Please take a second to fill out the poll below so I can better understand why are are reading Online Dating Insider. I'm noticing from the logfiles that most of you are new visitors, coming from Google and I'd like to learn more about you as the blog continues to grow and evolve.
Search is working again in the right sidebar. For now it's powered by Google. The category pull-down list is another way to view specific topics and a great way to get to know this blog.
I was hopping mad when I heard that only 1 in 10 people have even heard of RSS, and a mere 2 percent actually use it. When can I finally start a post, "As more and more people adopt RSS newsreaders for keeping up with their news..?"
There are currently 216 RSS subscribers for this blog. Let's see if we can reach 400 by the end of September. Don't be scared, once you start reading blogs via RSS your info-grazing will never be the same.
Something is amiss with the search engine, while they figure out the problem, use Google like this:
searchterm site:www.corante.com/dating
945 entries for "yahoo" www.corante.com/dating vs. only 285 entries for the new dating.corante subdomain.
[Unfortunately, all the links from Google to www.corante.com/dating are broken at the moment, best to use dating.corante.com as the domain]
I think it's time to have all requests to www.corante.com/dating redirect to dating.corante.com permanently on our servers and then have google re-spider the site.
I spent a few days away from the keyboard to go to an annual party in New Hampshire with friends. This year I got the wakeboarding bug, tremendous workout, boy am I sore today.
Between family events, a three-day Identity Mashup conference at Harvard and finishing up a few consulting projects, expect light posting next week. People have been leaving great comments, keep it up, great insights in some of the discussion threads.
It has come to my attention that some of what I've been writing about here has fallen out of the scope of the online dating industry and social networking. Some of the posts are off-base, too technical (often the identity and open profile topics), or otherwise too broad to be considered under the primary topic of the blog, the online dating industry and to some extent social networking.
My personal and professional interests change over time and my blogging focus reflects this. Currently I am working with dating sites, a mobile wireless provider and a few companies in the digital identity space. Instead of populating ODI with posts on these topics, and risking diluting the focus and value of the blog to readers, I have launched a new blog, the Progress Bar.
The Progress Bar is a place for me to write about my thoughts on everything from emerging technologies, marketing and technology trends to pop culture, sporadic personal stuff and of course pictures of big fish.
Personal does not necessarily mean I'll discuss what I ate for breakfast that morning, more along the lines of my take on various topics of personal interest.
Nothing at Online Dating Insider will change except for links over to the Progress Bar when I think it's something worthy of a click. Otherwise, business as usual around here. Add the Progress Bar to your RSS reader to have it delivered to you daily.
Judging by the number of emails I have been receiving lately at Online Dating Insider, a growing number of people have been asking about what makes a dating site right for them, the demographics of various dating sites and other pre-subscription questions. To address this, I have created a page at Squidoo focusing on the consumer side of online dating. There will be a lot more there in coming weeks as I start posting podcasts and blog posts more appropriate for consumers than industry professionals.
The Onion has an amusing send-up of the new MySpace security measures.
"Making users verify that they are over 14 by clicking two different buttons"
"Looking into that weirdo "Tom" who keeps emailing everyone"
"Sending all pedophiles to Friendster"
Link Tracking: Added Mybloglog, which shows how many times links are clicked on. Roll your mouse over links and a pop-up will display stats about the link. I'm considering if I should display the rank of the link or the number of times it's been clicked.
Audio comments: I live in Skype when I'm at the office. Live in it. When I'm not at my laptop, I have calls forwarded to my mobile. I'm experimenting with audio comments, the best ones will make it into the blog. The Skype Me link under my photo will attempt to contact me or go to voicemail. Think of something witty, brilliant or profound and send it in.
I'm off to Vermont for the Holidays and won't be posting much over the next week. Family time and snowboarding at Stowe are in order to recharge the batteries. Like so many other blogs, we're doing a server upgrade mid-week, expect a few hiccups along the way and then things should go much smoother around here.
Story ideas, breaking news and press releases as usual to devans at corante dot com.
Now that comments seem to be working again, I've added a few new features.
News: Your search for a single authoritative source of dating industry news is finally over. A visit the News link in the left sidebar will bring you to a new page here at Online Dating Insider. I'm starting out with Yahoo News, Google Search Google Blog Search and Technorati blog search for the phrase "dating industry." Don't get too excited yet, It's just a starting point. I will continue to tweak this page, adding and revising data-sources to bring you the most up to date, spam-free dating industry news. This will save you at least a few minutes a day. What more do you want?
