Category: Outlets – Fast Company

Problems Dating Sites Are Facing & Their Solutions

Posted on July 4, 2012

Online dating - heart on keyboardFAST COMPANY – June 28 – Online dating has ballooned to a $4 billion business. Now the industry faces new players and challenges.

oneGoodLove
Problem: Dominated by hookup sites like Grindr and Manhunt, the gay online-dating space underserves relationship-minded folks.
Solution: OneGoodLove, a sort of eHarmony for the gay and lesbian community, is evolving its matching system.

OkCupid
Problem:  To improve matching algorithms, sites need to know who goes on dates with whom and how those dates turn out.
Solution: OkCupid Labs wants to advance its mobile platform to gather new kinds of data on real-world dating behavior. Via the app, users will be encouraged to give instant feedback about their dates with other OkCupiders.

Badoo 
Problem: As online daters become conditioned to screening potential mates via in-depth profiles, the process of meeting new people online grows further from how offline attraction really works.
Solution: A social discovery app, Badoo facilitates meetings on the fly by encouraging users to find people right around them based on nothing more than a photo, an age, and an interest or two.

HowAboutWe
Problem: A happy customer is a lost user.
Solution: HowAboutWe, a site that connects people based on user-suggested activities, is launching a service for couples.

by Dan Slater
See full article at Fast Company

See all posts on oneGoodLove    See all posts on Badoo
See all posts on OkCupid            See all posts on HowAboutWe

Who’s Telling You The Truth About Dating Algorithms?

Posted on February 1, 2012
Inline-telling-truth-about-dating-algorithmsFAST COMPANY – Jan 27 - Dr. Pepper Schwartz is the author of The Love Test, The Great Sex Weekend, Everything You Know About Love and Sex is Wrong, and more. She's a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle who mugs on behalf of PerfectMatch.com, where she co-developed The Duet® Total Compatibility System. On the final day of the iDate conference, Schwartz told the audience her system is based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Joining her was Dr. Eli Finkel who staked out his own territory as industry-scold, denouncing eHarmony. eHarmony has refused to reveal its algorithm, Finkel said, and therefore the company should not advertise a scientific approach to matching until it can show, publicly, that its system works according to the standards of scientific rigor. Today it's not the professor-backed dating sites but the ones run by math geeks that seem to be on top. Sam Yagan, a cofounder of OkCupid.com (sold to Match.com for $90M), responded to Drs. Finkel and Schwartz with an occasional eye roll. He dispatched a very brief, slide-assisted explanation of OkCupid's matching process. The users are not required to answer any questions. But the site is premised on the idea that the more questions users answer, the better OkCupid works for them. For each question, users provide three answers: (1) their own answer, (2) the answers they are willing to accept from a match, and (3) the level of importance they attache to the question. The innovation of OkCupid lies in its pliability.

by Dan Slater
See full article at Fast Company

See all posts on PerfectMatch
See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on OkCupid

iDate Demonstrates Shift In Dating Technology

Posted on January 30, 2012

Idate2012 logoFAST COMPANY – Jan 26 – Author Dan Slater, who is writing a book about the online dating industry, attended the iDate Conference in Miami and took a look at the way technology is influencing the way we date online. Things are changing now that one third of America’s 90M singles date online, and it’s no longer the “unspeakable underworld” it once was. Seventeen years ago, when Gary Kremen founded Match.com, anonymity was key to success, protecting people’s privacy and allowing them to reveal their “true identity” on their own terms. In 2007, Zoosk was formed on the basis that the younger generation grew up on technology and the conventional online dating platform was of no interest to them. Zoosk “is for a social life – with dating in mind” where privacy concerns are not as rampant. New sites continue to pop up in the ever-changing industry challenge our notions of privacy and what we should expect going forward. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is right – morality may be divine, but it’s also fickle and shifts in technology make new things possible.

by Dan Slater
See full article at Fast Company

See all posts on Zoosk
See all posts on Match.com

WotWentWrong Is Break Up App For Bad First Dates

Posted on January 29, 2012

Wotwengwrong logoFAST COMPANY – Jan 25 – Startup web app WotWentWrong has set out to solve the “mystery of why promising new romances ended unexpectedly or successful first dates vanished” by allowing users to provide feedback to each other on exactly what went wrong, hoping improve their own dating karma and help their unsuccessful dates find better luck in the future. Features of the site include the WotWentWrong List, with pre-defined explanations for breaking up with someone, proactive feedback from exes with suggestions for future dates, and anonymous stats that shows your romantic success against others online.

by Austin Carr
See full article at Fast Company

The New Digital Singles Scene

Posted on September 1, 2011

Online dating 111 FAST COMPANY – Aug 19 - Online dating startups are using quirky concepts, and emerging technology–from facial recognition to geolocation. Online dating is a $1.5 billion per year industry in the U.S. Match.com generates ~$400M; eHarmony ~$150 million; and Adult Friend Finder earn ~$250M in annual revenue. On most sites, users take the time-honored route of writing up anecdotes about their lives. OK Cupid broke that model by combining traditional "about me" profiles with a personality test a la 20-questions. Dutch startup Soul2Match is using facial recognition software to pair people with similar bone structure. HowAboutWe requires users to suggest unique date ideas to one another. Spoondate asks its members to disclose what they want to eat and where, to match them based on cravings. Luv@FirstTweet tracks its users’ Twitter history to get a sense of their interests and personality.

