing the sort of specific niches that affiliates ask for these days, we also provide the personal touch. Our affiliate department is just me and one other person. So, when we take affiliates on board, we tend to have a great knowledge of what they want. I’ll personally speak with them for 20-30 minutes. I’ll get a very good idea of what they want and provide them with the best solution. If the solution isn’t what they think they want, I’ll tell them where it is they need to be heading. I’ll tell them that we can provide them with a service that will compete with companies, like FriendFinder and Match, but that they’d be better off targeting something a little more specific.

The tailored approach has always been our goal, rather than trying to get as many white label sites live as possible because, if we did that, there’d be no emotional link between us and our affiliates. We’d just be providing some sort of faceless service.

Who is a typical partner?
A typical partner tends to be somebody who wants to do this on a full-time basis, but starts off on a part-time basis. We’ll find people who have some knowledge of the Internet, some knowledge of the market that they’re in, and then we tailor the service to match their needs and help them become a full-time affiliate.

A typical affiliate will be somebody who earns 500-1,000 pounds a month in the first year. By the end of their third year, they should be making 3,000-5,000 pounds, at which point they can go full-time. We’ll then try to help them become an affiliate in more than one area. If their strength lies in a particular location or a particular niche, we’ll try to strengthen that by giving them additional ideas in the market or additional ideas in the location. What’s worked for other affiliates may or may not work for them.

How do they typically drive traffic?
That’s a very good question. With our white label solution, we provide the back end and they provide the front. A lot of our big affiliates who are earning 5,000-15,000 pounds a month have their own front end and tend to keep their marketing a closely-guarded secret.

But, on the whole, I would say they target pay-per-click search engines and search engine optimization. We have some affiliates who advertise in magazines and on the radio. It depends on the niche and the location. Quite a broad spectrum of advertising, I would say.

What do you recommend to people who are starting from scratch?
The first thing I would recommend is for them to actually speak to me in person. I think it’s very difficult to give a blanket approach to an affiliate starting out. You could tell them, though, that most affiliates target things like Google AdWords and other pay-per-click search engines to try to get the traffic through. Once they start generating the revenue from the first week or two, they then could look at long-term solutions, like search engine optimization.

Small niches allow affiliates to target small periodicals, local radio stations, and local support groups. Again, it all depends on the market they’re interested in and the size of their budget. If they have a very large budget, then obviously we can do a lot more with it. If they have a very small budget, then we tend to advise they approach other websites in the area. For example, we have a few disabled dating websites that advertise on other disabled sites and appear on programs about disabilities. It’s actually a lot easier to get the advertising and exposure if they’re targeting a very small niche, then it is if they’re advertising a worldwide disabled site.

What are your goals for 2007?
We’re in the process of moving our service back to the USA. We were running it in the UK and had a few problems with that. We have finished version 3 of the service and are waiting to go live. For the rest of the year, we plan to migrate all of our existing affiliates onto the new platform. We have about 600-700 templates from which they can choose, or they can continue to use their existing service.

For 2008, we signed a contract with a marketing agency in the UK that basically will target specific organizations and companies in markets we think have some mileage as far as our service goes. We’re going to try to move into markets that aren’t necessarily traditional dating, which I know is not necessarily a low-risk thing. But we’ll be looking at communities of people who are, for example, English and based in, say, India or Pakistan or Australia and try to use the service more as a contact site rather than a dating service.

The Right One/Together Dating, Paul Falzone – CEO Interview

Posted on September 28, 2007

Paul_falzoneOPW INTERVIEW — Sep 28, 2007 — The Matchmakers Conference is happening right now. I interviewed Paul last August 2006. Here's my second interview with Paul Falzone of The Right One/Together Dating. – Mark Brooks

How quickly has The Right One/Together Dating been growing, and how does your growth compare to other matchmaking companies?
Over the last three years, our growth rate has been about 130%. We recently have been named to the Inc. 5000. Regionally, we’re the 31st fastest-growing, privately-owned company in the Boston area, according to the Boston Business Journal.

The industry, as a whole, is growing somewhat. Some internet dating services are shrinking and some are experiencing growth, but I don’t think anybody has had the exponential growth that we’ve been achieving. Quite frankly, our marketing is a key part of that and we’re constantly focused on new marketing ideas. We have a lot of internet marketing campaigns that have been giving us great multiple returns on our investment. I don’t know if a lot of the other matchmaking companies are as savvy or have the resources to be able to play in those fields.

