Markus links to a video of Myspace CTO talking about how they pay billg a lot of money to run the site on ASP.NET. When they had 65 million users, 250 servers were used to just serve up the homepage! The performance gains cannot be denied, but still, I think most of the complexity is managing the amount of traffic they get (load balancing and media servers type stuff), not anything particularly tricky. Then again, I'm sure there are all sorts of crazy hacks they've done to keep the site running.
Sysadmins and those in the know, what is wrong with this picture?
% dig myspace.com
...
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;myspace.com. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
myspace.com. 85833 IN A 216.178.32.50
myspace.com. 85833 IN A 216.178.32.51
myspace.com. 85833 IN A 127.0.0.1 myspace.com. 85833 IN A 216.178.32.48
myspace.com. 85833 IN A 216.178.32.49
Courtesy of OpenID and LID (emerging open-source Microsoft Passport replacements) guru Johannes Ernst.
Cisco, maker of fine routing and networking appliances, has unveiled a $300,000, six screen high definition videoconferencing system. Except they call it telepresence because everyone's heads are life-size. I spend at least an hour a day videoconferencing in Skype and have grown the love the added expression video brings a conversation.
This is overkill, but in a few years, HD webcams and high-bandwidth videochat will be the norm. Now that's dating online. Speed Dating and Match.com are mentioned 1/2 jokingly in the video demonstration.
CTO's IT Managers and CFO's may want to take a look at Media Temple's new Grid Server. I use Media Temple myself for my personal blog and am happy with the experience, after having 7+ hosts over the last 10 years it's nice to see hosts begin to offer Google-like server farms and redundancy. Starting at $20/month, it appears to be a pretty sweet deal. I'll probably move over the the Grid system next week and see how it handles my personal blog.
Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq:EQIX), the leading provider of network-neutral data centers and Internet exchange services, today announced that eHarmony will expand the company’s operations at Equinix with a new Web site operations deployment at Equinix’s Washington, D.C. area Internet Business Exchange™ (IBX®) center. The move comes after eHarmony has successfully deployed production operations for the company’s Web operations at Equinix’s Los Angeles area IBX center.
Starting in 2000, part of my duties at a management consulting firm was to track the location, bandwidth and occupants of Internet data centers around the world. The data we collected went into enormous maps printed on Darth Plotter. We used the data for a variety of projects, from planning optimized routes for fiber optic cables as the snake through cities such as Las Vegas, then the fastest growing metropolitan area in the US, to gauge the growth of internet companies based on the amount of rackspace and bandwidth ordered.
In addition to network connectivity benefits, Equinix’s centers also provide eHarmony with a secure and redundant physical infrastructure with a strong track record of uptime. Power operations at each center include a high-performance backup system that ensures uninterrupted power even in the event of utility power disruption. Security features include interlocking "mantrap" doors, multiple layers of biometric hand-geometry scanners controlling access, as well as 24-hour security officers and hundreds of surveillance cameras.
Eharmony states they currently have 13 million users.
This is the kind of critical infrastructure Markus at PlentyOfFish fame would categorize as over-redundancy. We'll see how PoF itself adapts to it's continued massive growth.
I continue to hear from people who are looking for dating site developers. I went to good old guru.com, typed in "dating" and voila, 200 people who have the word dating in their work profile.
I posted a request for developers to Craigslist once, and received 315 emails in 4 days. For those who don't have the time or necessary ability to perform massive amounts of due diligence, Guru might be a good place to check out.
If you're a dating site developer and you're reading this, leave a comment with your contact info. Sometime, somehow, we'll have a better list of developers on here.
Yesterday I had coffee with Jeana Frost, creator of Virtual Dates, an application well suited for the icebreaker portion of meeting someone online. You know the feeling. Someone catches your eye, but their profile doesn't leave you with much to start a conversation with. You sit there re-reading the profile over and over, trying to glean that tidbit of information that's going to tip the scale over and have you reaching for the Wink or Email button.
Suffice to say it was clear early on in our conversation that we shared common ground when it comes to our views on the shortcomings of online dating.
Jeana and her fellow academics think the current model for meeting someone online is artificial and static, and far removed from everyday social interaction. I couldn't agree more.
According to Jeana and co's research, online dating is terribly inefficient, lacks appropriate filters and a mechanism for social feedback. Where is the information we really want to know about a person? The attributes we need most that aren't described by income, religion or favorite sports team?
To begin to address the perceived shortcomings of today's dating sites, Jeana built Virtual Dates while at the MIT Media Lab. Virtual Dates is built on Chat Circles, part of of Sociable Media Group.
Chat Circles is an abstract graphical interface for synchronous text conversation. Here, color and form are used to convey social presence and activity, and proximity-based filtering is used intuitively to break large groups into conversational clusters. The system also includes an integrated history interface, which visualizes archival Chat Circle logs. Our goal in this work is to create a richer environment for online discussions.
While I haven't seen the demo, from the description, it sounds like it could be a useful feature for dating and social networking sites, if the user experience is done just right and the final product is properly integrated. It's got to be dead simple to stick on a site like a Userplane chat and tightly integrated, like WeAttract on Yahoo Personals. Speaking of WeAtttract, whatever happened to them?
I'm often frustrated with my dating site clients when it comes to baseline metrics for measuring various site stats. Thankfully, being a Media Lab alumni, Jeana knows how important the role of data logging can be in monitoring and measuring the performance of an application like Virtual Dates.
Thankfully there is a phenomenal testing lab available, Myspace. Unleash your app out into the wild, get 50k users in a few weeks and log loads of data about how people are, and aren't using the service.
Less than half of all singles in the US has tried online dating. The other half remains a cagey quarry unlikely to sign up for a dating site any time soon due to a number of factors, known and unknown.
Dating sites should be doing everything in their power to figure out ways to entice more people to try online dating. Adding social networking features is part of the solution, but the real answer is the unknown and often intangible gut reaction people get to a particular blend of features, user experience and quality of the members. The vibe of a site is often what makes or breaks it's success and it's almost impossible to stumble across the perfect blend of paid subscription, social networking, dating, collaboration and communication tools which will define the online dating experience of the future.
Perhaps applications like Virtual Dates, or an environment based on the concept, is what's needed to entice the other 50 million singles to give online dating a shot.
Jeana's dissertation is titled "Decision Making in the Information Age: A Study of and Design for Online Dating." You can bet that's going to be on my reading shelf in the near future. Harvard Business School did a story on Virtual Dates last week.
Dating and social networking executives would do well to seek out Jeana at jeana.frost at gmail dot com to find out more about how new social interaction applications will drive the next generation of online dating and social networking. If enough interest is drummed up, I'm hoping we'll see Virtual Dates on dating sites soon enough.
Personal Computer World has a review of Whitesmoke, the downloadable writing support software I mentioned a few weeks ago. I've asked for a copy of the software several times, to no avail, so I can't comment on how it performs.
Dating and social networking sites spend a lot of resources on customer service reps that manually review profiles and photos. Larger sites employ sophisticated skin filters that can differentiate between a nipple and a nose, which is important for sites that have millions of photos uploaded a week. Every site has a different set of rules that define what is acceptable and what is not.
Now there is a new system that aims to make the profile review process more efficient.
ProfileApproval, an innovative business service for social and internet dating websites, was today launched by Irish software house, WebSpirit. ProfieApproval.com offers social websites the opportunity to ‘clean up’ photographic and text profiles posted on their sites.
ProfileApproval still relies on a human sitting in a chair. $8 per hour = 200 photo reviews, $16 = 400 and so on.
Solflex is similar to ProfileApproval. I met with them last summer. They have a back-end administrative system called Automated Customer Service Attendant that contains WinScreener, which is quite similar to the ProfileApproval offers. I've seen the demo and it definitely seemed to work.
Leave a comment if you use, or are considering outsourcing your profile review process.
Dating and social networking sites spend a lot of resources on customer service reps that manually review profiles and photos. Larger sites employ sophisticated skin filters that can differentiate between a nipple and a nose, which is important for sites that have millions of photos uploaded a week. Every site has a different set of rules that define what is acceptable and what is not.
Now there is a new system that aims to make the profile review process more efficient.
ProfileApproval, an innovative business service for social and internet dating websites, was today launched by Irish software house, WebSpirit. ProfieApproval.com offers social websites the opportunity to ‘clean up’ photographic and text profiles posted on their sites.
ProfileApproval still relies on a human sitting in a chair. $8 per hour = 200 photo reviews, $16 = 400 and so on.
Solflex is similar to ProfileApproval. I met with them last summer. They have a back-end administrative system called Automated Customer Service Attendant that contains WinScreener, which is quite similar to the ProfileApproval offers. I've seen the demo and it definitely seemed to work.
Leave a comment if you use, or are considering outsourcing your profile review process.
Long time ODI advertiser Userplane (thanks guys!) just published their monthly newsletter. I was in a ABC pilot dating show last year and we couldn't use Userplane because they didn't have the moderation tools we needed for the post-show chat. Latest news is that Userplane Integrated Webchat clients can now enjoy full moderated chat features. This allows speakers, presenters, interviewers and interviewees to offer a full live-event platform. A welcome feature addition, I just love the feeling of booting people out of a chat room.
Here's a podcast where Socal Tech interviews Userplane CEO Mike Jones. I have been listening to 20+ podcasts a week lately, in iTunes or running with my iPod Mini. I often learn much more about people behind the products and companies I'm interested in than I would anywhere else. Much is often revealed in podcasts that never makes in into web sites or even blogs for that matter.
Red Hat, the Linux distributor, is developing an open source social networking service called MugShot.
The platform-neutral service enable users to chat, share links and information about music. Mugshot is designed for mainstream users and allows developers to create new services that leverage the core functionality of the platform. Television, video and photo sharing are expected soon.
Why they rely on a client application is beyond me, although the FAQ says it works with existing installed version of popular P2P, chat and music apps.
Mugshot is currently open by invitation only. More at Ars Technica.
The latest version of the Userplane Webmessenger IM tool allows free anonymous calls between the users inside an IM conversation. Userplane Anonymous Calling users will have immediate access to a free phone number and extension – available for myriad of live multi-party functions such as web conferences, party lines, and online events. Every IM connection will generate a private number and extension that users can call in to using their cell phone or land-line, and all for no additional charge to the site or the user.
