Part II: Dating Online
The most efficient and comfortable way to do almost any type of research is online — finding a date is no exception. There are 44 million singles Americans, or approximately 40% of the entire US population. Of that, close to 50% have used online dating services. Over 120,000 marriages a year result from relationships started online.
The benefits to online dating are tremendous. The opportunity to meet more people than ever before (exposure) coupled with the ability to leverage the long tail (finding persons with specific characteristics or interests) and to ‘meet’ people at your convenience (24/7 from the comfort of home) is a major advancement in cultural social behaviors. What’s more, online dating also levels the playing field by allowing people who are uncomfortable in certain in-person situations to have the opportunity to engage potential mates in a no pressure environment. Also with work hours ever increasing and younger demographics moving away from organized social gatherings (church, affinity groups, etc) online dating is quickly becoming more the standard than an ‘option’ for meeting new people.
The problem with online dating is really twofold. First, text descriptions and photos cannot do justice to the complexity of human beings. Second, even if a profile could adequately convey someone’s personality, the fact remains that online dating is not yet socially acceptable. For example, posting a photo attached to a profile results in page views 15x a profile without. So why doesn’t everyone post a photo with their profile? Well, for the same reason the most common opening line to a profile description is a variation of “so my friends got me an accountâ€� or “I have never done this before, but…â€� People think online dating must be secretive, something they keep hidden from the friends and family. So, even if someone passes the first hurdle and is willing to create an account, to actually then get them to go out in-person with people requires another significant sell. But why is the stigma so negative? Part of the reluctance maybe be attributable to online dating’s closely related and notoriously shady counterpart: controlled sex trafficking. Selling sex online may be morally wrong, it may be not be, but the fact is it’s a heck of a cash cow and people do it :) For example, Adult Friend Finder was recently rumored to have been acquired for $1 Billion on revenues of $300m per year, significantly more money than Facebook makes annually.
Personally, as someone very comfortable with the online space I certainly have, and would again use online dating as a means for locating potential dates. For example, when I worked at AOL I used Match.com although with less than spectacular results. In fact highlighting people’s reluctance to translate an email correspondence into an offline meeting, the two dates that I did get out of Match.com were with people I was able to establish real connections with (for example, knowing a mutual friend). So since I am single now, why am I not currently on a site?
One of the immediate issues is that dating sites are far too dispersed – there are literally a hundred different sites to choose from including non-traditional sites like Friendster and Facebook which allow profiles fields for relationship status. However, the key to a good dating site is not in the types of functionality or in the user experience, but rather in the composition and number of users.
Essentially there are three types of successful dating site models that currently exist:
1) Super niche demographics (Examples: JDate, or the network for men earning over $100k per year).
2) Number of Users (Brand Name). Match.com has name recognition and a large user based so people are the most likely to sign up for it
3) Totally Free (Examples: Plentyoffish, Craigslist Personals).
My opinion is that niche sites are too niche and so inherently have too small a pool of people. However, even with a larger site like Match.com, I don’t want to pay a big monthly fee when I can locate all the users I am interested in within a couple hours (by targeted search). Thus knowing the type of woman I am attracted to, what would most appeal to me would NOT be paying one big website $30 a month. Instead, I would rather pay $5 per targeted lead (based on my pre-defined specifications) irregardless of the network. I would pay more to ensure that the leads I get are the type of women I want to meet. But of course the question remains: do they want to meet me?
My next post/installment will analyze how people actually interact with each other within a given dating site. Hopefully I can offer some insight into what works and what does not, both from a personal marketing and a user-experience standpoint.
Other Posts You Might Like:
- Dating in 2007: A Male’s Perspective (Part 1)
- How to Get a Date on Facebook
- The Economics of Finding a Rich Husband