What I'm reading: A while back I added some of my del.icio.us bookmarks into the sidebar. These have been moved to the new News page. I haven't used del.icio.us much lately, need to get back into it. I figure some people may be interested in what I've been reading on the web. Or not. The logfiles will tell the tale soon enough.
Ratings: Each individual entry has a rating system, 1-5 stars. At some point I'll filter posts by popularity, right now the popularity index is based on how many comments a particular entry has. Problem is, you might love or hate an entry, and not take the time to comment on it. Because we're lazy humans.
Employment: the Indeed job listing was taking up a lot of space and has been hidden by default. Click the "Employment" link in the left sidebar and the job listings will appear. Nobody was visiting the official job page, so that will probably go away at some point. I need to hunt down little up/down arrows to show that the word should be clicked to display the job listings.
The functionality you experience here at ODI will continue to evolve over time. A little AJAX, more personalization, better search capabilities and definitely some super tagging stuff are all coming this winter.
Comment troubles continue. I've turned on TypeKey authentication (you do have aTypeKey ID, don't you?), adjusted some settings and republished the blog a few times. It's a long process due to the fact that there are a lot of things going on in the background that most people wouldn't give a second thought to. To start, there are RSS feeds for recent comments and all posts, with a few hidden feeds for Feedburner, Moreover and some secret tracking stuff I'm developing. After each post we ping 1/2 dozen servers, send out a slew of trackbacks, and as of this week I'm pulling search results from various search engines, del.icio.us bookmarks, ad servers and so on in the sidebars.
Then there's our tagging system, which will augment Categories at some point in the future and make it easier to find the posts you want to read instead of scanning a long list of search results in the sidebar. It's not totally public yet, but it's coming.
Some of the blogs here at Corante are less resource intensive, but with 90+ bloggers, a couple gigs of HTML and RSS traffic each day and search engines spidering us every 10 seconds, it gets pretty hectic at the CPU level.
I've got some time to focus on the blog over the next few days and will work diligently to get comments back in order. Promise.
Xooglers are people who used to work at Google. A blog was started, people started posting, and you're in for a treat. Very well written, great stories about first days at work, the culture and the food and living habits and lifestyles of Googlers.
Due to the fact that I've been working on several projects, I've had to choose between listing every press release to come across my desk and saving my thoughts for posts that touch on what I consider more important issues facing the dating industry.
For those of you looking for general press releases and mentions of online dating in the general press, I've created a list of the most recent Yahoo News items Technorati-tracked blog posts mentioning the phrase "dating industry." Look down the right sidebar after "Recent Trackbacks" to see how it looks.
The formatting is not final and I may add a rollover or pop-up with the first paragraph of the story to save you from having to click through to each story.
I'll add other news sources as well, with the goal of providing an easy-to-browse daily list of links, because I know you have better things to do than search high and low for your news every day.
Thanks to all of you who pointed out that your comments were not making it onto the blog. Turns out our publishing system (Movable Type), somehow had the phrase "online" added to it's blacklist of phrases, making most everyone's posts get stuck in the junk filter. Things should be back to normal now.
A list of the last 50 comments is available in the left sidebar. Please, if you're going to leave a comment, don't be an anonymous coward, at least list your blog or website or dating site.
To reiterate, I *never* remove comments, unless they are patently offensive or spam. Patently offensive means even I get the shivers reading something, and that would take a lot.
Gada.be is a website which aggregates results from traditional search engines, blog search engines, flickr, and various RSS aggregators.
My An Analysis of Online Dating Behavior post this morning is #1 of Google blog search engine, but of course there are a bunch of spam, pr0n and useless links thrown in but overall I'm impressed with the service so far.
Here's the Dating link. Hint, add your search term to ".gada.be" so dating would be dating.gada.be.
I'm always on the lookout for good dating newsfeeds because I don't have enough time to parse all the dating site press releases as much as I used to. These days I find that 90% of them are launches for new sites launched by people who didn't seem to get the memo about consolidation in the industry.
Subscribing to a Yahoo News search for top 10 dating sites seems to do the job and the results get pushed to my desktop RSS newsreader which saves some back and forth to My.Yahoo.com each day. Good stuff.