Most anonymous calling vendors have approached the online dating industry with questionable success. With thousands of dating and social networking sites already running the Userplane chat software, Mike Jones and company can focus on adding new features. Userplane does not have to do deals with social networking sites like Myspace, members can embed the chat client themselves.
The the creators of Ecto, my favorite blogging tool: When I type something, then apply a formatting like bold, then undo, what I typed last is removed. Undo should roll back the most recent command, which was applying the formatting, not deleting the most recently entered text.
Programmableweb is a site dedicated to Web 2.0 API's for merging/mashing/RSSifying and generally making the interweb a better place. The dating entries are all based on HotOrNot, zzzzz. I want to see who can mashup Yahoo and Match search results without using Greasemonkey or any other browser extension. I've seen some kludgy results in the past, bring it on the good stuff and I'll post them here.
Here is a photo of the Nielsen television habit tracking box. They break into your cable and satellite box, add some wires, patch into your phone line and then take off, leaving you with what looks like a remote control from 1973. As much as we complain about the problems with online ranking systems, be glad this thing isn't measuring the success of your website. It may be accurate, but it's not exactly a passive measurement device and only takes a few measures, from which they extrapolate ratings. The analog version of Alexa if you will.
Opendating.org is releasing a free, open source dating site solution sometime in 2006. It's Java-based (yuk!) Maintainer is Adam Zimowski, who better get himself out of that bar and in front of a keyboard if he hopes to offer a usable solution that can compete with Webscribble and AEWebworks.
I love Technorati and finding out who is linking to my site. Along with the good stuff, which I'll get to in a minute, I find that unfortunately there are lots of clueless people out there who thinks its ok to pull my full or partial feed without attribution, or at best sticking a link in a sidebar with lots of other sites. Then they wrap the feed with Adwords and make money off of it. I enjoy the freedom of RSS but when other people profit off my hard work, that just sucks, worse than spam in my book.
Now for the good. I found out from the Plaxo blog that they saw my post about keeping up with employment trends with Plaxo. That led me back to their blog where I found out that Plaxo works on Macs now.
I've always been leery of stuffing my rolodex online but now after using gmail for almost two years and having a blog for over 3 years I'm used to the feelings of exposure. Hopefully this will enable me to manage my business as well as personal contacts better.
When the user starts the hunch engine he is presented with a seed -- a starting point -- and a set of mutations. The user selects mutations that look promising in his eyes, and the application uses that selection to generate another set of mutations, continuing in that fashion until the user is satisfied with what he sees. Call it guided natural selection, where the selector for fitness is what looks good to the human in front of the monitor.
Taking into consideration that men are more concerned with looks than women (according to researchers), the Hunch Engine represents the evolution of common gallery views, which are quite useful for browsing large amounts of people quickly and efficiently.
Piers Steel at the University of Calgary was nice enough to respond to my request for more information about his mathematical formula called Synthetic Validity; A mathematical theory that attempts to bridge the gap between individuals' personalities and abilities. Synthetic Validity, while being touted as the next big thing in Human Resources, may also be a good fit for the online dating industry.
I think pheromones are better for compatibility testing but what do I know?
Here's what Mr. Steel has to say:
Originally designed for industry and their stricter requirements (e.g., able to withstand legal challenges), synthetic validity is a methodology to create a fully automatic selection system. By changing the metric from job performance to relationship satisfaction, you can use it to select romantic partners as well. In fact, it is much easier to use it for dating. It is simply putting “soul mate” selection on a firm measurement and scientific foundation, taking advantage of 100 years of selection research.
The methodology is complex in parts, and if you want to know how it works, you can download a copy directly.
However, be sure that it does work. The International Journal of Selection and Assessment, where it was published, is a peer-reviewed top management journal that specializes in this topic (see http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0965-075X). This is the sum of decades of effort and it starting to come under an increasingly amount of press:
Peter thinks the Globe and Mail article does the best at summarizing the process, so if you have trouble accessing it, here is a key paragraph:
The mathematics involved are complex, but the idea itself is devilishly simple. First, a particular job is broken down into a series of behaviours -- common building blocks that could be assembled in different combinations to describe any kind of work. Coaching others, or a customer-service orientation are examples of such building blocks. Then, the predictors of those behaviours, from tests of individuals, are ascertained. The next, and most complicated step, is to establish the relationship between the two.
As it applies to dating, the methodology begins with breaking down relationship satisfaction into fundamental elements (e.g., physical, emotional, intellectual) that encompass the important parts of any relationship. The association between each of these elements and any predictor (pretty much anything you can quantify) is determined. To apply it to new candidate, they simply indicate what relationship elements are most important to them and how much. After that, the algorithms take over and provide your results.
What can it do?
1. To begin with, it can provide an overall ranking as well as break it down to specific relationship domains. In other words, it tells you who are overall the best as well what areas of the relationship they will likely excel at.
2. Because you have it overall as well as by life domains, there are a variety of measurement issues that come into play that improves your accuracy of prediction. For example, people can weight what life areas are most important to them (e.g., adventure, work, religion).
3. You can start to investigate generalizability, determining how many different life domains can be meaningfully separated (this will again help prediction).
4. To prevent user fatigue, you can use different sets of predictive tests. You can start with a brief selection system, provide increasingly complex assessment in stages, or use full-blown selection. You will able to predict at each stage.
5. You can select for short-term as well as long-term attraction and happiness. We ran into this problem in personnel selection a while ago. Some people were great out of the gate but slow in the stretch. The solution is time-varying covariates, but it requires gathering data at many stages of the relationship.
6. You can give confidence intervals around expected satisfaction at any time and how the relationship is expected to progress.
7. You can mathematically determine what set of predictors works the best.
You can also start moving beyond simply selection and provide advice.
1. You can point area of strength and “hot spots,” where tension is likely to arise.
2. You can suggest areas of personal improvement that will help people interest those they would be happy with.
Again, the choice of predictors is pretty much whatever you want; as long as the predictor is quantifiable, you can incorporate it in to the selection system. Consequently, it would make sense to develop a culture of constant improvement. Let different predictors compete against one another by constantly feeding the system new data (by the way, the new data is NOT simply responses on predictor tests alone). You still will retain backward compatibility. That is, later users will be even better matched but you can still provide services to those who have to yet to update their profiles.
It short, your dating system should be more accurate and provide richer feedback than anything else in the market and furthermore there are clear steps for constant improvement to maintain that advantage. If you want to explore using this methodology, contact Ian Bell at the Technological Transfer unit at the University of Calgary.
Update: Here's a list of 10 more scientific papers about theories of romantic relationships development.
Userplane is rolling out new features over the next few months. The following was part of an email sent to clients.
Userplane Presence Although some Userplane clients have implemented infrastructure necessary to handle the burden of messaging and presence – many of our clients prefer to have this complex overhead offloaded entirely to Userplane. We will be releasing (as an optional service) an API for comprehensive web-presence that will eliminate strain on your servers and dramatically improve Userplane application performance.
Desktop Presence (including message & alert broadcasting)
This new lightweight, downloadable desktop application will allow your users to remain "present" on your site regardless of actually being on your site – around the clock. Not only will this enhance your online numbers and foster more constant member communication, you will be able to deliver off-site messages and alerts anytime. The application will have a persistent background connection with your web-presence system and/or Userplane's XML and presence infrastructure. The application itself will be very customizable - sitting unobtrusively in the PC system tray - allowing you to deliver content directly to the desktop, list all desktop-presence users online, and launch IM windows without having users log into your actual website.
Anonymous Calling Userplane will be releasing an anonymous calling function to plug into the existing application suite. This will be a premium paid calling service built directly into the interface and will be set up to generate a payment transaction back to your site.
In addition to these core upcoming features, stay tuned for updates around additional skinning options, Webmessenger content archiving, SMS integration, and many other new features we believe will greatly enhance your community!
I'm liking this new trend of enhanced presence, which Userplane and Vivox are both focusing on.
Stickier dating sites could mean more advertising dollars and subscription revenue, although definitive metrics of the benefits are difficult to come by.
My initial reaction is that for dating sites,
I am not a fan of yet another app running in the system tray. Both companies would do well to integrate with existing messenger applications and drop the custom clients. But existing IM clients don't have the functionality of these next-generation messaging application.
A conundrum. Who needs another IM window to deal with? I have Skype, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, ICQ, Jabber gateway, soon Myspace (probably never on Mac though).
I spend about two hours a day in Skype and an hour on IM. My presence is built into them, and global forwarding to my mobile phone is right around the corner. I'll pay $9.95 a month to forward all my communications to whatever device I'm on, sometimes several during the course of a normal day. Adapt to how I use the devices, not the other way around.
I go to dating sites to go look at dating sites. The whole always-on aspect makes me suspicious. I want to go in, check messages, send a few, and then get outta there. I want to spend the least amount of time on the site or in the chat as possible. I don't want that stuff popping up at work, although I like the idea of it being routed to my phone when I'm bored. Makes me feel wanted, powerful feature.
Most people come home and check their email for a bit, is this where extended presence will become beneficial? Why would you want to have users communicate when they are not logged into your website? Unless there is a way to log their actions, wouldn't that reduce visitor ranking? Why not just send my daily matches to my IM client or RSS feed and do away with the website entirely?
Devil's advocate I may be, but the value proposition for dating sites is still unclear because the revenue stream is dependent on a promise, not cash in the bank except for anonymous calling.
Anonymous calling will be useful to some, maybe Mike Jones at Userplane or Rob Seaver at Vivox will chime in to provide additional information about the average costs of the service and the other benefits of their offerings.
The question is why pay for it when you can get it for free, or close to it, on Skype or soon Yahoo and AIM? Because most net denizens are not savvy enough, especially in the dating space, and perhaps prefer tight integration with the site they belong too and don't want to be bothered with all the other stuff. Nobody knows much more than this at this point, will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
Dan Gilmore writes about the Attention Economy this week, the phrase and it's derivatives are starting to gain hold in tech media circles. I wish I could have seen the Root Vaults database tour at eTech.
Cookies have been around since the dawn of the web. Finally we're at the point where our clickstreams can be mined for valuable proactive services such as recommendation engines and truly targeted marketing.
