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.