BusinessWeek on Internet Dating
I was one of the usual suspects rounded up for a BusinessWeek piece on Internet Dating's seeming decline.
Internet dating sites are an out-of-context experience, and looking for a date should not be similar to buying a pair of shoes. You don't just type in "13 EEE" and look pictures of the arrayed results. It's totally bogus.Olga Kharif[[from Online Dating Faces Rejection]Social-networking sites, such as Friendster.com and FriendFinder.com, add to the competition. Already, both score higher on Alexa traffic tracker than traditional dating sites. Unlike the latter group's usual catalog of profiles, social-networking sites allow for more personal interaction. For instance, users of FriendFinder.com gather in chat rooms to exchange dating advice or play games. And Friendster.com allows users to talk, through voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology, via their PCs.
"When you deal with real people and not a catalog of profiles, you can't just walk away," says Stowe Boyd, president of tech researcher Corante Research in Reston, Va. "It's like breaking out of your social circle."
Ultimately, Internet dating sites will be socialized thtough the admixture of social software, and people will meet through real activities -- like politics, music, art, or other shared interests. Sites like MySpace and Suicide Girls are winning examples of how self-definition around some passion (like music or the counterculture) naturally engenders dating, while most dating sites have the same "empty hall" feeling that I've ranted about regarding social networking mazes like Orkut or Friendster. Minus the supposed alchemy of algorithmic matchmaking, most dating sites feel like one of those Eastern European wife-picking vacation packages, and just about as intellectually appealing.
Married But Dating: It Had To Happen
Via SocialPeople's RelaxedGuy, I bumped into this gem:
[from Married But Dating - MarriedSecrets.Com Fits The Bill]For Immediate Release
LOS ANGELES/EWORLDWIRE/May 24, 2004 --- With the popularity of Internet dating soaring, a new dating site stands out from the rest. MarriedSecrets.com touts itself as the only dating website specifically designed for married people.
Due to the anonymity of online dating, it has never before been easier for people to find each other both anonymously and with little effort. MarriedSecrets.com makes it especially easy for individuals who are looking for some relationship outside of marriage to find other likeminded people. The site is meant to serve those people who want to stay married, yet meet some quality people for discreet hook-ups for whatever reason.
The company stems out of the realization that there was a niche market for married people looking for dates. Upwards of 30 percent of the users of traditional matchmaker sites are married; MarriedSecrets.com was designed to tap into that market and serve those people specifically.
The site's founders felt that if they made a web site that was designed for married people, and if married people could feel comfortable about putting up an anonymous profile on the site, and hook up with likeminded people, then they would be successful.
Over 30% of online daters are married? No wonder they took "All The Good Ones Are Taken" as the site's motto.
On one hand, this could indicate a growing Scandinavianization [yes, you heard that word here first] of sexual attitudes: according to various surveys, many Scandinavians enjoy extramarital sex, and the culture is very relaxed about it. But I am betting that, even while large numbers of Americans are doing one thing behind closed doors, in pulpits and op/ed columns across the country we will hear this condemned as yet another Internet indecency.
Offline Events Losing Steam?
Online dating has, for some time, been going through growing pains. As the industry comes to engulf more and more of the traditional dating scene, there is an urgency to fold in the activities and techiques of old-fashioned dating world.
Over the past year or two, many of the larger players have taken to making use of offline dating events and activities to drum up membership and enhance the member experience. Some of these things are interesting, others bizarre. I can't say for sure that any one works better than the other, having attended several and observed people at them.
Three of the largest players in this business, as of late, are Match.com, True.com, and LavaLife.com. Match has operated MatchLive.com for some time now and performed a large array of events across the country for their members and curious non-members. True.com recently paired up with ClearChannel to do promotions at various concerts and events. LavaLife.com has brought back it's ClickAtAFlick Wednesday night movie-mingling events.
In the past couple of weeks, however, there's been a shakedown of sorts. SocialPeople.com has a great bit of news in this arena. Apparently Match.com has suspended all of its offline events. Strange behavior considering the events business was supposedly up 200%. True.com also chopped its business and laid off 90 of its 150 employees ("Some positions eliminated were in marketing and event coordination, which set up parties and speed dating activities."). The jury is still out on LavaLife.com's attempt (though $10 for a movie, drinks, and conversation is relatively cheap).
I'm curious what's happening inside the towers that's driving this recoil. Perhaps they grew their enterprises too quickly and lost too much? Perhaps there's no interest (I doubt). Time will tell.
iDate Conference Nice
Greg Narain and I attended the iDate conference in Nice last week, as part of our Horde of Vandals tour of Europe. [Greg, are we going to make us t-shirts for the crew?]
The conference was only around 60-70 folks, but either because of that, or because of the particular mix of people, it was a great mixing bowl of networking. Old Friends (like Judith Meskill of the Social Software Blog, and Michael Jones of Userplane), and many new (like Sandra Williamson and Jim Houran of True, and Patrick Marshall of Thomas Services).
The real benefit of a conference in Nice is (as you can see) the food.