by Sean Captain
See full article at Fast Company

See all posts on Match.com      See all posts on HowAboutWe
See all posts on eHarmony        See all posts on Luv@FirstTweet
See all posts on OkCupid

Shaadi #39 On The Top 50 Most Innovative Companies

Posted on February 21, 2011
Shaadi logo FAST COMPANY- Feb 20 - This is a list full of surprises, even though No. 1 pick is no surprise at all. Apple itself was once written off; but the company restored innovation to its proper place, and as you'll see when you open the gatefold to the right, our entire economy has benefited as a result. Shaadi dating site is #39. 

Rank     Name    

01 /     APPLE
02 /     TWITTER
03 /     FACEBOOK
…
05 /     GROUPON
06 /     GOOGLE
…
09 /     ZYNGA
…
15 /     FOURSQUARE    
…
22 /     EBAY    
…
24 /     LINKEDIN   
…
26 /     YANDEX    
…
37/      MICROSOFT
…
39 /     SHAADI.COM 
…
44/      PANDORA    
…
FULL ARTICLE & LIST @ FAST COMPANY

See all posts on Shaadi

Match.com Boss: “There’s No Recession In Love”

Posted on December 21, 2010
Greg blatt matchcom CEOm FAST COMPANY – Dec 21 - Earlier this month, Barry Diller announced that he would be stepping down from the CEO position at IAC. Taking his place is Greg Blatt, who helmed Match.com for the last two years. Blatt succeeded in growing Match.com. Its Q3 revenue is up 25% YOY, and Match subscriptions are up 30%. 
Q: How did you manage to grow Match.com, particularly in a climate as miserable as this one?
A: We’ve been really improving the product. We’ve invested tons in growth. We spend money on marketing to make sure people are coming in, and we spend an incredible amount on product development. 
Q: You’re a former mergers and acquisitions lawyer. At Match, you added 28 brands. What’s the secret to identifying a good acquisition?
A: I’m a big fan of acquisitions in areas where you already have a competence. You need to make sure those companies have a market. 
Q: What would you tell students who were trying to decide what industry to go into? What would you tell them about online dating?
A: First, it is a dramatically underpenetrated area. Second, you really change people’s lives with Match.com and other services. The success stories and feedback we get from our customers when they meet somebody special is a benefit that doesn’t exist in 98% of the other opportunities out there. And finally, technology is fundamentally changing this whole experience. 
Q: You worked under both Martha Stewart and Barry Diller. What did you learn about leadership from them?
A: I learned that passion and conviction are two of the most important tools of success, and yet they both need to be tempered by listening. 

Q: You’re single. Do you use Match?
A: I have used Match. It was hard to do while I was the CEO of Match because it led to a very bizarre interchange, once on the date. They’d ask, “What do you do?” And I’d say, “I’m the CEO of Match.”
FULL ARTICLE @ FAST COMPANY

See all posts on Match.com

Blind Dating With FaceTime iPhone App

Posted on August 17, 2010

Visualfriend logo FAST COMPANY – Aug 16 - Visual Friend is a new internet dating service, essentially a curated version of Chatroulette, where iPhone 4 users can connect face-to-face though FaceTime, Apple's new video calling app. Members create profiles, search for lovers, meet in chat rooms, and then "decide whether or not they want to pursue the relationship further by exchanging their numbers. FULL ARTICLE @ FAST COMPANY

The Match Game and how Search Stinks

Posted on October 12, 2005

Fast_company_1— Oct 11 — Match.com has launched Chemistry.com (Denver, Seattle, San Diego, Washington D.C.) using matching technology rather than search technology.  You answer questions and then a computer algorithm finds matches . Now I'm going to surrender my control to let the computer do all the work for me?   Here's the thing, though: Search doesn't work. Match.com believes there's a large audience who want a more structured online dating experience and who'll pay a premium.  Alas, matching is still highly unproven. You have to devote about 40 minutes at the outset to completing a profile in the hopes that it'll bear fruit in the end. In my experience, the harvest is a long way off.   I think that matching has to get more sophisticated–and quickly. Chemistry's answers are either geared in such a way that you don't have any bad traits, only lesser degrees of positive ones, or they make it so that any reasonable person would answer "Sometimes" almost every place it's offered as a response. In the end, you're left with a middle-of-the-road profile that's going to mean that you're still most likely to get paired up with a mate based on whether you both smoke or not rather than based on how likely you both are to share your feelings. On the whole, I'm bullish on the idea of matching technology. 

The full article was originally published at Fast Company, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Matching holds high promise.  Is it delivering right now?  If not, when will it deliver?  Please comment?  TRUE uses the only validated test I've come across yet btw.