It's all about harvesting at this point. Not popular enough for the security and privacy people to complain and hack into the vault, which will happen, resulting in some not-so-nice things being unearthed about certain people.
I installed the Attention Recorder again to see how it works. For now, I record everything locally to my hard drive. My clickstream is worth a lot of money, I'll think about sharing it when I get paid for it.
In the meantime, it reminds me of features on many dating websites. "The profile for the person you are looking is not available, here are a few other people who are similar". Works ok but I'd like to see it function as well as Pandora, which Friendster is using now.
I don't see any sites taking advantage of the clickstream users create as they search, browse and click around dating sites. There is a ton of value there not being taken advantage of.
MySpace Messenger account with your own MySpace UserName!
IM your MySpace friends anytime!
One-click login to your mail, blogs, and more!
Get instant notification for add requests, messages, and comments!
Find and view your friends' profiles with one click!
It's FREE! And more features coming soon!
According to Digg, the client is from GTV. I've been using iChat to connect to a EU Jabber server that bridges MSN Yahoo AOL ICQ and a few other protocols. Works but kludgy. Friday, I installed Adium, which connects to all of these and more and is totally skinnable and customizable. IChat has been removed from my Dock for good, unless I'm videoconferencing with someone, which won't be necessary as soon as Skype has video for the Mac. I'm flummoxed why Myspace would try to brand it's own IM, granted I'm not sure if it will talk to other networks like AOL Yahoo and MSN, we'll see.
Engineers at Fujifilm are working on a terabyte holographic memory device the size of a sugar cube. When video profiles are finally in vogue this will come in handy.
This weekend I am installing Linux on my iPod Nano so I can load Wikipedia on it. I got sick of getting into arguments with people at bars about who starred in what movie, how many subscribers Spark Network has, or the name of the woman who did the faceplant on her snowboard at the Olympics. It's all at the Wikipedia website, and now I'll have it in my pocket. Kind of like when Neo asked Trinity if she knew how to fly the helicopter in the Matrix and immediately makes a call from her cell phone to obtain the necessary pilot training program. I don't like know-it-alls but I hate it when I have a something on the tip of my tongue, only to remain there due to multi-tasking or beer consumption. What, you don't know about Wikipedia? Go check it out.
Think of having a local copy of 12 million video profiles and all of Myspace downloaded to your iPod, or your phone for that matter. Mind boggling.
Think of PodDater on steroids. But alas, I went to PodDater today and it's looking more like YouTube.com, lots of videos of people driving cars around racetracks, stupid gag videos and a bunch of uninteresting junk. They have set up the url scheme so you can arbitrarily enter in a page number to jump to it. I found 19 pages of people with pictures or video profiles, which is 238 people. Where's the growth? It makes more sense to get people to stick their video profiles on MyTybe or one of it's 50 competitors that have lots of traction already.
Vivox has announced Tempo, an online communications technology specifically focused on enhancing member interactions for online dating and social networking communities. Tempo simplifies interaction among online daters by allowing them to connect using a variety of communication tools - voice, video and IM - across various platforms such as the Web, Interactive Voice Response Telecom, Internet Protocol and mobile phones.
Vivox’s Tempo offers online dating and social networking services a broad array of IP communication tools – IM, voice and video – that seamlessly integrate into their community. In addition, the solution’s innovative rules engine ensures that a users’ privacy is never compromised. Users can implement advanced safety and security features in their personal settings to allow for more natural, controlled and graduated connections.
I took a look at an early version of the Tempo, and came away impressed with it's initial capabilities. The service is so flexible and granular, seems like customization to particular dating sites would be straightforward.
Userplane Webchat now features streaming audio and video (through Flash MX), mini-profiles, a user photo, and an overall usable and flexible Flash interface. The new version allows for full support of unlimited user video streams, integrated chat history display, advanced user and administrative block and ban functions, and site-administered room alerts. New chat archiving in conjunction with an also new hidden-rooms feature will facilitate seamless live chat for large audiences and large online events. Too many new or improved features to list, go check out the demo.
Retrievr is a web app where you draw something and retrievr goes and finds all the images on the photo sharing service Flickr that resemble what you drew. I had fun with this, trying to draw people and seeing what retrievr returned. Perhaps an enterprising dating site will integrate a similar feature where you are presented with a grid of people and click on those who most closely resemble the type of person you want to date, Darwinism meets Hot-or-not.
I'm getting lots of requests for website developers to work on dating and social networking sites. The requirements are broad enough to warrant sending me resume's and I'll forward them on to the interested parties. Several years of PHP experience and a portfolio of heavy-duty database-driven sites is important. .NET developers as well. It wouldn't hurt to know your way around a server either and have a sufficiently high clue-density when it comes to scalability and system architecture, although some of the gigs are straightforward fixes and enhancements to existing systems, some of which have been built offshore. Some of the gigs are small, perfect for someone between larger consulting gigs. Another project is quite large. Resume's to devans at corante dot com.
I'm getting lots of requests for website developers to work on dating and social networking sites. The requirements are broad enough to warrant sending me resume's and I'll forward them on to the interested parties. Several years of PHP experience and a portfolio of heavy-duty database-driven sites is important. .NET developers as well. It wouldn't hurt to know your way around a server either and have a sufficiently high clue-density when it comes to scalability and system architecture, although some of the gigs are straightforward fixes and enhancements to existing systems, some of which have been built offshore. Some of the gigs are small, perfect for someone between larger consulting gigs. Another project is quite large. Resume's to devans at corante dot com.
I'm getting lots of requests for website developers to work on dating and social networking sites. The requirements are broad enough to warrant sending me resume's and I'll forward them on to the interested parties. Several years of PHP experience and a portfolio of heavy-duty database-driven sites is important. .NET developers as well. It wouldn't hurt to know your way around a server either and have a sufficiently high clue-density when it comes to scalability and system architecture, although some of the gigs are straightforward fixes and enhancements to existing systems, some of which have been built offshore. Some of the gigs are small, perfect for someone between larger consulting gigs. Another project is quite large. Resume's to devans at corante dot com.
Personalized portals help keep track of our digital lifestyles. I use MyYahoo from time to time, mostly for tv listings, stock tracking, and weather. I've always wanted the next version of MyYahoo. Unfortunately, Google is not it.
Protopage looks like it could be a replacement for MyYahoo. configured as a dashboard, you could add content to Panels, which could be used to manage your online dating profiles, links to dating sites, notes about dates you've been on and dating news.
After playing around with it for 2 minutes, I threw together a quick Protopage to show you what it could look like. Too bad you can't view your personal pages on various dating site in Protopage, although I bet that's in the works.
A while back I wrote about Yahoo Personals hiring developers to RSS-ify profiles for use in co-branded partnerships and white-label solutions. Since then, the only dating sites I've seen that offer RSS feeds is Othersingles and Consumating.
Yahoo and Microsoft are busy building out an 'RSS Everywhere' strategy. Watching Google and RSS is like watching a high school student experiment with a chemistry set. Meanwhile Yahoo and Microsoft are busy inserting RSS into their DNA.
Henry Blodget writes about Ingenio, the pay-per-call company that used to power Match.com's Profile Helper service (Ingenio used to be Keen.com). Evidently, Match got the short end of the deal with Ingenio, and canceled the service after a year or so due to lack of interest. Some blame the short lifespan of the profile service on technical glitches, something about the modules on your Match home page loading in the browser by default in the closed position, so you couldn't see the ads and offers without clicking a link.
Pay-per-call and click-to-call are hot topics in the online advertising space at the moment. Bloget does a good job describing the differences between Ingenio's service and Google's new click-to-call offering. Pundits are pitting Google vs. Ingenio, and Bloget thinks Ingenio is a acquisition target for Microsoft or Yahoo.
I remember when AT&T offered click-to-call services for websites in 1997, what's old is new again. Disruptive technologies like VOIP will do that.
The average price-per-call across the Ingenio network is now $10-$11 per call. In some categories, prices-per-call are as much as $60.
Click-to-call makes sense for dating sites, from a customer acquisition and customer service. I have never once seen an "Operators are standing by" mention on a dating site. Offering a live or even a pre-recorded sales pitch as a link in your affiliate marketing materials and pay-to-click ads might be just what it takes to get customers to take out their wallets on your sites instead of the competition's.
I haven't seen any sites that make use of this technology yet, although I suspect some are testing it out quietly.
As a dating site executive, where will you spend your money in 2006? On offering new communication features for members in the hopes that this will differentiate you from your competitors or implement technology-based customer acquisition and retention systems?
Or, simply raise your marketing spend and hope for the best?
A woman named Mary has been blogging about auditioning for the new reality show American Inventor. While perusing her blog, I came across the idea for the iFlirt. Reminiscent of Lovegetty, iFlirt is an add-on for your iPod that alerts you when someone matching your criteria comes within your PAN (Personal Area Network).
Vivox has announced it will powerWorldFriends Networks'Phone service, which will allow WFN's half-million global users to communicate with each other via live text, voice or video chat.
WorldFriends Networks is one of Asia's largest online dating service providers and operates in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. 500k members.
WFN claims to be the industry's first online dating service to provide its user community with an integrated Web-voice-video-Instant Messenger communications platform.
This is not the case so I called Vivox CEO Rob Seaver to learn more about their product. After all, Userplane has been around a long time, offering chat and video to thousands of websites. Remember Lemontonic, who tried to build a dating service based on Microsoft's Instant Messenger engine? They're gone. DateNumber is gone as well. Actually, they have shifted focus on the more lucrative auction market.
The primary selling point to dating sites is Vivox's ability to provide communication solutions tailored to context of dating site. IM voice video presence, groups increase the stickiness factor of sites, and Vivox let's the user control the pace of communication. Members can move from mode to mode without giving up too much information about themselves.
Vivox provides a rich instant messaging client that people can use to communicated regardless if they are logged into a particular service or not. I have a problem with the fact that the last thing anyone needs is another IM client. Rob tells me that their service can work with any client, albeit with reduced functionality.