What does The Right One/Together Dating do differently?
We have WIT and that’s the attitude we all need to keep. It’s called Whatever It Takes. All my people have it and it’s important that we do. We give great personal service. We keep our lines of communication open between our matchmakers and our members. It’s so important to hear what your members need and want and we’re constantly refining our membership, as a result of that. We want to make sure that the members are getting a great experience at any of our offices.

In how many cities is The Right One/Together Dating? 
We’re in approximately 60 cities nationwide. There certainly are different markets that have their challenges, but we’ve had great success over the last few years and we’re continuing it. We just did our first and second quarter numbers and they’re tracking very closely to last year. Maintaining the growth and the margins that we’ve had is a goal of ours and achieving that goal is important to us.

How come other internet dating companies haven’t tried to launch matchmaking companies?
They have and they found out it’s not that easy to do. Even Match.com is trying to do it these days and I don’t know how successful it is. I haven’t heard a whole lot from them about their matchmaking company. Maybe it’s just my personal opinion, but if you’re not hearing a lot about it, I don’t know how successful it really is. You would think that if it was really successful for them, they would be beating the drums a lot more. I think it’s a very, very difficult area for people who aren’t used to matchmaking to jump into. It’s a totally different type of business model and once they start getting involved with it they realize, “Wow, this is so much different than just getting costs per clicks and my numbers up.” There’s a lot to making sure these people are very happy and achieving the success that they’re looking for.

What can other internet dating companies do to partner with The Right One/Together Dating?
We are more than willing to partner with dating sites for lead generation and we have partnered with a few companies. It just has to be a win-win situation for both companies. It’s as important that the internet companies are successful partnering with us as we are with them. We’ve recently been doing some things with a company called Loveaccess, which has proven to be very significant and has worked out well for us.

I understand you’ve been doing some lead generation. How has that been working out?
We have. We’ve partnered up with a few other people out there to do lead generation and, quite frankly, it’s done really well. We’re watching which online companies are giving us the best lead generation and will focus more on the better ones and hope to form tighter relationships with them.  We’re looking at bringing some of these companies under our wing and building out a larger, better Right One/Together and eLove.

eLove, by the way, is our hybrid. It contains a physical location component where you go in and spend approximately 90 minutes with a trained matchmaking counselor. We check criminal background records and divorce decrees on everybody. Once everything has been okayed and the individuals decide to join, they are put into the system and given a password. They then go into the site themselves, enter their criteria, and find their match. It’s a hybrid of online and offline services and it’s one of the first of its kind.

What are your goals for The Right One/Together Dating for 2007 through 2008?
Over the next 12-18 months, we’re in an acquisition mode. We’re talking seriously to an online company right now about bringing them under our wing. We’re also looking at expanding our offline exposure and we’ve got another company that we’re serious about partnering up with along those lines, as well.

In the next 6-12 months, I think you’re going to see a couple of mergers coming through that will bring our already-strong numbers up exponentially. I just want to look and take the best of the best that’s out there and build a bigger and better company.

WAYN.com, Peter Ward – CEO Interview

Posted on September 27, 2007

PeterSNW INTERVIEW — Sep 27, 2007 — WAYN is one of my favorite social networks.  I really like the map which shows where I've traveled to in the past, and the mails updating me on new people that are moving/traveling to town. I last interviewed Peter in June 2006. WAYN.com has dropped its paid membership program since then. Here's my latest interview with Pete. – Mark Brooks

How is WAYN unique?
WAYN is unique because it’s a social network that allows you to meet people based on where you are now, where you’ve been, and where you are going. If a Londoner is traveling to San Francisco and would like to see who else from London will be traveling to San Francisco that same weekend, they can log on to the site, run a search, and see which, say, 18-25 year old London females will be there. It allows them to plan their journey in advance..

Trustcash CEO, Greg Moss – Interview

Posted on September 26, 2007

TrustcashOPW INTERVIEW — Sep 25, 2007 — It's no secret that the more options you offer for payment, the higher your conversions. Mastercard, Visa, Discovery, Amex… and Trustcash is another to consider. Tens of millions of potential internet daters don't have credit cards in the U.S.A. Many more don't really want a dating site showing up on their credit cards. So, you really, really should offer some kind of prepaid card cash payment method. Trustcash has internet dating industry experience. Here's my interview with Greg Moss. – Mark Brooks

What is Trustcash’s founding story?
E-commerce has had strong consistent growth year in and year out since inception. With growth like this in any industry come various risks. In this specific case it happens to be increased concerns with privacy and security After recognizing this an opportunity presented itself to create a stored value transaction system that would allow anyone with Internet access – even those without credit cards – to buy anonymously and safely online just as they would at a traditional retailer today with cash.

