Online Personals: Big Profits, Intense Competition
from the it's-all-about-the-connections dept
Money might not be able to buy you love, but it appears love can get you an awful lot of money, if you harness it correctly. That’s what all those online dating sites are coming to realize. There’s plenty of competition, but many of the sites are doing quite well, as they discover that you can make money offering a service that lets people connect. Once again, it’s a story that’s not about top-down content, but about people finding a service that lets them do something useful.
Comments on “Online Personals: Big Profits, Intense Competition”
Belongs in the Overhype category
Articles like this talking about booming dating sites have been going on for a decade. There remain basic shortcomings:
1. Dating sites remain poorly monitored places that are magnets for prostitutes and perverts.
2. Most non-IT people do not take internet dating seriously.
3. The questionnaire forms remain unsophisticated. They still have “check one” boxes for race, a check-box list of 20 “interests”, long lists of sex stuff, too many yes-or-no questions.
4. Places that claim to have millions of members — about 99% of the “members” are expired trial accounts, and every community has a set of 20-100 people who post ads over and over.
Re: Belongs in the Overhype category
2. Most non-IT people do not take internet dating seriously.
I’ve noticed the opposite actually. Almost all of my friends in tech won’t go anywhere near a dating site, but my non-techie friends are going on new dates every week via these sites.
Re: Re: Belongs in the Overhype category
Your friends are people who will tell you what you want to hear. If you had disagreed about too many issues, you would never have become friends in the first place.
It’s just like the deaf girl I once met who thought that almost nobody listens to music, because her deaf friends don’t listen to music and her hearing friends have always told her that music is no big deal.
IT professionals tend to become “friends” with a warped selection of women who like Star Trek or can tolerate role playing games. Most women out there look down on techies and would rather go out with a businessman or doctor.
Survey Bias
If one were to go out on the street and ask people to take a survey on internet dating, most people will laugh and walk away. The few people who will agree to it will be people who favor net dating in the first place; thus, dating sites can claim that “70% of people favor net dating” or whatever.
OTOH, if one were to put up a booth with a big crucifix and ask people to fill out surveys on the evils of internet dating, I bet it can also be “proved” that 90% of people oppose net dating.