It’s Long Over…But He’s Still Around In My Dreams…
by Rori Raye.
I was 12 years older than him, but we didn’t know it. It was a long time ago, and I’ll always think I almost married him - white picket fence and all.
I met him in a computer store, in the early days of computers, when I was an actress writing screenplays, and he made his living pulling the backs off computers and switching the parts around inside before he closed them back up.
On our first date, the chemistry was through the roof, but the conversation was stiff and almost weird, as though we were in two different Universes trying to discover a common language.
A Conversation with Match.com GM Mandy Ginsberg
I had a great conversation with Mandy Ginsberg, the new North America General Manager of Match.com. Mandy was the GM of Chemistry.com previously. Mandy replaced Craig Wax, who is no longer with the company. Here’s what I learned.
Chemistry growth is up 11%. They have a high rate of people completing the initial profiles. A series of new questions are displayed when I logged in this week (been a while), six in all. I am in the middle of going through the multi-step meeting process. This is not a product review, but I continue to keep track of what’s working and where improvements are needed.
Helen Fisher, who created the Chemistry matching system, has written a book about why we match up with people. The book is based on what she has learned from members of Chemistry.com during the last 2.5 years. Everyone there is excited about the book and I am hoping for an unprecedented look into how singles are using online dating.
Chemistry is launching a new ad campaign in April 2009. The campaign will feature hard-hitting, irreverent and urban messaging. Photo to the left is of successful couples who have met on Chemistry. This is a small sampling, there simply isn’t enough room for them to display them all.
Chemistry is working hard to streamline the communication process. I was glad to hear that. It takes a while to get to the point where you’re actually asking someone out on a date.
Now, on to Match. Match is preparing a new ad campaign in coming weeks. More on this after I’ve had a chance to review the creative.
Match is testing a newsfeed feature similar to the Facebook Live Feed. Only certain members can see the feature at this point.
Working on 2009 strategy now. Stepping back to figure out what consumers are feeling, address quality of matches and responses and laying out roadmap to address those sentiments. We’re going to see more innovation from Match in 2009 than we’ve seen in the past few years. Maybe video, we’ll see.
There is a whole new position for someone who is in charge of retention efforts.
Match gets 25,000 new members a day, that is incredible. I talk to a lot of smaller dating sites who would kill to have 25k members.
I’ve mentioned that the Facebook Application “Are You Interested” displays profiles of members who are also on Match. Turns out that Match shares a feed of members with Are You Interested, which inserts the profiles into the profile stream every once in a while. Clicking “Yes” on one of these profiles directs the user over to Match.com, where I found that I had to log in twice to see the person’s profile.
Login problems aside, this is a good way for Match to try out social network marketing without a) changing the way Match works for existing members and b) implementation appears fairly straightforward, click Yes (Anonymous) or Yes(Let Them Know) and either way you are redirected to Match.com, where hopefully you will create an account in order to communicate with the person. I’m not sure if there is a difference between the two Yes options?
Watch for Match to do more in the social networking space as they continue to evaluate new opportunities and partners.
A Conversation with Match.com GM Mandy Ginsberg
I had a great conversation with Mandy Ginsberg, the new North America General Manager of Match.com. Mandy was the GM of Chemistry.com previously. Mandy replaced Craig Wax, who is no longer with the company. Here’s what I learned.
Chemistry growth is up 11%. They have a high rate of people completing the initial profiles. A series of new questions are displayed when I logged in this week (been a while), six in all. I am in the middle of going through the multi-step meeting process. This is not a product review, but I continue to keep track of what’s working and where improvements are needed.
Helen Fisher, who created the Chemistry matching system, has written a book about why we match up with people. The book is based on what she has learned from members of Chemistry.com during the last 2.5 years. Everyone there is excited about the book and I am hoping for an unprecedented look into how singles are using online dating.
Chemistry is launching a new ad campaign in April 2009. The campaign will feature hard-hitting, irreverent and urban messaging. Photo to the left is of successful couples who have met on Chemistry. This is a small sampling, there simply isn’t enough room for them to display them all.
Chemistry is working hard to streamline the communication process. I was glad to hear that. It takes a while to get to the point where you’re actually asking someone out on a date.
Now, on to Match. Match is preparing a new ad campaign in coming weeks. More on this after I’ve had a chance to review the creative.
Match is testing a newsfeed feature similar to the Facebook Live Feed. Only certain members can see the feature at this point.
Working on 2009 strategy now. Stepping back to figure out what consumers are feeling, address quality of matches and responses and laying out roadmap to address those sentiments. We’re going to see more innovation from Match in 2009 than we’ve seen in the past few years. Maybe video, we’ll see.
There is a whole new position for someone who is in charge of retention efforts.
Match gets 25,000 new members a day, that is incredible. I talk to a lot of smaller dating sites who would kill to have 25k members.