Vivox’s technology will allow users to conveniently communicate with each other via instant messenger programs, regardless of the branded IM service they may currently use. As a result, WFN community members are no longer hindered by disparate IM applications and can interact with each among the most popular IM networks including AOL’s AIM, Yahoo!, MSN and ICQ.
Recently, Vivox announced $6 million in venture capital funding from Canaan Partners and GrandBanks Capital. The Company, which newly launched from Pulver.com, provides online communities with application specific embedded communications services. Vivox will use this capital infusion to support its sales and marketing organization, and drive development of its hosted platform.
Vivox has a lot of experience with VOIP, and claims to have come up with a cost-effective solution that can be tailored to the varying needs of dating sites.
Over the past two years, Vivox has served behind-the-scenes as the industrial-strength platform for FreeWorld Dialup, a Pulver company that provides VoIP service to more than 500,000 subscribers.
Not exactly Skype, but impressive none the less. If they put some of that $6M into marketing I can see their market share growing considerably.
Online dating services will now be able to offer graduated contact services, e.g., allowing for live voice communication between members, without requiring them to expose personal details such as phone numbers. And for the 10+ million online gamers participating in massively multiplayer games, Vivox creates a more vivid game experience by adding user-customized voice services - such as guild or group-based voice chat - that are a fully-integrated and seamless aspect of the game environment.
Push to talk is all the rage right now, analogous to Nextel for websites. Whether online daters warm up to yet another chat client remains to be seen. There was mention of video capability, which could prove interesting.
I think Vivox is smart to go after the massively multiplayer game market (MMO). I'm sure they'll pick up a few dating site customers, but the MMO market will be much more lucrative.
I get a demo next week and I'll report back what I find.
American Singles and JDate have been redesigned, along with a few other Spark properties. Standardizing on a design template is a smart move but it also makes you realize there is very little difference between several of their sites. You could replace the home page graphics and you couldn't tell the sites apart. They should consider rolling some of the underperforming sites together. Several broken links across the sites, looks like the upgrade isn't fully baked yet.
This week I spoke with Userplane CEO Mike Jones, who tells me Userplane is offering permanent profiles for their freead-supported app clients users.
Anyone can still jump in with just a screen name assuming they set up the app to work that way, but for users that want permanent screen names, photos, and profiles – there are two new buttons: “Create Profile” and “Login”. These new accounts work across the entire network of Userplane Instant Communities unless individual sites choose to restrict access.
For Users
• Customize profiles: who can see and what is seen
• Search and browse profiles
• Live invite-a-friend
• Room alerts
All user information, features, and content created in a site’s Userplane will soon be accessible to the site admin through web administration and a standards-based API. Sites will not only be able to monitor and adjust their Userplane, they will also be able to creatively leverage their new community beyond Userplane.
Users of Userplane's free chat product can create a profile which you will soon be able to share with other free users Userplane profiles, similar to how it works on Yahoo.
Users on sites using Userplane's paid chat product will be able to share their profile with others users, but only on that particular service.
If I belong to a dating site like Date.com, which uses Userplane paid chat client, I'm able to view other Date.com members' Userplane profiles.
The key phrase is "Services will also be able to creatively leverage their new community beyond Userplane." Mike says more features will be rolled out shortly.
The buzz over GoogleBase continues. People Profiles are one of the drop-down category options found in the service when it was publicly available for a brief time this week.
Using the bulk upload function (think of GoogleBase as a giant public database), a free dating site could upload all their profiles, leverage the benefits of Google traffic, Adwords revenue, tagging, powerful search and all of the other Google Services, from GoogleMaps to Froogle.
Think about open profiles, federation between dating sites, new tiers of pricing and services, bundling deals, targeted marketing and everything else people will think of once the service is live.
Unaffiliated singles could post a profile to Google, taking an end run around existing dating sites. I envision the creation of cottage industries developing whole new layers of value-added services- dating butlers, real-time virtual coaching, date ideas based on GoogleLocal, profile enhancement, all formed with Web 2.0 technology, shorter time-to-market and entrepreneurial innovation that we haven't seen since the dawn of online dating.
More when the site launches, which should be any day now.
Dominique sent me a copy of his Greasemonkey script that enables Firefox users to easily save their Meetic search settings instead of having to re-enter them each visit to the site. Download the Greasemonkey extention and then install it from here.
I wrote about using Greasemonkey to reconfigure dating sites at the browser level back in April.
Desktop widgets make finding a date from the desktop easier than ever.
According to Uneasy Silence, Metrodate has released a Konfabulator widget, which floats a small window with a slideshow of people's photos based on simple zip code and age filtering. Knofabulator widgets work cross-platform.
Match has released a Mac-only Dashboard widget which will "alert you to new emails and winks as well as show a list of all your prior “connections.” Also, you can keep track of everyone with whom you have winked, emailed or favored."
More free time due to Red Sox being knocked out of series 1-2-3, somewhat expected due to weak bullpen but still, ugh.
The past few days I've been reading various Web 2.0 conference blogs. The Read/Write Web notes on the Ad Models workshop got me thinking about advertising on dating and social networking sites.
I am wondering how many social networking and dating sites have keywords or tag meta-data associated with profiles. These tags could drive AdSense ads displayed next to my personal ad, myspace or LinkedIn profiles. There are lots of enhanced meta-data which could be associated with my ad, making it easier to micro-target AdSense displays, not to mention facilitate tagging and new ways to refine generic search capabilities past age/proximity/weight.
I know ad networks say they have dating as a targeted sector, but most of the ads I see on dating sites are way off target, the sites are glad to have the inventory and haven't realized that ads targeted to profiles are even more valuable than run-of-network ads.
[Update: Mike Jones says that Userplane uses a keywords system that allows sites to pass in age, sex, location, etc and thus the correct targeted banners are displayed. They are opening up their "closed" ad network to all clients in the near future. Clients will so display Userplane
Ad-Network ad code and participate in that revenue with Userplane handling the ad sales.]
Useplane, a long-time supporter of this blog, has published their October newsletter here. Of particular interest: New Instant Webchat has been deployed on over 10,000 sites in just 12 weeks and the Sitesearch search engine is available to demo. Sliders at the top of the search results allows users to refine or expand the search criteria. Looks like a solid implementation of AJAX-style real-time content updates, very slick.
Hot on the heels of my post about remixing Web 2.0 services comes Ning. Founded by Marc Andresson (think Netscape), it's a development tool for non-developers.
Ning is a free online service (or, as we like to call it, a Playground) for people to build and run social applications. Social "apps" are web applications that enable anyone to match, transact, and communicate with other people.
Our goal with Ning is to see what happens when you open things up and make it easy to create, share, and discover new social apps. These might include for any city, your own take on Craigslist...for any passion, your own take on Match.com...for any interest, your own take on Zagat...for any event, your own take on Flickr...for any school, your own take on the Facebook...for any topic, your own take on del.icio.us...for any mammal, your own take on Hot or Not or Kitten War.
You choose the app, decide for whom it's most relevant, create the categories, define the features, choose the language - or just clone an app that's already up and running on Ning - and be on your way.
This could be absolutely huge, I'm off to check it out.
Over the years I've seen many different types of virtual helpers, from the ill-fated Microsoft Bob to Clippy the Paperclip. I've been doing some research into avatars for dating sites and came across Oddcast. It's straightforward to create an avatar, upload the text and have the avatar speak the text based on specific conditions. Other solutions exist, but Oddcast is the least expensive to integrate. Check it out for yourself.
I am looking to select a private-label dating site to use with several projects. Site must be hosted, and not use a shared database, or provide some way to segment the database. I'm aware of the usual suspects, some of which are listed in theTools & Services section, which by the way I will be updating soon. Let me know if your company would like to be listed in the directory. Emailme with info.
A few months ago I experimented with Greasemonkey, a set of browser extensions which allows anyone with rudimentary web development skills to remix websites. My example Greasemonkey script ran a single query against Yahoo Personals and Match and listed the results side by side.
After a while, I started thinking about a browser based on Mozilla that was tuned up with extensions and helper apps which facilitated managing multiple dating site accounts and especially profiles. A first step towards integrated profiles and cross-site subscriptions. Why wait for dating sites to federate when we can do the same thing in the browser?
Along comes Flock, which promises to be a "social browser". Out in October, I can't wait to see what kind of features and API it includes. I'm thinking that Flock will do most of the foundation building and someone can come along and build out the dating site browsing features.
[Userplane](http://www.userplane.com/ "Userplane Website") announced the release of plug-in modules for software platforms Simple Machines, vBulletin, Mambo and phpNuke. With the release of the modules, website developers and administrators using these platforms can easily and quickly add Userplane to their websites.
Michael Jones, co-founder and CEO, Userplane:
> "We are pleased to embrace standard community software platforms, and open our API to allow quick development and plug-in expansion to systems like these. We have been listening closely to our users, who have asked for a fast and easy installation and distribution methodology for such software systems."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab researcher Anmol Madan has created a PDA application that uses a microphone to measure compatibility between singles.
The mobile matchmaker earned the nickname Jerk-O-Meter because the application not only identifies a person's disinterest but also responds by flashing "Stop being a jerk!" on the speaker's screen.
It will be interesting to see how valid this sort of system really is in the real world. It was reported recently that in a study of speed-daters, the hook-up helper predicted with 95% accuracy whether a couple would exchange numbers.
[Link](http://www.nydailynews.com/09-05-2005/city_life/tech/story/343602p-293230c.html "NY Daily News")
Userplane announces version 1.8.0 of the Userplane Webchat. Two big feature additions are:
1. Multi-User Audio/Video Support for viewing multiple audio/video streams*
2. Hidden Rooms (allows private rooms for certain user types)
*Activation of the multi-user audio/video feature could cause you to incur additional bandwidth costs at the end of the month. For additional information on your current bandwidth usage and package size please reference FAQ entry 12 at http://www.userplane.com/webchat/faq.cfm#q12 .
I am glad to see them embracing RSS for product updates:
AEwebworks has launched the fourth generation of their dating software. AEwebworks is a long-time advertiser and sponsor of the Tools & services section of Online Dating Insider.
Notable features in 4.0:
Integrated blogs- Each member of dating community now can have her own weblog and publish there her daily ideas and thoughts.
This is great, I've been pushing for this for a long time and it's great to see dating sites getting more social.
