Category: Q & A

Sometimes silence tells the story.

I came very close to booking a trip to Miami last year, but my schedule exploded a bit, and I had to cancel… I still wonder if maybe fate was trying to tell me something. Between the website, the way the sales team runs things, and the lack of third-party commentary, it just feels a "little off" somehow.

Still, I've heard anecdotally that it's an incredible networking opportunity, as pretty much all the major players and their vendors are represented in some fashion, along with many tiny niche site runners full of energy and insights. Since networking would be the natural focus, it then becomes imperative that you have a solid plan of attack, and start pinging other likely attendees beforehand to suggest meetings/make yourself memorable.

I'd love a free ticket to the Beverly Hills event, but failing that the money is almost certainly better spent poured directly into my company, based on the available evidence. Would love to be proven wrong!

Is the Internet Dating Conference a worthwhile and well run event?

In the general case, there are no reliable independent studies that I can find, that conclude there is a measurable difference between online and offline dating-sourced marriages as far as divorce rate is concerned.

That said, there are bits and pieces of data that show, whether offline or online, that certain qualities, habits, interests, schedules, and demographic matches tend to have an effect on longterm viability of a marriage. 

For example, take eHarmony.com – this is basically a "niche" dating site, where the niche is "primarily observant Christians looking for longterm relationships and marriage". Compared with the rate of offline churchgoers who marry then divorce, eHarmony's rates map very well onto this demographic – though they are lower here as well (no doubt due to their matching system helping to weed things a bit further). 
 
So, on the one hand, they can clearly say "for our target demo, we improve the likelihood of a lasting marriage, on average"… But it's less clear that their demographic is "the pool of all singles", or "everyone looking to get married", etc. Hence, there appears to be some form of selection bias at work skewing the results.
 
More thorough testing and reporting needs to be done in the industry and shared publicly – but online dating companies have historically been VERY tight-lipped on data sharing, with the occasional exception like POF.com or OKCupid.com (both free sites, with much less to lose).

Are there any significant differences in the divorce rates of marriages from offline dating and marriages from online dating?

There are several paths:

1. Paid Advertising. This is thought of as a requirement in the industry currently, as the usual word of mouth and viral spread techniques that might otherwise boost awareness/traffic/signups run up against issues of privacy and fear of disclosing the use of an online dating site to a wider circle of friends. People may feel less reluctant to admit the use of dating sites these days, but it's still not something they heavily promote/advocate on their own. Another form of advertising, the affiliate sale model, pays third parties to convince prospects to sign up for a site.
2. SEO. By identifying revenue-generating niches, and performing keyword optimization techniques on one's site, it is possible to rank highly in medium to low-competition niches, and thus increase traffic flow for people searching within a particular niche.
3. PR/Media relations. If a company can convey a newsworthy story, to the right outlet, when they aren't busy covering other breaking news, it's possible to receive online press coverage fairly easily. Once more established on blogs/news sites, these press hits can show social proof to get access to print and cable news channels. Performed wisely, with recurring news every quarter or two, a site can build traffic via appearances in the news.
4. Fake user databases. This is a more popular tactic than you would think, or like. Sites can purchase lists of "members", along with pictures and profile text, for a very small investment, then "seed" their membership in a way that makes it appear that they have a strong user pool in any major (or even small) city. This gives any real users a greater incentive to join up. As this effect snowballs, the site can slowly delete/remove the fake users, as enough users come online in a given area to achieve "real critical mass".
5. Shared user databases. This innovation allows you to license another site's user database for your own site. The users themselves are instantly "members" of the new site, which gives them even more ways to be found/matched/selected by compatible people. In theory, this means getting to critical mass immediately, in exchange for a licensing fee. Since this is similar to a lot of software/content licensing agreements, it appears attractive. Unfortunately, there is a large amount of overlap between #4 and #5 – so you may wind up sharing a database that is largely fake accounts. As Yosemite Sam might say "Two Nothin's is Nothin!" It's also possible to license accounts that are 100% real, verifiable, and simply inactive. Three Nothin's?
6. Innovation. This one is really really hard to get right, and sustain over the long haul. It may take much longer to grow to a decent size, but services like OKCupid initially pursued this route – since the site was so different from the big online matchmaking catalog sites, it became a word of mouth alternative. Eventually, though, OKC also invested in regular large marketing spend to attract new users, as their "known brand" elements had become so established and familiar, that making significant/drastic changes had a greater chance of upsetting existing users than attracting new ones.

Basically, there is almost no difference in HOW free sites attract new users. The main difference is the subscription price (free), and the perceived value proposition associated with it. This also means that there is some form of market targeting/segmentation going on between free and paid sites: free sites cater to everyone in theory, whereas people of certain income levels/philosophies are essentially blocked or self-selected out of paid sites.

Perhaps the extent of issues/complaints involving paid sites acts as an additional incentive: it's very hard to prove the old saw "you get what you pay for" when it comes to online dating… Mostly because people confuse what most dating sites are offering: access to their database, and nothing more. Free sites, then, only have to provide the smallest perceived value to become "value positive" in the mind of the member – something as small as a single email reply in a month. The same situation on match.com or eharmony.com would be seen pretty universally as a waste of the membership fee.

How have free dating sites gotten to a critical mass of users?

Absolutely not.

If you include ONLY physical characteristics as a measure, and create some form of consistent baseline for attractiveness, then I'd be surprised if there was any significant impact on online dating site use on attractiveness. 

The same kind of financial circumstances that prevent a lot of people from getting online at all (and thus using an online dating site) are the same circumstances that reduce preventive healthcare, wardrobe budget, and other personal care that typically enhances looks (spa treatments, hairstyling, teeth whitening and hair removal).

That said, what people think of as attractive in a potential mate usually embodies more than the physical – a sunny or even devilish personality, confidence and poise, extroversion and a welcoming/inviting nature. 

Not everyone can easily pull this type of attraction off in person, and online it can be even more difficult to fully convey these qualities even if they exist in abundance "offline".

I think the fairest thing to say is that it's very difficult to "be your most attractive" online – though breaking the ice and reducing tensions/expectations via an online dating service CAN increase attraction/comfort during subsequent in-person meetings.

Are people using online dating sites less attractive than average?

No, such sites do not currently exist (or are still in "stealth mode").

That said, the idea of transmitting smells via the Internet is nothing new – in fact, DigiScents was a startup created 10 years ago to develop the "iSmell", a hardware device that could reproduce smells based on a data file transmitted via email, or embedded in a website.

It's entirely possible that one could license the iSmell IP, and embed similar data into dating profiles. Of course, the original iSmell was an output-only device – which means a second device (iSniff?) would be required to identify and codify the unique smell(s) of each site member.

Read more on this rather unusual startup, as well as a few other historical attempts at transmitting smells electronically here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISmell

Are there examples of online dating sites where you can use your sense of smell (or body chemistry) to attract a date before meeting the person in real life?