Finally got around to setting up a new e-commerce shopping cart to take Dating Study ordersonline instead of over the phone. This week I'll be performing some blog maintenance, cleaning up sidebars and adding new features. Things got a bit crufty here at ODI over the summer while I was focused on other things. Blogs do require a certain amount of care and feeding, especially if you try out all sorts of plug-ins and other features that can complicate maintenance.
I've done several interviews this week, major business news outlets seem to be asking about the flattening out of the dating industry.
I've been pointing reporters to executives at several dating sites, mostly niche sites and innovators, because the Match/Yahoo story has been told 1,000 times already. The fascinating stuff is happening at Consumating, Opinity, Engage(Disclaimer, I have ties to Engage) and several event and social networking sites.
Lack of juicy ego-quotes aside, I'm pleased that reporters are open to expanding the conversation past dating to discovery.
Here's a Link to a recent CNNMoney article. Tonight, another new org is putting out what I hope to be the first in a series of articles about social networking and online dating which will will dig much deeper than the usual marketing fluff we read in the MSM (mainstream media.)
Pointing readers next door to Rebuilding Media, a just-launched new blog by Vin Crosbie and Bob Cauthorn that will dig deep into the forces and factors that are reshaping the media landscape. Says Vin, in the introductory post: "The news & information industry has largely lost touch with consumers’ needs, interests, and purses during the past 30 years. The rapid declines in newspaper readership, broadcast viewership, and cinema visitorship are among the evidence demonstrating this. The rapid increases in peer-to-peer file sharing systems, podcasting, and perhaps even citizen journalism, plus the very fact that more than 600 million people worldwide have gravitated onto the Internet despite their already having access to the old media."
Userplane announces new Multi-User A/V chat. Check it out here.
Deal with Click2Asia, a leading Asian online dating service.
The User Plane, the central place to explore the organically growing landscape of diverse web communities from around the world.
Userplane is offering general Userplane advertising space that is dynamically focused on the most relevant channels. Channel-specific campaigns that precisely target groups of users and sites based on keywords, categories, age, sex, preferences, and more.
It's about time that targeted advertising was offered across dating and social networking sites. People have been talking about this for a long time and Userplane seems to have gotten there first. Ad networks have had dating site inventory for a while, and Userplane offers a deeper level of targeting than I have seen before.
Several Anonymous Cowards have been leaving unsavory comments. I don't mind if you insult me or my fish photo, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the nasty-grams need to stop. I have tweaked comment settings so I have to approve each one. I get up from my laptop only for food and water most of the time so you shouldn't experience much lag.
I just saw a commercial for a show on ABC next month which will following 12 women dating online. I think it was called Hooking Up. Here's a link to more about the show.
The Dating & Discovery consulting group at Corante, which I lead, has been ramping up a variety of consulting services that we have begun offering to dating sites.
Dating Site Critiques: More and more sites are asking to be audited. Mostly niches serving unique communities and startups preparing to launch, although I expect larger sites to sign on when they catch wind of the results. Optimal clients are dating sites that are open to implementing changes in their site design and business model to adapt and thrive during periods of contraction. Willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals and having the resources and people-power available is another key indicator that we should be talking.
Sites are analyzed it from a number of different perspectives: visitors/members, customer conversion process, flow and layout, marketing message and external advertising/marketing review.
Special focus is given to a review of the goals and activities surrounding the core business objectives and helping clients become more proactive towards changes in the marketplace.
Depending on the situation, new features and technology recommendations may include open profiles, weblogs, personality testing systems, social networking partnerships, new search systems and more.
The client ends up with a clear roadmap to achieving their business objectives and an action plan to implement the findings.
Overall response has been positive to date. Contact me if you would like to learn more about Corant's Dating & Discovery Consulting services.
I think this is day 19 of rain here in Boston. Please make it stop. I have a bunch of topics that probably won't make it into posts on their own so here they are.
Networking startups are also struggling to overcome fickle users, who switch between Friendster, Myspace, LinkedIn, Meetup, Tribe.net and other similar sites, depending on which has the most buzz.
Friendster director Russ Siegelman of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers acknowledged that social networking is no longer the "flavor of the month" among investors, but it remains a solid concept.
Don't forget to sign up for our alert service in the signup box to the left.