Couples profiles- site owners can offer registration not only to singles but also to couples. Can you feel the swinging going on?
Media gallery- users can upload pictures but also video and audio files into categories and albums. No more stale static photos.
N-step registrations - dating site admins can divide registration process to several pages.
Customizing the registration process, great idea.
New design templates- default style, religious, mainstream and others.
Based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and Sydney, Australia, AEwebworks is professional software development team specializing solely on dating software.
These guys have been busy rolling out a ton of new features at a reasonable price. By most accounts everyone that I've heard from has positive things to say about the AE team, regardless of the time zone differences and typical American myopic "Where is Kyrgyzstan?" syndrome.
A reader is looking for a voicemail system for his dating sites. Everyone gets a VM box, and have free access via telephone. Leaving message would cost the sending $N/minute.
This being 2005 and the internet and all, I started thinking about a VOIP solutions.
Skype would be a good solution, but not a revenue generator unless you did a deal with them to take part of the fee. It's free to make/receive calls to your screen-name, but an assigned phone number and voicemail features costs around $90/year. I just ordered both features and am inviting select friends, family and associated to call my new # from their phones, which rings on my laptop when I'm logged in. When I'm offline, their call goes to voicemail. Sweet.
Stacy at gNumber might have more to say about this. They have some new products and services that might address the issue. Looks like their site is down for a revamp but I've been using their DateNumber product for a while now.
Anyone else know of a turnkey voicemail solution worth considering? I remember seeing CallKey at iDate. Another one is MyPrivateLine, which has been mentioned here previously.
Last night I found a website called Don't Click Itwhere visitors do not have to click anything to navigate and operate the site. Once you get used to not clicking things, it becomes fairly natural and makes you wonder why we've been clicking all these years.
I use Spotlight on my Mac many times a day. Very rarely do I ever go into the Finder or Windows Explorer to locate a file or program. Start typing the first few characters of the file and pop, there it is right in front of you. Computing and communication is slowing moving away from the hunt-click way of computing and towards gestures and predictive actions.
This morning, I came across something called The Social Fabric. It's a thesis centered on using avatars, predictive menus and pen-based computing to manage your social network. Ok, I just made up predictive menus, but it makes sense that menus should morph to address the context of whatever you're doing at the moment.
Selections are accomplished with circling, or grouping motions around a cluster of avatars representing your friends. Action are chosen through simple, functional menu selections. Inviting a group of friends to a concert, for example, is done in about 10 seconds.
A lot of online dating is managing your emerging and existing relationships, which is why I thought it was appropriate to mention here. If you haven't emailed back someone who wants to go on a date, their avatar slumps over and looks dejected. Healthy relationships are displayed with an avatar standing straight up, looking directly at you. You have to see it, go check out the site and the videos.
Some may argue that it's expensive (computationally, mental retraining) eye candy. This new paradigm of communicating may not seem like a vast improvement over the traditional dating site search-select-communicate model, but it's a step in a new direction worth exploring, at least to come up with ideas for your next site redesign.
My Web 2.0 is a social search engine where users can "tag and save content, connect to friends, share what they know, and discover what the world is tagging."
You can control what you see (and want to see) by your social network, there is an open API for developers and you can pull just about anyone out via RSS feed.
Corante bloggers Ross over at Many2Many talks about Yahoo! My Web 2.0 Beta and Stowe Boyd at GetReal weighs in as well.
Here's the official blog at Yahoo!. Here's the FAQ.
This is going to be fascinating to watch how people use the service. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm changing my home page, to my Yahoo! 360 account to give the service a spin and maybe even use Yahoo search.
If Yahoo extends this over to Yahoo Personals, it spells big trouble for date warehouses like Match, which is not exactly known for synergy or innovation. Blogs, tags, RSS and social search, a killer combination for the dating space.
I used to live in my web browser, now I live in my RSS newsreader.
I have a feed folder called keepup. It contains blog feeds to several popular services I use daily. Technorati, del.icio.us, Feedburner, Bloglines, Flickr, etc. Today the Flickr feed pushed down an application update via RSS, very cool! Pretty easy to wrap updates just like podcasts. I wonder what else is possible?
I'm waiting for more dating sites to offer up feeds of my matches, get that stuff out of my inbox, it's wasting time and effort on my part, and I'm paying you for quality service. Straightforward to implement, what are dating sites waiting for?
Zovine is selling their instant messenger product. Zovine, Inc. is seeking buyers who are looking to enter quickly into the internet dating / social networking industry, while saving 4 years on developing such a messenger. The entire source code of Zovine Messenger, including the Zovine Servers and Administration suite of applications, and 80% ownership in Zovine, Inc. is offered for under $10 million.
9,000 users from 130 countries. Includes database of profiles and photos.
Reminds me a lot of Lemontonic, remember them? Leave Microsoft, license core MSN Messenger, leverage custom messenger as core to new dating service. Spend all the money, redirect resources towards enterprise messaging, like the world needs another secure IM chat client. Get de-listed from stock exchange, get sold for next to nothing.
Perhaps the Zovine story will end differently. Zovine is tightly integrated with Paypal, enabling user to securely sell content to other users. You could use PayPal to buy access to a person's profile or their hott webcam pix. I'm don't know how large the instant-messenger P2P commerce market is, perhaps this is the beginning of personal commerce. The problem is you need yet another instant messaging product. I have spent a lot of time getting meta-chat programs to work, what do I want with another one thats only good for one things at this point?
Yahoo! Chat is king right now, with MSN close behind in terms of functionality. Then you have AOL and the handful of meta-chat programs like Trilian, Fire, etc. Don't get me started on proprietary dating site chat programs, most are terrible. Userplane is running away with the community chat installed base, at least when it comes to the dating and social networking markets. Silk Road has a strong moderated chat program as well.
Here's the Zovine press release:
June, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ZOVINE MESSENGER OFFERS INTERNET DATING - THE COMPANY IS LOOKING FOR A BUYER.
Start-up company Zovine, Inc. has launched a brand new Messenger named Zovine Messenger and is actively looking for a buyer.
This advanced messenger has numerous ways of finding people, by education background, job experience, personal appearance, among many others.
So far 9000+ people signed up from 130 countries, and quickly growing database of profiles and photos.
Zovine Messenger can be downloaded from www.zovine.com/download
The foundation technology used for Zovine Messenger can be converted to many different internet applications.
contact: Eran Shay
organization: Zovine, Inc.
phone: (786) 367-8271
Userplane has announced the deployment of its instant messaging solution, Userplane Webmessenger, on Friendster. Enhancing one of the web’s premier destinations for staying in touch with friends and meeting new friends, Userplane’s Webmessenger will enable Friendster members to communicate with each other in online conversations through web-based one-on-one text conversations.
Userplane now powers chat on Myspace and Friendster and offers advertising across the two sites. They are doing a good job expanding their offerings to dating and social networking sites. Who's the next site to sign up for their ad network? Matchmaker maybe, perhaps Relationship Exchange.
I've been checking out a new feature of Firefox web browsers which enables developers to rewrite web pages. Called Greasemonkey, it's a browser add-on which let's anyone change the layout, look & feel and even add functionality to websites. I had an a-ha moment when I was able to merge Yahoo! Personals and Match.com search results on the same web page. Think about Lycos Dating Search, but without the technical challenge of merging of profiles from partner sites.
Hundreds of people have already created new versions of existing websites. Google Mail, finance sites and many others have been treated to a website makeover, and the results look promising. I can't wait to see what these enterprising programmers come up with next.
Last week I mentioned Sitesearch, comparing it to Transparensee. It turns out that Sitesearch is in fact the Transparensee technology.
Userplane’s search application re-indexes membership data to allow “most-similar” search results, providing users with additional results based on their initial criteria. Sitesearch rapidly returns a result-set matching the initial criteria, but goes beyond, by also displaying most-similar results, thereby providing the user with abundant and relevant results each time. Regardless of the specificity of a given search, the system will always return the best and most natural matches.
Michael Jones, co-founder and CEO of Userplane:
Many sites today have slow search capabilities that often do not return the results users are seeking. Userplane Sitesearch allows for fast searching of a user database, and provides a wider and more applicable result set for users. Now, a website with a relatively small user population can feel as populated as a much larger site. At the same time, those using a site with a large user population will have a much easier time finding what they’re looking for.
Javier Hall, co-founder and CCO of Userplane:
This level of search was previously limited to top tier sites with top tier budgets, but Sitesearch brings best-of-breed search technology within reach of virtually any site.
Userplane is known for their super-simple chat and video integration, a few lines of Javascript and you're off to the races. Until now, dating sites have been hesitant to let their precious member databases flies off into the interweb for ASP-style processing. If Userplane is able to make lower the integration cost and technical hurdles by wrapping a complex technology like Sitesearch with a simple API, they just might have a hit on their hands.
I have heard from several people recently who are looking for dependable website developers with experience building dating sites.
Stephen writes:
My designers here have never built a dating site before. I am wanting to ask you if you know any companies here in the United States,that have built good,quality online dating sites before?
I'm sure an enterprising webdev shop will read this and contact dfw_homes at sbcglobal dot net, but the real issue is to figure out, before a line of code is written, what you are going to do different from thousands of existing dating sites. If it's not new/novel/unprecedented, you're better off going with a hosted solution.
Mark Thompson at WeAtract emailed to follow up on a previous conversation. He sees a a need for a personality test product that 2nd and 3rd tier sites can use. WeAttract is working on this and addressing some of the IT integration issues. Smaller sites have Cadillac tastes and Geo budgets. They want the sophistication and rich media of tests that costs millions of dollars for the big players to develop. The ability for us to deliver affordable, modular, rich media designs has certainly improved dramatically, but the price point can still be an issue.
Personality Tests have quickly become a "standard of practice" or simply a cost of doing business, from some points of view. WeAttract played a role in creating this standard, the exclusive focus on "personality" and on "tests" was never our intent.
Personality is only one of many approaches to connect folks...and "tests" are certainly not the only or most desirable way to learn about people.
Good stuff from Dr. Mark. New products coming from WeAttract soon, stay tuned.
