THE ATLANTIC – Helen Fisher is an anthropologist and famed love expert. She is the chief scientific adviser for Match.com. She says personality is a cocktail of hormones; love comes from the buzz of mixing them just right. Dating apps can't possibly kill romance, even if they do show us so many options. "It's the same old brain," she says. "The brain hasn't changed in 300K years." She's famous for her science books, including "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love", which," may have been the one that brought her to the attention of Match.com. The company was looking for insight – Why does anybody fall in love with one person and not another? She created four personality styles (Builders – high in serotonin, logical, and traditional; Explorers – high in dopamine, spontaneous and daring; Negotiators – high in estrogen, empathetic and imaginative, and Directors – high in testosterone, decisive and competitive.) Those categories became the basis for Chemistry.com. When it launched in 2005, Chemistry.com competed with eHarmony and PerfectMatch.com, based on the Myers-Briggs personality test. Users filled out a questionnaire written by Fisher and were assigned primary and secondary personality styles. According to Fisher's system, builders match well with other builders, explorers with explorers, and negotiators with directors. Taking the job with Match was "one of the smartest things I've ever done with my life," she said. "Fifteen million people have taken that questionnaire." (The questionnaire was used first for Chemistry.com, then for Match's flagship site.) Today, Fisher's role at Match has more to do with data analysis and public relations than designing dating products.
Category: Chemistry
Match Group’s CEO on Innovating in a Fast-Changing Industry
HBR.ORG – Aug 5 – The speed of change is one of the things I love about this industry. Companies need to innovate constantly – with technology, pricing, product features, and business models – to stay ahead of competitors and continue to grow. I ran Chemistry.com from 2006 to 2008. It was my first general management job, and I loved building the team. We grew the site quickly. As Chemistry.com expanded, the company's flagship Match.com seemed to be plateauing. So in 2008 management asked me to move over to Match.com and try to reenergize that brand. Two important shifts were under way that hurt Match.com. First, OkCupid and Plenty of Fish, had pioneered a new ad-supported business model. The second shift involved algorithms. By 2008 companies were getting more sophisticated about analyzing and understanding users' preferences and behavior. In 2009 Match made its first big acquisition, in the form of a company called People Media, that had a variety of smaller sites aimed at specific demographics. Facebook and Twitter were bringing more people onto social media, which sparked more interest in online dating, especially from older people. The biggest technology shift came after 2008. That's when Apple introduced the App Store. Within a few years that completely changed the face of our industry – a change sparked largely by Tinder. Last year Tinder's revenue topped $800M, demonstrating that many people are willing to pay for features. Right now we're working on several new strategies that we expect will drive our next phase of growth.
by Mandy Ginsberg
See full article at Harvard Business Review
Helen Fisher: “The Only True Algorithm Is Your Own Brain”
THE MANEATER – Oct 10 – Psychologist and anthropologist Helen Fisher was a part of the Life Sciences & Society symposium, The Science of Love, in which speakers were sharing research about the biology and chemistry behind love. Fisher worked with match.com in 2005 when she was hired to create chemistry.com, which combined hormone and personality-based matching systems. Romantic love is linked to a sense of attachment that is triggered through the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin in the brain. This feeling can also be connected to sex drive. Fisher doesn't see dating sites as sites that facilitate dating. They're more like introducing sites, she said. A matching system isn't always right. "The only true algorithm is your own brain," Fisher said.
Match Group To IPO This Year
PR NEWSWIRE – June 25 – IAC's Board of Directors has approved the pursuit of an IPO of Match Group. Joey Levin, formerly CEO of its Search & Apps business, has been named CEO of IAC and joined its Board of Directors. Greg Blatt will remain Chairman, and Sam Yagan CEO of The Match Group. IAC expects The Match Group to issue less than 20% of its common stock in the IPO, with IAC's remaining stake in The Match Group represented by both high- and low-vote common shares. The IPO is expected to be completed during Q4 of this year.