Michael Bazeley of the San Jose Mercury News quoted me talking about Opinity, which I mentioned here. Here's a comment from Bill Washburn, Vice President of Business Development.
Jobs- Spark Networks is looking for an SEO guru. Eharmony is still looking for graveyard shift customer support and a Sr. data mining specialist. Lots of marketing and tech jobs at Yahoo.
Check out the Technorati to see what people are tagging with the phrase "online dating."
Singular Guy references my Yahoo Personals mailbox review, but he doesn't send a trackback, which happens all the time now. Technorati helps me find who is linking to me or talking about online dating. Google is good for things that happened last week. Technorati is good for searching blogs for posts within the last hour. Talk about time compression.
I'm working on an RSS feed to add to the sidebar with all online dating industry news. That way I can comment on certain news items without having to create a post for each one. Let the technology do the retrieval and tedious Yahoo news crawl, letting me focus on items I think are important instead of 3 lines of "what I think" like Mark Brooks does. Throwaway quotes don't do much for anyone. The value is in the insights which come from letting an idea percolate. Blogging makes this difficult, you have to assimilate news in 30 seconds, form an opinion and get it out there otherwise you bog down too easily. That's why I don't cover a lot of the filler press releases and other flotsam that floats by every day.
If you are a PR or marketing person at a dating company, add me to your press list to make sure I receive your news. Sending things out the night before is recommended.
I am wondering why more readers are not advertising their brands and services on this site. If you have a value-added services that you want to get out in front of online dating executives, funders and entrepreneurs, this is the place to do it. Contact me for more information and our rate sheet.
You'll be hearing more about ProfileDoctor. We've got new partnerships coming together, new services for singles and a website update is on the way. If your dating site is looking to increase conversion rates, check out our Partner site.
See the Userplane ad in the top right corner? Your ad could be there too. Or in the Tools & Services Directory, or in our newsletter, or in a podcast. There is no better way to get out in front of the online dating industry insiders you need to reach. C-level executives seeking partners, business development directors looking for value-added services (think photos, coaching, books and videos), entrepreneurs, VC and followers of the online dating industry read ODI daily. Still not convinced? Contact Dave Evans to learn more.
And don't forget to add your email address in the box in the left sidebar to begin receiving special updates and our weekly newsletter.
Those of you in New England who are near a television Saturday night night can tune into Boston’s ABC affiliate WCVB-TV at 7:00 PM and catch yours truly as a "Dating Expert" on PossLTR, a half-hour reality-show type pilot program focusing on post-divorce dating. I have no idea how the show will end up but it was great fun to be involved in the project.
The title, "PossLTR," comes from personals ads that are in newspapers and online. In date-speak, "PossLTR" means "possible long term relationship." In the Pilot broadcast of "PossLTR"-- filmed in locales throughout Greater Boston -- two divorced single parents go on a marathon, all-expenses paid blind date, with various stops around the city, but not before undergoing a complimentary pre-date makeover to give them added confidence.
There will be a webchat after the show where participants, and the show's experts will answer viewers' questions. The website for the show and chat is possltr.com.
Social Singles is a lucrative business model into the offline dating industry born from the idea of bringing single men and women together that match in age range and interests through the use of live events. Members of Social Singles select to participate in a number of events, such as dinners, rock climbing, game nights, and wine tastings. Revenue is generated through membership and activity fees, as well as through corporate and local sponsorships. Bringing singles together based on compatibility is a much needed addition to the “live event” singles arena. Most competitor events are run on a first-come-first-sold ticket basis and often open to too broad a range of singles. Keeping groups small, between six to twelve persons, provides for more interaction and comfort for singles, and the ability for the business to offer a broader range of activities and charge a higher premium. Social Singles offers a turn-key solution, including a portable ecommerce website; a PHP driven database for capturing and managing member data, events and payment transactions;a data model for identifying compatibility; service marked name and logo; URLs socialsingles.com and socialsingle.com, as well as a developed business and marketing plan content. All open source code, data and images can be delivered on CD. Minimum bids of $5,000 will be considered. No payment plans, partnerships, or trades. You must be a cash buyer. Serious parties should contact Nora Ferguson at nora@socialsingles.com or 617-821-0513.
Today my girlfriend and I are celebrating our one-year anniversary after meeting on Match last March. For all the grief I am periodically accused to dishing out to the industry, I do so because I believe that online dating works and I remain hopeful that the experience will continue to improve.