I can walk into a store today and buy a magazine with cash and no one will ever know I made that purchase. And it’s secure. That’s what we’ve built here at Trustcash.

What does the service do?
Basically, the service allows people to take a $50 bill and insert it into their computer. People can go to one of 60,000 Trustcash designated retail outlets throughout the country, hand the clerk cash and in exchange receive a Trustcash number that is similar to a credit card number, but without their personal data tied to it. It’s a unique 12-digit alphanumeric number worth the dollar amount paid and you can take that number and use it to make online purchases at merchants that accept Trustcash as a form of payment. This includes hard goods, services and subscription based businesses. By using Trustcash for their online transactions people can keep their transactions private and, since there is no personal information tied to their Trustcash number it is secure from hackers and their private life is kept private. This type of transaction has also given a whole new opportunity to people who are unbanked or under banked. Over 50 million people in the U.S. alone don’t possess credit cards or don’t have the credit available to make purchases online. Trustcash gives these consumers the opportunity to get better product availability and pricing via the internet.

Where precisely can people buy Trustcash?
Today, it’s currently available in about 60,000 locations across the U.S.. We expect that by the first quarter of next year, we’ll take the service to an additional 60,000 locations internationally, beginning with Canada and then moving into Europe. Trustcash can also be purchased online using a credit card. This service is for customers who do not wish to give the end merchant their personal data or worry about their personal data being stored in an unknown database online. When buying Trustcash with a credit card, it is a one time purchase and all of your data is purged following the transaction. Beyond these forms of distribution, there are several more relationships in the works with both financial institutions and prepaid companies that will continue to increase our availability around the country.

Who are your signature internet dating clients?
For the last six months, we’ve been working closely with a leading dating company called IWANTU. They have been great to work with and extremely patient while we spent the time understanding who the target customer is and how we can help generate incremental revenue for their program. It is important to understand the space before you roll out in any real magnitude.

We have signed several more leading dating programs which are now in integration and currently have verbal commitments from another six while they review our merchant agreement.

How can you help internet dating companies make more money?
That’s the question and this is where it gets exciting. Social networks and dating sites have essentially become the modern day personals. The internet has opened this world up and plenty of people are coming to the dating sites. And although many will sign up for a free account, there’s a sizable amount that just won’t convert to paying customers. They get to a point where they feel their personal data will be compromised or they won’t be able to keep their private life private (perhaps someone in their life, like a spouse or significant other, will discover what they’re doing through a credit card or checking account statement). We give these people a sense of security. By keeping their private lives private and secure, we’re able to convert more free subscribers for these dating programs. We’re bringing them an entirely new market of customers who previously wouldn’t use their services out of privacy and security fears.

Who are your competitors?
Right now, we’re considered an alternative payment system. As far as competition, it’s tough to say that we have a direct competitor. There are a lot of companies – the PayBy Phone, ACH companies, Dialers, ChargeMeLater, PayPal, Google Buy,  all competing for the alternative biller spot with merchants. But, fortunately, these companies cannot offer complete privacy and most have swayed from certain verticals and markets. This has given us an opportunity to come in and demonstrate our value proposition to both the customer and merchant.

What are your goals for 2007 through 2008 for Trustcash?
I think we’ve discovered a market that has a big need for a service like Trustcash. Dating has proven that there is a large portion of free subscribers that truly need and want what Trustcash has to offer. Our priority right now is to hone in on the dating market and make sure we do a first class job with both the customer and the merchant experiences. In tandem we will continue to build our brand with traditional and non-traditional marketing campaigns. As for 2008 and beyond we will enter into mainstream verticals that make the most sense for the company based on the current demographic of our customer.

Mate1 CEO, Liz Wasserman – Interview

Posted on September 22, 2007

LizOPW INTERVIEW  — Sep 22, 2007 — Mate1 is doing well. It's a casual dating site where women can join free.  X-rated photos aren't allowed, but revealing photos are encouraged. Here's my interview with Liz Wasserman. – Mark Brooks

What is Mate1’s founding story?
It’s a family business. My father and I started it in 2003. The dominant sites then were very clean, corporate sites, like Matchmaker and Match, and sex dating sites, like AdultFriendFinder. We felt there was room for something in between. Something that wasn’t geared towards moral debates or fetishes and one-night stands. Rather, something that allowed users the freedom to express themselves and talk about sex in their profiles. A site that would let members use more slightly-revealing photos of themselves, if they felt like it. A more libertarian approach to the whole thing, but without anything X-rated.