I’ve mentioned that the Facebook Application “Are You Interested” displays profiles of members who are also on Match. Turns out that Match shares a feed of members with Are You Interested, which inserts the profiles into the profile stream every once in a while. Clicking “Yes” on one of these profiles directs the user over to Match.com, where I found that I had to log in twice to see the person’s profile.
Login problems aside, this is a good way for Match to try out social network marketing without a) changing the way Match works for existing members and b) implementation appears fairly straightforward, click Yes (Anonymous) or Yes(Let Them Know) and either way you are redirected to Match.com, where hopefully you will create an account in order to communicate with the person. I’m not sure if there is a difference between the two Yes options?
Watch for Match to do more in the social networking space as they continue to evaluate new opportunities and partners.
Why eHarmony Should Be More Like Google
A while back Fernando Ardenghi took issue with my statement “eHarmony is innovating, continuously updating the site and matching algorithm.” Fernando argues that as it updates its matching algorithm, eHarmony should recalculate compatibility between prospectives mates in its entire big database. He seems to be saying that dating sites won’t re-index their databases in order to take advantage of improved matching capabilities.
All of a sudden it hit me. Dating site compatibility assessment systems need to be more like Google.
Think about the Google web index, which is updated every so often to improve search results. When Google publishes a new index, people who are negatively affected in the organic search results tend to get upset. If you’re a company spending thousands of dollars a month in SEO fees to show up on the first page of Google’s search results and all of a sudden you’re on page six, you’re going to understandably freak out.
I like to think of eHarmony as being somewhat like Google, in that they are very secretive about their matching system, it evolves over time, and for a certain number of singles, works well. The main difference is that we know a lot more about Google’s indexing systems than we do eHarmony.
eHarmony is slowly becoming more transparent though a series of blogs and the eHarmony Labs. (although the labs blog hasn’t been updated in a month.) I for one would like to see them talk more about the matching system. How does it work, how has it evolved, what are they learning and how is that knowledge fed back into the matching system? Part of the beauty of eHarmony is that they do most of the work, but still, I’d like to know what my $50 is doing for me each month. I’m all for protecting intellectual property, but part of me thinks increased transparency into the matching process would actually be more helpful.
The marketing people at eHarmony are grinning right now, they know it’s all about ad spend. As long as more people visit and become paying members, the “better” the service becomes. If there are more members, more people will get married, regardless if the matching system improves or not.
And pretty soon, They’ll have to answer to the SEC and then it’s all about preserving shareholder value. That’s when eHarmony jumps the shark. They’re really in a difficult place right now if you think about it. Visitors are basically flat from a year ago and I assume they are spending even more money on marketing.
If they go on this acquisition spree that everyone is talking about, are they going to buy a site for the traffic, the revenue or the cross-sell, like Match promoting Chemistry (but not the other way around?)
What happens if/when eHarmony tweaks their matching system? Do people that are potential matches get disconnected? Is there a feedback loop in place where someone says, “whoa, we just lost 134,000 matches based on that last algorithm change.” Are the matches at eHarmony improving over time, staying the same, or getting worse? How can we measure improvement? I don’t want to rely on an increase in marriages per day, it’s not nuanced enough to use as a realistic measurement.
Dr. Houran and others talk a lot about the science of matching, but it really comes down to math when you’re talking about matching millions of members. What is that threshold for “connect them they are a great match” and being right on the line between a match and not? My online dating neurosis occurs when I think about the women that I’m not connecting with because my dating services are not putting them in front of me for some reason or another. Shudder. This is the stuff that drives me crazy, the potential for missed matches. My personal example on Match is when I say I want kids, and I see a million women, but if I say I’m not sure about kids, the dating pool dries up considerably. How many of those women that say they want two kids are just saying that and would be fine without kids? I meet a TON of women in that situation.
I would love to hear from someone at eHarmony who is allowed enough leeway to talk about how they run these amazingly complex matching systems, fascinating stuff.
5 Things to Say When You’re Interested/Not Interested
Five Things to Say If You Want to See Them Again
1. “I had a great time. Would you like to get together again soon?”
2. “Would you be interested in dinner next time?”
3. “This was a great lunch! I’d like to get to know you better.”
4. “I’m going hiking on Saturday and would love for you to join me.”
5. “Now that the hard part is out of the way, are you interested in going out again?”
Five Things to Say When You’re Not Interested
1. “The best of luck and fun in your future dates. Thanks again.”
2. “I can see us becoming friends. I’d like to invite you to my next party.”
3. “I had a good time, but I just don’t think we have that much in common.” (Very politely
point out the differences between your lifestyles, interests, etc., which will show why you’re not a good match.)
4. “I have a friend you might like, can I give him/her your number?”
5. “I feel that the chemistry just isn’t quite right between us.” (This implies it’s a mutual thing.)