I've been checking out the cool digital imaging tools at Fujifilm that you might have heard about at iDate. I also heard from Soflex, which has Automated Profile Screening Technology and image adjustment system. More on this next week after the demo. In the meantime, boinboing mentioned a website of one of the top photo retouchers, check out the before/after photos, nothing is real...nothing is real...
The Date.com chat feature has been up for a while, although the official press release went out this week.
In other news, Userplane has announced Sitesearch:
Userplane Sitesearch is a powerful search engine easily integrated into any community-based site. You’ve built a good business–now how can you compete with Match.com? Sitesearch gives you the advanced features that, instead of taking years to build, take just days to plug in. From better matching to increased speed, Sitesearch will increase your revenue and keep you ahead of the competition.
Proven an effective tool to display rich results every time, Sitesearch dramatically increases the number of results for nearly every category of search. With features like “similar-search” and “double-match”, Sitesearch not only provides your users with immediate results, it eliminates the dreaded, zero-result set.
Sitesearch re-indexes your membership data to allow “most-similar” search results, providing users additional results based on their initial criteria. If a user is seeking a male in the 35-40 age group within 10 miles of their zip code, Sitesearch provides a result-set matching the initial criteria, but also intelligently displays most-like results–possibly including someone 34 or 41 years old, or someone living within 11 miles of their zip. Sitesearch’s precision enhances the search quality for any website.
This sounds a lot like what Steve Levine has developed with Transparensee. As an ASP model, Userplane touts the ease of integration. How will dating services feel about sending their precious database across the interweb?
John Battelle's has written a piece on Transparensee at the esteemed Searchblog Many of you are familiar with Transparansee founder Steve Lavine. Steve has been showing off Transparensee search capabilities at the last few dating conferences.
Transparensee's "Discovery Search Engine" seeks to address the "stupid computer" problems which plague most structured databases. You most likely have experienced some variant of this: you put in a set of parameters meant to find just what you are looking for - for example, on Fodor's, you want French bistros in Chelsea priced at $35 with a food rating of 20 or above - and you get no results, or only one or two. You have a sneaking suspicion that the results are missing an entire set of possibilities which are "close enough" to what you want, but you've been limited by the parameters you chose - if you open it up too much, you get a bunch of stuff you don't want. What to do?
The ability to loosen search parameters to guarantee decent search results is an interesting idea who's merit becomes apparent the first time you get too specific in your dating site search queries. Nothing feels worse to online daters than being told that there are no matches for them.
The Example: Online Dating Example page has more information, as well as a PDF overview of the features and benefits of the service.
Transparensee's flagship product, the Discovery Search Engine™, is definitely worth taking a look at if you are looking for ways to differentiate your service and provide members with improved search capabilities.
My absolute favorite blog is Boing Boing, self-described as "A Directory of Wonderful Things." Today I found an entry about humanoid robots. Guests of Japan's World Expo opening on March 25 will be greeted by multilingual, rapping robots:
The humanoid can put on facial expressions suitable for the more than 2,000 types of answers it can give, but it may refuse to answer to some questions for "privacy reasons," making an X with her arms and bowing. She also has a sense of irony. When asked if she is a robot, she says, "Y.e.s, I. a.m. a. r.o.b.o.t" in a disconnected voice and moves about clumsily. A moment later, she says "Just kidding" and starts a natural flow of movements.
I want one. Link to story.
SocialPhysics is a new program affiliated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School to "Develop a reusable, open source software framework that provides core services including: identity management, social network data models, authentication management, encryption, and privacy controls."
This is much more compelling framework on which next-generation introduction sites could be built than SocialGrid. Stowe Boyd has more over at Get Real.
Userplane Instant-Install is now available in simple HTML code, enabling users to cut and paste the multi-user, multi-room, audio/video chat application onto virtually any web page. Userplane Webchat has also been updated to version 1.7 with a host of important new features, including larger, resizable video windows.
When I get some time I might post it to the blog and host a chat with a special guest.
AEwebworks has rolled out the latest version of their dating site in a box. From I can tell, the only thing missing is a weblog profile system.
From the press release: Based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, with head in Sydney, Australia AEwebworks is professional software development team specializing solely on dating software. AEwebworks is providing dating software solutions for over 3 years already catering needs of online dating start-ups and established sites. Surprisingly high demand for such solution (AEwebworks currently installs 3 dating sites per day on average) made it possible for AEwebworks to create a dynamic R&D group and establish comprehensive customer support system. aeDating (the most popular product of AEwebworks) now powers over 1200 online dating sites. These numbers vote for the fact that aeDating became an absolute leader in this niche in spite of tough competition and high running costs.
Features:
Speed Dating- Dating 3.2 speed dating module allows you as admin to create speed dating events notifications, time and place of the event, price of a ticket, start and end time of event, assign event manager, manage matchmaking after the event. User interface provides ability to look through open events, buy a ticket online, get id number and after the event provide list of ids that user find most attractive.
New Design - 2 new design templates, new admin panel design and new flash IM design. As the result aeDating 3.2 comes with 8 design templates.
Template Solutions- two templates labelled "Adult Community" and "Flirted Spirits". "Adult Community" Template is a ideal solution for softcore adult community website. This template features all functionality of aeDating including speed dating module part. "Flirted Spirits" Template is a main template for teenagers and youngsters dating community.
Flash-based IM: AEwebworks Dating software and UserPlane have concluded an exclusive agreement according to which, AEwebworks will not integrate any other cam software and in return UserPlane will provide its basic package for AEwebworks clients for 50$ per month. (from Userplane) comes with new design that allows previewing of user profile thumbnail picture. Thumbnail picture is also clickable and leads to user profile details. This way user can see details of another user that he communicates with.
Enhanced Functionality. These functions make aeDating 3.2 spicy. Friends List adds network capability to dating site powered by aeDating. Now, users can create your own friends list and see friends list of your friends. Guestbook allows users to comments on each other verifying one another. Finally, Registration Security Images prevents dating sites from spam scripts and make automatic registration impossible.
In addition, aeDating 3.2 support recurring billing from paypal, new 2checkout payment provider, vBulletin and flashBB forums solutions free integration, zodiac signs, confirmed user email notification for admin and search by id, email and nickname for site admin.
Scott Rogers launched Toronto-based LavaLife's web business and then like most entrepreneurs, got bored. His next venture, Lemontonic, integrates MSN messenger with the usual dating site features. $5.4 million in private placements later, Lemontonic 2.0 was released on Feb. 21. A few weeks ago I spoke with Business Edge about Lemontonic. We talked about the role IM clients play in dating sites, the huge opportunities for a custom branded IM clients, and that we're glad they didn't call is Orangetonic.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging has moved from the labs into social terrain. Brain Waves, a Corante blog, writes about neurodating. "It is foreseeable that functional images of the brain could be used to facilitate courtships by assessing personal compatibility." I've filled out more mind-numbing personality profiles than I care to admit, and I can't wait to put on paper underwear, lie down in a cool room bathed in blue lights and have my personality scanned, uploaded and matched through the Compata3000 augmented profiling system. What's 29 dimensions of compatibility when you can have 2.9 billion?
San Jose Mercury News has done an unscientific review of several popular dating site personality tests:
We let four married couples try the tests at eHarmony, Yahoo Personals, Tickle and True. Each partner took the online personality tests designed to probe their psyches (fibbing a little to indicate they were single) and checked out whether the system matched them with their real mates. The results suggest that "science" isn't always the last word when it comes to true romance.
This has been around for a while and I ran across it while doing video greeting research. Yahoo! will enter you in a $1000 sweepstakes after you post a video greeting and fill out a survey.
I love the hints on what not to do on cam:
1. Don't take your clothes off.
2. Don't use obscene language.
3. Don't give out your full contact information.
The survey is utterly useless. Two questions about why you posted a video greeting, what your experience was (A breeze, ok, nervous, other. Huh?) and an essay about what you think about video greetings.
Who wrote these utterly useless questions? No value whatsoever to the marketing department. They could have spent more time crafting questions to gather additional insight from their leading edge members.
Note to Yahoo!: It would be good if you could tell who, and how many times, your video was viewed.
At the end of the survey is asks for my name, address and email. I'm logged in as a paying member, why don't they link your account info to this and save me the trouble of re-typing information they already have in their databases?
First it was Apple with their Switch campaign. Great vignettes of former PC users who had made the switch over to Mac. Recently, my bank started their own switch campaign, complete with an 800 number for assistance. This got me thinking about the PerfectMatch vs. eHarmony battle underway (By the way, watch for True to join in, they really have to at this point to stay relevant.) I can imagine we will start to see some of the smaller niche sites offer a switch campaign to woo customers away from the large date-warehouses. The marketing copy practically writes itself and the customer feels warm and fuzzy about the attention being paid to them.
At ProfileDoctor we built a system which would take our customers' Match.com membername and automatically go out to Match and slurp down the profile for our editors to revise. The profile templates for most sites never change, so the structure of the data are pretty solid. At least until sites start using blogs as their profiles. What's keeping dating sites from doing the same? Obviously there are legal implications, but what if the customer emailed their profile to the competitor? Even a semi- automated switch option would be a cool option for anyone who could save their photos to their hard drive, re-upload them to the new site and paste their essay into a textbox. That's just about everyone as long as you have a non-geek write the instructions.
This post was written while listening to Keeping The Faith [Just A Touch Mix] from the album "The Works" by De La Soul.
ENLASO Corporation, a leading provider of enterprise language solutions, today announced it has been named as Match.com's premier Web site translation and localization partner.
ENLASO's enterprise Web site localization solutions involve the establishment and maintenance of consistent, high-quality global systems of language translation and cultural customization. Addressing local cultures, marketing and business practices, and regulatory compliance issues, these localization systems automate change processes and manage central and local content. Initially, ENLASO localized Match.com's Web site into 16 languages:
Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Brazilian Portuguese, Castilian Spanish, Latin American Spanish, and Swedish - adding additional languages as needed.
As the global leader in online dating, Match.com's substantial language needs challenge the very nature of an international Web application's cultural and linguistic requirements. Cost-effectively serving content globally and preserving the individual ethnocentric protocols of interactive dating and romance requires a team of language specialists who must not only translate, but also customize the cultural expressions and values of each target locale. ENLASO's team of language professionals and localization engineers worked in unison with Match.com's global team in Sydney, Australia and Dallas, Texas, as well as with individual country managers.