(photo courtesy of Yasu Nagaoka; more are found at iDate photos).
I gave a talk, entitled "Social Tools and The Third Space," which I enjoyed researching, and which I will be turning into a written piece in the next week. Uploading the powerpoint won't help much because a/ it was mostly pictures and me handwaving, and b/ the pictures are so dense that the powerpoint overwhelms our Moveable Type limits for upload. Stay tuned. Here's the abstract:
Web context is increasingly assuming the role of the 'third place' -- after work and home, as defined by Ray Oldenburg -- where the sense of community is created. As third place moves online and becomes third space, how will the technologies that we use to communicate shift to support a broader range of social interactions? What about the enhanced third place that new cell phone services are creating in Europe? What can we learn from online work communities and today's online affiliatory communities (like online dating) to intuit the third space of the near future, both internationally and in Europe? What other business models appear in the third space, aside from those we have already seen in social networking today?
Who Banged Who?
I love this social networking concept. Too bad it's just a parody.
Who Banged Who?About WhoBangedWho.com!
What better subject for a Social networking site than sex and sexual past? This site is a parody, meant to entertain with a silly idea, and we hope it has served exactly that purpose. As of right now, we have no real inention to develop this site and build a functioning network. If you would like to develop something under this domain, feel free to contact us with a proposal. And don't worry if you filled out the signup form....it doesn't submit anywhere. Thanks for coming, and be sure and tell all of your friends...and past partners about WhoBangedWho.com.
European Internet Dating
I came across this piece, which includes some amazing stats about the level of Intenret dating in Europe -- good grist for the mill, since I will be opining about that topic at iDate (Nice on 15 July). In particular, the projections about future single status for the enderly are compelling:
Ruth Hill[from The Observer -- Their eyes met across a crowded room full of speed-daters...]Now, one in five single adults in Britain happily admits to using some sort of dating service, enabling agencies to boast of memberships larger than the population of some small countries: DatingDirect.com, for example, has a membership of more than 1.5 million.
[...]
There are currently 11 million single adults in Britain, a number that is predicted to increase to 16 million by 2010, and fairly evenly split between genders.
According to a Demos report last week, the number of socially isolated elderly people will rise by a third to 2.2 million by 2021, thanks to the failure of younger people today to find a partner.
[...]
The rise in the popularity of the web-based dating industry in the past year alone is astonishing: there are 44 million links to dating agencies on the web today, compared to 13.1 million in March 2003; 3.95 million personal advertisements, compared to less than one million in 2003; and almost 7.5 million dating services, compared to 2.8 million a year ago.
The piece also digs in on "serial daters" -- people who never really settle into relationships, but just keep on with the services and various activities (like naked speed dating).
[pointer from Judith]
Digital Courage
Interesting piece on the use of Blackberries for "personal social networking" (i.e., dating) and introduces a great term:
And the author's name?JENNIFER 8. LEE
[from A BlackBerry Throbs, and a Wonk Has a Date]The devices have given Washington professionals a way to Ping-Pong witty messages back and forth with potential love interests around the clock. The BlackBerry's mobility makes exchanging personal e-mail at all hours a lot more convenient than using a computer, and it offers protection from the awkwardness that voice communication can present.
Never mind liquid courage: this is digital courage.
Yeah, but I don't get the period -- its not an initial, is it?[from norlos.com]“Some people have asked what is the deal with the Washinton Post’s Metro reporter Jennifer 8 Lee. Well here it is… Jennifer’s parents are from China, where there about 200 million people have the last name “Lee.” To impart a sense of individuality they gave her the middle name “8,” which has special meaning to the Chinese. It means luck, good fortune, security and strength.”
Coming Soon To A Newstand Near You!
Article in Wired is about to go live (June 8):
The AIM Sniffer hack sounds cool.Bob Hilby[via email]Cracking the Code to Romance
Annalee Newitz writes about geek approaches to online romance in the June 2004 issue of Wired magazine. The article starts on page 156. Christopher Filkins and his FOAF-based Dating Syndicate. Marc Canter's People Aggregator is mentioned as another dating engine built on FOAF.Kevin Burton is named "The Sniffer" for his use of AIM Sniffer to pick up women in wireless Internet enabled San Francisco cafés.
Jonathan Moore is profiled as "The Stalker" for his use Unix shell scripts and Netcat to pull e-mail addresses from wireless networks and match the data with a Friendster profile. "Today's dating hacks will be tomorrow's Friendster or Match.com."
Patenting Online Relationships
eHarmony has reduced it all to a few equations, or at least a 'method and system' so I guess all the umptyump millions being invested in social networking and dating companies are being thrown away.
Rachel Konrad[from The Seattle Times]This month eHarmony.com received U.S. Patent No. 6,735,568, which describes a "method and system for identifying people who are likely to have a successful relationship."
Not surprisingly, critics and competitors trash eHarmony's process as overly scientific -- some dismissing the so-called "love patent" as gimmicky.
Oh no, no gimmicks. But patenting successful online relationships? I will have to readt the patent, I suppose, but this is too much.