Podcast: A Conversation with Copenda’s Greg Shverdin

A sneak peak to the upcoming new version of Copenda

For the last 3 months since we exposed the first version of Copenda we are working hard on a major upgrade to our platform which will be available very soon.

In the next following weeks until the release I will expose here the new functionalities that will be available in the upcoming version.

The first new functionality wanted to tell you about is a new filtering option.

Many of you asked us to add the ability to have search results only from your favorite social networks or dating sites. We added a new filter option which will enable you to have profiles in the search results only from your favorite social networks or dating sites.

Happy Valentines Day

The Challenges of Social Networks

Jeremiah Owyang , Sr Analyst at Forrester , listed in his blog some of the chalenges social networks are faceing these days:

Difficult to Monetize
Members aren’t hunting for information like they do on a search, instead they are communicating with each other, and self-expressing. (We’ve data to back that up too), “Marketers say as few as 4 in 10,000 people who see their ads on social networking sites click on them”

Excess of Players
In the case of the many white label social networks (white label means you can rebrand, and create your own Facebook), there are too many players in the space.

As Marketers Move In, Users Move Out
Remember Friendster? Tribe, or waay back and eCircles? Nothing is new, as communities form, marketers will move in, and in some cases bastardize the experience and the hip, cool, influencers will leave to the next network.

Lack of Metrics Makes Success Hard to Measure
For many marketers who want to deploy a campaign on a social network, access to server metrics isn’t always available. As a result, they have to often visually monitor the interaction on the site, or measure click throughs to their site. In some of the more sophisticated platforms, a crude dashboard is provided.

Stalkers and Other Unwanted Activity Ruins Lives
Child stalkers in MySpace continues to be a problem, and in some cases, masking oneself as someone else is easy, and to readily fool others.

Plateau or Social Network Fatigue?
recent reports show that suggest that the usage of social networks are slowing down, if not reducing perhaps it’s from the endless tasks that occur, or the shinyness has rubbed off.

Successful Networks have hard time scaling
Facebook and Twitter (yes a social network too) are suffering from scaling issues, as a result, their sites have a great deal of downtime or latency. The complicated applications will only increase in intricacy as more users are added.

Loss in workplace productivity “Social not-working”
Companies, organizations, and individuals are concerned about the time wasted in managing social network profiles, in some cases, companies have banned Facebook from their employees, often using Firewalls.

see full post at web-strategist.com

The Social Networking & Internet Personals Industry - Issues from Executives and Management

Here is another summary of an interesting discussion about "The Social Networking & Internet Personals Industry" from the internet dating confirence.
Panel Members inlude:
6 Panelists:
Penthouse Media – Mark Bell
Meet MOI.com -- Andrew Weinreich
Thunder Road Inc. – Mike McQuown
OKcupid.com
Mate1.com – Elizabeth Wasserman
Plenty Of Fish – Markus Frind
Moderated by Mark Brooks of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com
Differentiators between the sites on the panel:
Plenty of Fish is Free
Mate1: Free for women, overpriced for men (jokingly said)
OKCupid.com focused on community and non-dating
Andrew W. completely mobile
Penthouse: we make money
Q: How big a threat are Social Networking Sites
Largest dating subscription site has less than 1% of all US daters so there is still a lot of growth potential.
Q: Can you start a generic dating site in this environment over?
Yes, most panelists say it’s too late to enter the market as a plain vanilla general site.One alternative view from a panelist was that just when you think there was a winner on the Internet, that winner gets unseated so there is no reason to think that won’t happen in the dating space. Niche sites can convert better and cost less than a general site for marketing.
Another panelist recommended buying an existing site that has a database that’s not innovating rather than innovate but not have a database (unless you have unlimited funds).
Numerous references of how no one could beat Friendster (myspace and facebook rose to do so) and how Yahoo was #1 in search, but then Google overtook, so anything can happen online.
Q: What can you do to add value to online dating subscribers.
Facebook figured out that providing a way for people to give pointless updates about what your friends are doing several times a day generated lots of traffic. As opposed to online dating where you don’t really know the other people on the site. Dating needs to get out of the static experience (except who’s new) of posting a profile / viewing profiles.
User generated content is driving lots of activity online. How often is the average dating profile updated? Add more dynamic elements such as forums, so you can see what an other dater wrote, or areas of the site they interacted with that are related to a particular subject that gets automatically added to their profile.
Q: How does user generated content make you more money.
It isn’t a big factor for Plenty of Fish, as a fraction of a percent of all traffic is forum generated. Penthouse media had a different take in that user generated content enhances the connection of the customer to the site and therefore keeps people staying longer as members.
Q: Question about customer service.
One panelist recommended that dating executives do the customer service to understand the issues. Plenty of Fish jokingly said they don’t believe in customer service. Mate1.com does it in-house and tries to reply within 48 hours. The fewer people who you upset, the better chance you have of referrals. Another panelist talked about there’s a difference between reading customer emails and responding. Biggest issue with one of them was that people were upset they were billed and how to deflect that to more about what got them upset to begin with and correct that.
Q: What about converting more free members to paid?
Not everyone who goes to a dating site want to date. Some are voyeurs. Target your customer service toward those who want to date and not just poke around. Markus from Plenty of Fish postulated that most online daters who pay are tricked within the first minutes of visiting a site/landing page. Slight change of subject, another panelist talked about guarantees, and how Match.com offers one now. If you are large enough, you can maybe offer a guarantee but not so easily for smaller ones. Also tighten the guarantee to if you try to meet people who are close to your age, local to you, (this part somewhat jokingly said:) similar in your appearance (ie, 6’s must contact only 7’s and lowers) you can be pretty sure they will actually meet someone.
Some members will pay, and some will never pay. If you can identify the ones who will never pay, you can try to monetize them or at least get something from them such as requiring them to post a photo or add content. Another idea: get them to refer people over to your site to get free memberships. One audience member said in his experiment fuzziness of benefits generated more conversions than being exact.
Q: What affect would Microsoft’s potential purchase of Yahoo have on buying ads.
Some people feel that yahoo isn’t a huge factor as it is, so things should only improve.
Q: Future of online dating – What could stop the industry from growing to $1B to $2B a year.
Spark is down 15% from 12-18 months ago, Match is down 2%. The sites that are publicly traded are shrinking. One panelist said he’s not public but he’s growing, mainly through launching more niche sites and his contention is they are cannibalizing the big general sites.
Security and fraudsters are a threat, and one panelist recommended the dating sites to share information on the fraudulent users (IP addresses, email addresses, etc.).
There are more choices today than 3 years ago, so even though some sites are showing lower numbers, the belief is that the market is still growing overall.
Q: What about offline coaching and matchmaking integration with online dating?
There’s a lot of opportunity in this area. Revenue per employee for an online web site is significantly higher than offline. One item was that matchmakers are still too fragmented and until there is a central source to connect with.
Q: What are the 3 top things that each panelist would change (long term) to triple revenue.
Penthouse’s response:Expand mobile. China.Technology.
Panelist: AndrewSimilar to Penthouse’s response. Mobile, international expansion and new technologies.
Panelist: Mike M.Niche sites, international members, expand payment options.
Panelist: OKCupidThink outside the profile.
Panelist: Mate1Internationalization. Move dating from static to dynamic environment.
Panelist: Markus.Since I only need to triple, I’ll just go on more vacations as I don’t need to do anything. LOL.