So, we decided to start Mate1 with that in mind. We built it in 2003 and ramped up through 2004 to what we thought was a success.

How is the site different from other Internet dating sites?
It is an Internet dating site and in some ways it’s very similar to other ones of our size. But we do still occupy that middle ground between adult and conservative sites and I think others have even followed us in that regard.

A lot of our members are looking for shorter-term relationships, more casual ones. And people who are looking for that don’t feel intimidated by our site. We don’t ask a lot of deep, probing questions. Our questionnaire focuses much more on sparkly things, like your interest in music and food. The things that get conversations going rather than the things that go deep at the heart of moral and relationship-oriented questions. I think we really appeal to people in the way that social networks do – as a basis for networking with people who have similar interests as you.

How do you allow members to communicate on the site?
Right now, it’s still pretty simple. There’s email and chat. With email, you click on a link and fill out a form to email another user. The chat is more of a one-on-one, instant messenger feature where people chat privately with other users they find interesting (we’ve opted against group chats ). And if someone asks to chat with you, you have the opportunity to say yes or no.

Those are the primary ways that people communicate on the web. There have been some phone experiments, but nothing we made live. We did build a one-on-one, double-blind phone system a while back that we weren’t sure the public was ready for, but it’s something we’re still planning.

I think now is the time for a phone feature, partly because there are older people getting online. Kids, even on their phones, mostly send text messages. People in their 20’s and even 30’s are not big direct phone users in the way that perhaps people in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s are. I just heard that the average age of a person on a U.K. dating site is 45, which I thought was pretty amazing. I think that is a generation that is much more comfortable on the phone and more irritated by instant messaging. For some of those people, we could really have a lot of success with phone products that allow people to protect their anonymity. That’s something we’re planning, hopefully, for this year.

How would you define Mate1? Tell me more about your branding choice.
It’s an online dating site that allows users to talk about intimate things, as opposed to adult dating sites that are all about a sexual relationship. Intimate doesn’t mean sexual. We have a lot of very devout Christians on our site who are looking for marriage and a lot of single parents looking to meet other single parents. We have all kinds of people at different stages of their lives who are irritated with or not interested in sites that censor their profiles. People who want to be able to answer questions about sex. We have a multiple choice questionnaire where you can indicate what your sexual preferences are. Nothing too extreme, but basic questions about what you like and don’t like. So we offer people a safe, online way to meet and be intimate and interact in such a way as to decide whether to go to the stage of actually meeting in person.

What is the average age on Mate1?
The last time we did a check, it was 30 but that was quite a while ago. Since then, we’ve actually been targeting primarily older people, so I would say our average age is now higher than that. We have ad campaigns that target people over the age of 25 and others that target people over the age of 40. We’re interested in figuring out where our best demographic is. Social networking has really caught on so strongly with the 20 and 30 something’s that there’s a divide that’s starting in the industry. Maybe that is what’s accounting for the increasing average age or maybe it’s because people in later stages of their lives are starting to take dating more seriously and have more of an interest in meeting people outside of their immediate social circle.

Have you considered entering Europe or Asia?
Yes, and I’m very angry at us for not doing it yet. It’s something that we need to do, particularly Europe. Asia is more of a challenge, culturally and linguistically, for us. It’s going to be a much bigger undertaking. But, if I were to examine our staff here at Mate1, we probably have every major European language covered. We’re planning to tackle Europe and we’ve actually created a strategy for it.

What are your goals for Mate1 for 2007 through 2008?
Internationalization would be one of them. Another is more diversification of the communication mediums on the site. We want to add video chat. We think it is really catching on and is going to be big, if it isn’t already. People who have web cams use them. It’s a great way to verify the identity of the person you’re communicating with.

The other one is phone, which I’ve already talked about. We’re still trying to decide how exactly to do that. We haven’t come to any firm conclusions, but we want to give people the opportunity to communicate anonymously by phone before they exchange numbers.

Aside from that, we’re just going to improve the way we communicate with our members and get them more active on the site. We’re going to work on matchmaking applications and marketing to our members to make sure they understand the features available to them, the kinds of subscriptions plans available. We’re going to focus more on our actual members rather than acquiring new ones, in a sense.