A year from now the industry is going to look a lot different. Some of you will still be here, a lot of you will have moved on to the next big internet thing. New services and technologies to enhance the matching process, better customer service and improved marketing will continue to drive the industry forward and I look forward to the changes to come.
There is 9 inches of powder falling in Vermont and I have a chair lift to catch.
Just got back from shooting a pilot for a new show called PossLTR (possible long term relationship). My role is similar to the guys at the end of Queer Eye or Extreme House MakeOver who provide snippets of feedback about the show. The show airs Saturday, March 26 at 7:00 PM on WCVB-TV, Boston’s ABC affiliate, followed by a Live Web Forum at 7:30pm that I will be participating in as ProfileDoctor. If the pilot takes off, there will be opportunities for advertising and sponsorship that I will post here.
A lot of services said, 'Hey, put in your $25, pull the handle and get your partner, It's not that simple. People were turned off because expectations were raised so high, web sites could only under-deliver.
TRIPLE CROWN!!! Patriots outlast the Eagles, 24-21, to capture third Super Bowl title.
It's officially a dynasty. Next up, can the Celtics rise above .500?
I'm thinking about putting up a bulletin board to give us more ways to interact with each other. It seems that people either don't want to comment on posts, or it's not easy to figure out how to do so as I thought. I've been checking out the message boards at iDate and they are pretty sparse. Not a lot of traffic and the topics are pretty basic. No reason to reinvent the wheel if the board won't be used, but on the other hand, enough people have been asking for a board that I might try it on a trial basis. Let me know what you think. Click the "Comments" link at the bottom of the post and let me know.
It's a short, one-sentence blog post + a link (see below for an example). We'll be using "blink" posts here at Online Dating Insider to share links to articles, resources, and websites of interest that do not necessarily require paragraphs of context or analysis. Enjoy!
Profiledoctor was called a Feeder Business on the Trendwatching.com newsletter this week.
ONLINE DATING: servicing Match.com customers (and other mega-online dating sites) are FEEDER BUSINESSES like Profiledoctor.com, which edits customers' ads to attract more potential dates...May TRENDWATCHING.COM humbly point out that the prospects for FEEDER BUSINESSES servicing ever-expanding online dating and social software services are BIG, on a worldwide scale?
PD was written up in the Boston Globe Single File today. The writer did a fine job considering the interview circumstances. I'll post a link to the article when it's available online.
Last week I resigned from a handful of dating services, partially for a few weeks of mental health, but also to find out how the sevices were dealing with customer churn. Sure enough, Match.com just sent me an e-tip, 3 months for the price of one. However, when I went to take advantage of the offer, I was denied. It seems that the offer is for new subscribers only. Then why the heck did they send this to me?
This is the first match.com email in a while which didn't have any spelling mistakes. The follow-on link basically has you staring at the back side of a bikini model. Can women tell me if they get a picture of a guy?
Everyone's favorite Bachelor, Aaron Buerge, will be hosting a HurryDate at his restaurant, Trolley's. And you might be blowing the whistle right alongside him!
Here's how it works: every time you tell a friend about HurryDate between now and March 31st, you'll get an entry to win a trip to Aaron's hometown to co-host with him in April! more...
I'm 1/2 way through the premiere of Fox's latest reality show, Married by America, from the creators of the hit series “Joe Millionaire. Married is a Rocket Science Laboratories, Inc. production. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the only reason this show is around is due to the reality television phenomenon. Cancelled by America?
In the San Francisco Bay Area, where lots of single engineers, programmers and Web developers lurk, finding a date can be a daunting task.
That's why Jim Wald, a 37-year-old technical writer in Burlingame, California, turned to online dating services like Match.com and the personal ads on craigslist. Wald estimates he has scored between 15 and 20 dates by posting and responding to online ads. More...
What is the deal with all the dating service spam I've been getting lately? The major online dating services have instituted affiliate programs, which is not such a bad idea, but their outright greed translates into shoddy quality control when it comes to signing up "genuine" sites who promise to drive traffic. When are the major sites going to clamp down on this madness?
TRIPLE CROWN!!! Patriots outlast the Eagles, 24-21, to capture third Super Bowl title.
It's officially a dynasty. Next up, can the Celtics rise above .500?