See full article at IAC website
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
PlentyofFish Kills eVow.com
OPW – May 13 – POF has pulled the plug on its property eVow. The eVow website was developed as a direct competitor to eHarmony in September 2010. But POF is sticking to its knitting and focusing on growing its core offering, their mobile apps and POF.com. According to WayBackMachine, the last recorded date that eVow was live was March 25th. So eHarmony has one less competitor to think about. I hear eHarmony is in growth mode and doing very well now. Chemistry and PerfectMatch are becoming less of a concern for them as well. I still think we're leaving money on the table. Serious singles want more service, are willing to pay for it, but we're just not delivering. I hope to learn more about how Zhenai and Baihe are outperforming the Western markets in this respect, at iDate Beijing.
Post by Mark Brooks @
Online Dating For Those Over 50
CBS – Feb 8 – AARP has joined the online dating services. They debuted their new dating website, AARP Dating powered by HowAboutWe. HowAboutWe has currently ~1M members and has been around for several years now. OurTime.com has been around over a year and is part of the Match.com family. SilverSingles.com is part of the Spark network of dating sites. It has been around for 10 years and claims to be the premier online community for seniors. SeniorPeopleMeet.com is a place for those over 50. It’s partnered up with Match.com and Chemistry.com as well as BabyBoomerPeopleMeet.com.
by Dee Lee
See full article at CBS
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IAC Announces Management Changes At Its Match Segment
PR NEWSWIRE – Oct 23 – Sam Yagan, co-founder and CEO of OkCupid, has been named CEO of Match, making him responsible for IAC's Match segment, which comprises all of IAC's online dating and related operations, domestically and internationally. Mandy Ginsberg, President of Match.com, has been named CEO of Match.com, with responsibility for the segment's "Core" businesses: Match.com U.S., Chemistry and People Media. Josh Meyers, CEO of People Media, will leave the segment to focus on new initiatives at IAC, specially DailyBurn.
The full article was originally published at Sacramento Bee, but is no longer available.
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Romance Is Big Business At IAC
INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY – June 5 – In last year's third quarter, Match.com bought a 20% interest in Chinese dating site Zhenai and upped its stake in Europe's No. 1 dating site, Meetic, to 81%. IAC's core personals business, which includes Match.com, Chemistry.com and the People Media unit's targeted dating sites, grew sales 17% to $108.9M, driven by a 12% boost in paid subscribers to 1.8M. IAC's online personals segment is its most profitable business. This month, Match.com will start to roll out the Stir, a service that brings single people together in organized local events. As a part of an ongoing beta test, Match.com has organized 60 Stir events across 10 U.S. markets.
by Marilyn Much
The full article was originally published at Investors Business Daily, but is no longer available.
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Match.com Reports Q3 Results
PR NEWSWIRE – Nov 4 - Core revenue increased 15% to $102.5M driven by increases in subscribers. Developing revenue increased 8% to $18.7M primarily due to revenue from OkCupid. Core and Developing revenue collectively increased by 14% to $121.2M. Meetic had revenue of $11.1M which was negatively impacted by the write-off of $9.6M of deferred revenue in connection with its acquisition.
Match Core consists of Match.com in the US, Chemistry.com and People Media. Match Developing consists of OkCupid, Singlesnet, mobile-only products and non-Meetic international operations.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.
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Love In The Time Of Dot-coms
BALTIMORE SUN – Feb 10 - Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist, has 35 years of experience studying why and how humans are attracted to each other. A few years ago, she developed a probing questionnaire for Chemistry.com.
Q: Internet dating sites used to be sources for jokes and even derision for people who used them. How have they evolved?
A: They represent major trends in our modern world.
Q: Is online dating drawing on any evolutionary or biological instincts?
A: In many respects, we're going back to the way we used to be introduced. With Internet dating, getting to know a little bit about somebody before you meet them is really compatible with how the brain is built.
A: In many respects, we're going back to the way we used to be introduced. With Internet dating, getting to know a little bit about somebody before you meet them is really compatible with how the brain is built.
Q: How effective is Chemistry.com and Match.com at helping people find happy partners?
A: When somebody leaves Match.com or Chemistry.com, they ask you why you left. One box you can check is, "I found somebody." Between 15 and 20% of people check that box.
Q: What are the key things you've learned from studying the biology of the brain?
A: The most important things: We put people in a brain scanner. We found activity in a little part of the brain — this area makes dopamine and sends natural stimulants to different parts of brain, creating basic traits of romantic love.
The full article was originally published at Baltimore Sun, but is no longer available.