Gay Dating Services Industry

Here is Patrick Perrine, Founder MyPartner.com , presentation at the internet dating conference.

About The Community
According to Kinsey, 1 in 10 people are either gays and lesbians. Is that true? According to Witeck-Combs, its about 7% of the US population. Ahout 15 million adults are in the US, and 77% consider themselves as openly gay. Gays and lesbians live in 99.3% of all US counties. More than 6 million gays and lesbians are estimated to be living in partnered relationships in the US. 1 in 4 gay men and lesbians live in households with choldren under the age of 18. The consumer market is estimated at $690 billion in buying power in 2007. There is an expected rise to $835 million in 2008. 80% of gay men are actively online.
The Market
The average gay online date has 3-5 active profiles as compared to 1-3 for heterosexuals. Users have a higher user engagement for social network. They also report a much higher usage of blogs. eMarketer estimated that there were 12.1 million adult GLBT internet users in the US in 2007.
What does this mean?
The online personals market is estimated at $649 million dollar and is expected to grow 8% a year.The Opportunity87% of gay men and 58% of lesbians use the internet to find a partner. Only 18% of men and 27% of women have had a serious relationship. Research is finally showing that gay men and lesbians do want serious long term relationships. 47% of gay men and 41% of gay women are actively looking for a serious long term relationships. 71% of gay men and women have visited a chat room or registered with an online dating site. However, 87% said they like to flirt, but fear of rejection prevented them from making the first move. Trust issues are big factor.
What are the differences between the gay market and the online market?
The LGBT population is not a homogenous group. There are differences within itself. What works for gay men may not work with lesbians.Traditional dating sites right now are promoting hooking up verses long term relationship. They tend to be XXX and foster quick relationship versus partnerships.What myPartner.com is doing to lead the way --Partner Perfect Compatibility Matching System, an enviroment fostering long-term relationships for gay men, and providing online and offline matchmakingWhere is the industry heading?More mainstream sites are targeting the gay demographic.Offline gay matchmaking servicesPopularity of Gay Niche relationship based sites growing.
What is lacking?
Very few lesbain servicesVery few onlne dating sites for lesbians

Via onlinepersonalswatch

Where's Dating 2.0? Innovations in the Online Dating Industry

Here is a summary of Sam Yagan (CEO & Co-Founder) OKCupid presention at the internet dating confernce.

Sam Yagan is the speaker for Where's Dating 2.0. Here is a little background on him: CEO of www.sparknotes.com (1999-2002), CEO of www.edonkey.com (2002-2005), and CEO of www.okcupid.com (2004- )
We incrementally innovate. Geocities has turned into Livejournal. Friendster is now Facebook. Online dating sites just changes their logo.Do we need to innovate? Yes! Dating sites were among the first to embrace UGC in form of profiles. Dating sites have the deepest and most honest data on its users. We need to leverage the tools that are out there. You need to leverage word of mouth virality and "link love".What is the business model of the future? How many large, growing, consumer subscription industries can you name? If you ask your friends how many subscriptions they have online, most will say none.The top 5 innovations that were discussed this morning (see State of the Internet Dating Industry)--
is this really where online dating is?
Is that going to lead us into the feature.Ok Cupid's Web 2.0 Elements 30,000 user generated personality tests, user driven matching algorithm, dating blogs, collaborative profile ratings, and its free.
What is so exciting about free?
When Ben & Jerry's have free ice cream, there are lines around the block. People do that just to save $3. He can't explain why that is. There is also the thinking that you also don't have to call yourself an "online dater" if its free.
Why aren't dating sites using targeted ads better?
It has a lot to do with the numbers of people to be able to target better.

Via onlinepersonalswatch