Very exciting stuff for Enlaso. Judging from the lack of interest in multi-lingual marketing at iDate I wonder how many dating sites can afford to have a third party vendor come in and localize their content. Much trickier to accomplish once you get under the hood of a dating site.
I did not know that Match web applications involve a complex ColdFusion environment.
Kyrgyzstan was annexed by Russia in 1864. Now it's the home of AEwebworks, one of the few private-lable dating sites I was able to find. There LivePerson pre-sales line is busy and I'm looking to speak with dating sites using AEwebworks dating software to run their site. Email me if you are using, or know anything about them.
Only one more holiday party to go... In the meantime, Lemontonic is getting ready to roll out version 2 of their MSN Messenger-based platform. Lemontonic and Love.com are the only companies leveraging the chat clients we all use every day, and I'm not sure what's going to happen to Love.com what with the SpringStreet situation. I still haven't gotten a call back from them about current goings-on. Web-based chat usually leaves me cold, I much perfer a standalone client. Have you tried Yahoo! chat lately, especially the Java client? Ugh. Userplane offers several flavors of A/V chat system used by hundreds of dating sites that I'm hearing good things about. I've run their videoblog in the sidebar before and will again as soon as I get a haircut and a better microphone. Caveat- now that I'm dating I'm not chatting up the ladies as much as before so my usage of 25 dating sites has dwindled to the major players and some niche sites (cowboydate.com!)
I've been using various video-conferencing applications since 1993. CUSeeMe, iVisit, Netmeeting, icuii, Paltalk, Jmeeting, I've tried them all. I even got paid to talk to scantily-clad women on iFriends.net at one point, but that's another story. Who cares? You should. An established company that provides video-conferencing software recently announced they have 2 million users. I don't believe that for a second, just as I don't take dating site statistics at face value. However, even if they have 1 million people, that is a nice niche community to market to. Or provide access to, or cross-promote to. This company has tried to develop an online dating component around the webcam community, but it doesn't look like it's getting much traction. There's definitely an opportunity here for an enterprising sating site to swoop in and either buy the company or get access to the members through a partnership.
I'm here at SITRACon II, seeing lots of familiar faces and lots of new people as well. It's always good to spend time with peers and listen to new business ideas and value-added services, and that's what SITRAS is all about. Not as many offline coaches in attendance this time around, however I understand that the ebulient Julie Ferman gave a great talk about state of the art dating coaching.
I'm fascinated withmatching technologies and I was able to catch the last few minutes of a talk by Chris Knudsen at Relate Networx. Chris spoke about adding value and revenue with scientific matching services. Audience members were asking questions about who owns the data collected by Relate, and came up with a few new ways to leverage the power of scientific matching. Scientific matching is a hot topics when it comes to service differentiation and it's good to see Chris as well as Steve Levine at Transparensee sharing their thoughts on this timely topic. I need to go find the pool.
Hundreds have submitted a mobile video profile to win a place at the world's first video mobile dating event. The top 100 meet their match on 30 November at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). Hundreds of hopefuls submitted their profiles, and special booths were set up in a major London department store for two weeks where expert tips were given on how to visually improve their chances. The 100 most popular contestants voted by the public will gather at the ICA in separate rooms and "meet" by phone. The event, organised by the 3G network, 3, could catch on as the trend for unusual dating events, like speed dating, continues. "It's the beginning of the end of the blind date as we know it," said Graeme Oxby, 3's marketing director. The response has been so promising that 3 says it is planning to launch a proper commercial dating service soon.
Yahoo! Europe will have features such as Messenger, its toolbar and personals service pre-installed on all Sony Vaio notebooks and desktops in a new deal with the electronics giant.
People buying Sony computers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain will find the Yahoo! services already installed when they boot them up for the first time. Yahoo! hopes that it will introduce its products to millions of people using Sony Vaio computers.
Cellar-dweller alert! From BoingBoing: Mobilehookup has come out with a service that enables two people who haven't met to talk live - for five minutes - on the telephone while protecting user privacy and anonymity. According to Voice Courier Mobile, not only does this mean members retain control of the dating situation but similar to speed-dating, they are better equipped to quickly decide whether or not to continue with a relationship. I wonder what kind of people this type of service would attract?
Here are some of the highlights (for those with a geek gene) of a Microsoft Enterprise Case Study featuring Match.com.
In June 2001, the new Match.com- consisting of 20 front-end Web servers, running Windows 2000 Server with Internet Information Services version 5.0 on dual-processor HP ProLiant systems, and three back-end database servers, running Windows 2000 Advanced Server and SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition on quad-processor ProLiant servers- went live.
Developers built their new application using Active Server Pages (ASP) classes to gain modularity of ASP code and took advantage of Microsoft's ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) programming model to access data sources faster and more effectively. They moved significant portions of the site's business logic to SQL Server 2000 stored procedures. The results? Match.com achieved significant performance improvements and was able to scale by a factor of 10 in just one short year.
Before the upgrade, Match was pumping out nearly 30 megabits (MBits) of personal pages per second around the clock. During the first 12 months after going live with the Windows 2000 operating system and outsourcing management of the infrastructure to divine, Match.com scaled its operations significantly- going from 20 Web servers to more than 120 and from 3 database servers to more than 20. Yet in those 12 months, Match.com has gone from pumping out less than 30 MBits of search results per second to pumping out more than 300 MBits of results per second. On a monthly basis, the site now gets more than 1 billion page views.
Link
Userplane announced that its site for Red Bull's Re:Evolution of Sports, an extreme sports TV show airing on the Fox Sports Network --- has received the 2004 Web Award from the Web Marketing Association. Re:Evolution of Sports is one of the first television shows broadcast online, and represents the next level of media convergence. Using Macromedia Flash Communication Server, Userplane developed a streaming video library of television episodes for the program, a show that focuses on the unique lifestyle of extreme athletes. Fully streamed episodes can be viewed on the Re:Evolution of Sports website.
MatchUp Singles is using a smartcard for F2F matching sessions. Developed by Interactive Digital Corporation, a privately held developer of advanced online and physical matchmaking services, users point the MatchUp SmartCard at another MatchUp Smart Card owner, press the button, and wait for the magic to begin. Instantly, you will both see how your results compared. The display will tell you your overall MatchUp score as well as how you matched in each of the 6 hot zones.
I picked up a woman in a crowded bar by beaming my stats to her with my Apple Newton back in 1993. Glad to see someone taking it to the next level. MIT has legions of people in the wearable computing labs working on this stuff. It would be cool to see a branded Personals Network, where a dating company would "host" the interaction.
Your own PAN (personal area network). Somebody at IDC, send me one of these and I'll write it up here.
Link
Userplane, a pioneer in providing enterprise social software for online communities, today announced that AOSpine.org, a global community of spine specialists, has deployed its Userplane Web Chatâ„¢ – a new multi-user Web text chat room system. AOSpine.org’s online community focuses on improving the quality of medical service provided to spine patients through education, research, documentation and communication. The community connects medical and research professionals from around the world, enabling them to share wisdom and the development of new tools and techniques that improve the outcome and effectiveness of spinal surgery. “The Userplane Web Chat capabilities help AOSpine.org members meet online to discuss case studies, research, best practices and the latest advancements in spine surgery,†said Michael Jones, president, Userplane. “Our entire Community Suite of applications can turn any website into an online community, enabling true interaction among participants, no matter where they’re located.â€Â
Google appears to be planning to launch its own Web browser and other software products to challenge Microsoft. The popular Mozilla web browser, which is "open source" and available to anyone, could be shaped to Google's specifications and be embedded with Google search, Gmail free e-mail and other Google applications.
How long until an enterprising dating company builds a branded browser for singles? Built-in features could include a search box to query the service from the browser, bookmarks for people you're interested in, chat directly in the browser without visiting the site, all tied into the sites existing infrastructure. Link
A bit about the tech running EHarmony... Custom-built with enterprise Java tools and running on Resin, an open-source application, the site takes the answers to your questionnaire and stores them in a Microsoft SQL database as a "psychological profile." Then, on a nightly basis, using a series of algorithms, it compares your profile with the profiles of all other active users (currently, around 900,000 people are active at any given time) and spits out a list of people with similar tastes, characteristics, attitudes, and values.
Once this process is complete, the site uses SendMail, an open-source e-mail gateway, to alert you to new matches, and you're able to contact these people — and only these people — via an anonymous communication tool back on the site.
Eharmony is up to 4.5 million members, with around 10,000 signing up each day. Link
SpotMeeting, the online location-based singles network, launched today that allows people to meet each other face-to-face regardless of where they are. It's looks more like a pick-up service than a dating service if you read the press release. Who walks down the street and then all of a sudden decides they want to go on a date? I guess thats what the Hotel & Hotspot Dating service is for. A services to annoy complete strangers with your inability to initiate conversation, what fun! Like Bluetoothing without the Bluetooth. I wonder if they asked Match about the success of MatchMobile before they wrote the business plan?
Calling 1.5 a significant enhancement of its A/V recorder technology, Userplane is expanding the creative application of user-recorded video to focus on online classifieds, auctions and casting services. he new version works seamlessly on any website, requires no special plug-ins besides the ubiquitous Flash, and instantly recognizes any webcam without the need for tricky configuration.
“We’ve measurably improved Userplane Web Recorder’s video playback performance, cross-platform consistency and reliability, and back-end administration,” said Nathanial Thelen, technology director, Userplane. “New features include enhanced recording quality, full compatibility with modem and broadband connections and an easily customizable interface.”
The Social networking world has embraced mobile phone apps and are leaving the dating world in the dust. Match admits the only thing they get out of mobile dating is exposure to the 20-something audience, revenue is marginal.
Imagine being single and out on Saturday night when all of a sudden your dating services' matching engine finds a prospect within a few blocks or miles, depending on your urban/suburban setting and lets you know with an SMS to your mobile. It will be fun, at least the first few times. Here's a list of social applications that work in a mobile context from Elastic Space. Link
As soon as I mentioned Mike's article this came across the wire. Userplane announced Userplane Web Chat(TM) -- a multi-user web text chat room system -- and announced the latest deployment of Web Chat on Connexion.org, an increasingly popular destination in the social networking community.
TRUE and Rapsheets are busy verifying that people don't have roommates. They even have a former Chief of Police of Dallas working with them. Citing a 75 % success rate as extremely accurate, I'm wondering how useful this service really is.
Here's the rub, "If the program can't rule out people living in the same household such as children, the member is then asked to clarify the relationship and certify that they are providing TRUE and correct information."
So I lie about my live-in girlfriend, my divorced wife still living in the house, or my long term parter, and then I get certified on my own honor?
This whole Identify verification thing is going to take some time to equalize before it's useful on a wide scale.
Match now lets members video chat live with each other. I'm unclear about their statement "Ready to watch your match change expressions with every message you send?" which implies that it's not live, but a new static photo with each message. Think of all the annoying strangers who will be asking you to cam with them.
I'll post a longer review after the holiday weekend. Here's the login to try it out. You must be a Match member and be careful with the additional charges.
Macromedia unveiled a new technology/service at DemoMobile late last week. Flash Lite is a new framework for distributing Flash content to next generation phones. Carriers will provide phones on their network with a shell application that is played in the Flash Lite player. This shell application acts as a portal to rich content. The application uses a channel paradigm just like a television. The user chooses a channel and is presented with what content is available for that channel. Mike Krishner has more details.
From WIRED:
Using a two-way video, audio and text chat interface, expo attendees were invited to control Doc Johnson-branded iVibe pleasure devices being put to use by models at an undisclosed location, in various states of undress.
"The device control works both ways -- the person on each end controls the speed and rhythm of the device the other is using," explained High Joy President Amir Vatan, as one attendee cranked his remote partner's iVibe to warp-speed intensity. The Internet-enabled products will become publicly available before the end of 2004, and will later be integrated into an assortment of Web porn destinations.
"It's the ultimate in site stickiness," said Vatan. "For online adult providers, more interactivity means more traffic, and more traffic means more revenue." Link.
How long until your membership subscription includes an iVibe?
This is interesting. Not sure why professional tv production people are required though. A webcam and a script would suffice.
Dating ON DEMAND, the first-ever service combining video on demand and on-line dating, will launch in Philadelphia this summer with a series of events that will allow singles to film personalized "video profiles." Profiles will be available for free viewing through ON DEMAND from Comcast Digital Cable, in conjunction with HurryDate, a leading on-line and "rapid dating" events company.
Three events - June 30, July 14 and July 21 - will allow singles to create three- to five-minute Dating ON DEMAND video profiles at no cost, under the direction of professional television production crews. Within a few weeks, the profiles will be available for viewing via ON DEMAND, a feature offered free to Comcast Digital Cable customers. Interested singles can then anonymously and securely contact potential matches seen ON DEMAND by registering through the HurryDate Web site, found at http://www.HurryDate.com.
Mike Jones at Userplane wrote a good article about interaction. I especially liked the blog-meets-friendster angle as well as his prediction that "Profiles will become commodities that are shared outside the “walls” of the individual dating sites." The implications of this statement are far-reaching to the industry if someone comes up with a user-friendly and well-marketed FOAF file application.
Snip...
Amid social networking phenomenon, dating Web sites create opportunities for genuine interaction
Love may be all around, but right now, online dating is booming like never before.
Some 44 percent of Americans believe that individuals have a better chance of meeting a partner online than in a singles bar, according to Ipsos-Reid, an international market and social research company.
The Personals/Dating category surpassed Business/Investing and Entertainment/Lifestyles content to become the leading paid content category in Q3 2002 with $87 million in revenues, a 387 percent gain over the same quarter the previous year, according to the Online Publishers Association.
But, just like with dating itself, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. The question is, “Is there anything interesting behind the pretty face?”
Thanks to new trends involving technological advancements along with genuine creativity, there is. In fact, so-called “social networking” Websites – dating sites in particular – are on the rise not only in the area of consumer usage. Of late, the segment has witnessed a significant infusion of capital, as the industry progresses toward providing both real interaction online and the business models to support ongoing online communities.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the online dating scene. The evolution of Internet dating is not unlike that of its offline counterpart. From arranged marriages, to chaperoned courtship, to slightly more freedom to almost anything goes –- traditional offline dating progressed from a system that involved knowing hardly more than name and rank on the wedding day, to the point at which parties now ask for complete financial and medical disclosure and can purchase full-scale background checks over the Internet.
Online dating is following a similar evolutionary process. Many matchmaking sites compile lists of potential mates using photos and only the most basic information – age, gender and location. With this bare-bones “profile,” people are directed to a list of potential mates – almost like looking for love in the phone book. In the end, decisions are made almost exclusively based on a photo.
But over the past few years new trends have emerged, spurring the evolution of online dating and shifting the matchmaking process from the “arranged marriage” end of the spectrum toward informed choices based on relevant information. Recent technological advancements have created an online dating scene in which participants can meet people from the comforts of their own homes, talk face-to-face in real time using audio and video, and access online journals that reveal thoughts and opinions.
Friendster, MySpace, Say Hello to Blogs
One of the more recent evolutionary steps came with Web sites like Friendster.com and MySpace.com, services that connect people through online networks of mutual friends. Members join, then invite their friends to join, creating a coast-to-coast online social network.
This new social-networking trend connects friends-of-friends, helping people find possible mates or simply new friends. It goes beyond the age, gender, location formula to match individuals based on mutual friends and similar interests.
This approach offers a more personal experience than the list-cruising of the past, and allows for more custom searching based on relevant information. The industry is gaining attention of late through a series of announcements about new venture capital funding for Friendster and some of its rivals – LinkedIn, ZeroDegrees, Tribe.Net and others. Even standbys like eVite.com are rethinking their strategies in favor of joining the broader social networking bandwagon.
At the same time, the burgeoning practice of blogging is pushing online dating even further toward “informed choice.” Blogs, short for weblogs, are a kind of online diary. Through a blogging service, anyone can maintain a running commentary online – accessible to anyone with Internet access.
While dating sites typically restrict the creation of individual personal home pages, blogs offer a forum for sharing anything from deeply held convictions to random musings. Bloggers can create and post content immediately, and often update their blogs daily – even multiple times per day.
Blogs provide a formula of creating online identities – or at least sharing one’s offline identity with anyone who cares to notice – giving potential suitors a much deeper, more relevant personal profile.
Expanding Instant Messaging
Much like the offline dating world’s phone call, instant messaging (IM) capabilities transform static data on a page into actual online, real-time conversations.
But while providing a handy form of communication, text-based messaging systems are limited to the keyboard. There’s no visual or audio, making it difficult to create a true personal connection. Emotions are expressed through a common language of key strokes :), rather than through more meaningful nuances of voice fluctuation and other verbal clues.
Progress has been made: while previous systems only displayed the conversations, today’s IM users may have access to some personal information to help provide an initial spark. But it’s still a one-dimensional conversation.
Growth in online audio and video capabilities – and the proliferation of higher bandwidth to support them – is bumping online communication up a notch into the two-dimensional world.
Integrating audio and video into a live online dating experience gives the entire process more validity and increased security:
People will not be able to pass themselves off as something they’re not – at least in the obvious ways
Video profiles offer more depth and expression than do lists of likes and dislikes
Real-time, online dates that use audio and video provide real interaction while allowing each participant location anonymity and security – there’s no immediate need to give out phone numbers, addresses or to meet in person
Users have the opportunity to date online “virtually” – allowing for a much more personal experience than before – without leaving the comfort and security of home.
According to Tim Sullivan, president of Match.com: “Online dating is going to evolve with the convergence of various technologies. We believe video and voice are going to be a big part of our business.”
The Future of Online Dating
The future of online dating will include all of these trends: Friendster’s relevant searching method, instant messaging capabilities and the use of audio and video – which all combine to create personal meaningful interactions. And the integration of blogging tools will give users the ability to truly create an online identity, and give the website that houses that profile a lifelong customer.
But beyond the technological advancements that give users better tools for getting to know each other, online dating will explode as new business models take shape:
Profiles will become commodities that are shared outside the “walls” of the individual dating sites.
Systems soon will allow profiles to be searched through standard file-sharing mechanisms. Imagine a video profile along with an abbreviated data file that can be placed into Kazaa and searched through a peer-to-peer file-sharing network. After selecting profiles of interest, users register with the particular dating Web site to gain access to the complete file – including contact information. This enables a dating Web site to circulate its dating inventory externally on computers around the world.
A system to standardize user profiles will take shape, to allow universal access to “networks” of dating Web sites.
• And in perhaps the biggest endorsement yet of the online dating sector, AOL recently unveiled Love.com, a personals site that incorporates AOL’s popular Instant Messenger (AIM) service – with audio and video capabilities. Leveraging AOL’s current user base of paid AOL subscribers and free AOL IM subscribers, AOL has essentially invited all AOL users to join Love.com.
As consumer magazines weekly attest, there’s no shortage of dating pitfalls and mishaps – whether online or off. But as more and more people look for love on the Internet, the evolution of online dating will continue to make it just a little bit easier than before.
Michael Jones is president and co-founder of Userplane (www.userplane.com) in Los Angeles.
Simeda is working on an interesting bit of software they're working on for PocketPC called 'Pocket Rendezvous,' a port of the Rendezvous easy networking system (commonly used by OSX applications, although it works just fine on PC, too). Using Pocket Rendezvous, users can set up a personal, auto-discoverable web servers for a variety of purposes, such as matchmaking services (think broadcasted business cards or personal ads)
More details after we speak with the company next week.
Fusepoint Managed Services (fusepoint.com) announced on Tuesday that it has been selected by online dating service Lemontonic as its Web hosting and managed IT services provider. Under the agreement, Fusepoint will manage Lemontonic's entire IT infrastructure, hosting and managing the Web site and all its messaging, e-commerce and database applications. Fusepoint will host Lemontonic's infrastructure out of its data center facility in Toronto, Canada. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Lemontonic's financials are here.
Fusepoint recently announced a second round of institutional financing, securing an additional US$10 million from lead investor M/C Venture Partners.
CTO's IT Managers and CFO's may want to take a look at 
Desktop widgets make finding a date from the desktop easier than ever.
