39 posts from 2007

By Sarah Butler

 

 

Dating site Match.com makes a move on social networkers with Facebook liaison. Sarah Butler reports

Online dating is entering the web 2.0 era as Match.com cosies up with networking site Facebook ahead of the New Year rush to find romance.

The world's largest internet dating site will today launch Little Black Book, an application which puts Facebook users who are looking for a date in touch with other single members of the networking site or with Match.com's members.

It will be the first liaison between a major dating firm and a social networking site.

The move comes as matchmakers come under pressure from social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, where singletons can meet potential partners for free. Networking sites have only been around for less than five years but they already dwarf dating sites, with Facebook claiming about 58m members compared with Match.com's 15m built up since 1995.

Jason Stockwood, Match.com's managing director for international business, says Little Black Book is part of a strategy to step up the dating site's expansion.

He says: "Match.com has a lot of the characteristics of social networking sites such as peer-to-peer communication and visitor-generated content. This bridges the gap between what social networking does well - a large network of people staying in touch - with our additional functions on top."

Match.com wants to build relationships with other social networking sites and Mr Stockwood says the Facebook launch is a test to examine how such tie-ups can work.

Little Black Book will also be a trial for a new style of payment system under which members pay per contact made rather than via subscription.

Mr Stockwood, a Grimsby boy who claims to have met his girlfriend of two years in a pub rather than online, was poached from Travelocity, the travel website, nine months ago to help drive expansion and raise the profile of Match.com's brand in Europe.

The firm, which is owned by US-listed InterActiveCorp (IAC), wants to launch new niche brands and is also seeking acquisitions in the UK and Europe to help encourage a wider public to have a go at online dating.

The firm already has sites in 37 countries worldwide, including 15 European nations, and sees this side of the Atlantic as the engine of growth over the next few years.

"IAC is very acquisitive and has a huge amount of cash on the books," Mr Stockwood says. "We are looking at acquisitions in the UK and for potential targets to really help us consolidate the market."

Match.com, which bought UK-based rival Udate in 2003 and also runs unbranded dating sites for MSN and Yahoo, is no doubt hoping to harness Mr Stockwood's experience at the highly acquisitive Lastminute.com to help it find ideal partners. The online travel agency, where Stockwood spent five years, bought 16 companies over a two-year period.

Mr Stockwood says: "I think we are at the start of a hockey stick of growth for online dating. The concept is right, people understand it, but it has not reached a critical mass in being everyone's choice of how to meet people. I feel the opportunities are the same as at Lastminute.com - it is the start of something."

At present only 6pc of internet surfers use online dating sites and the paid-for dating market in the UK is only worth between £60m and £70m.

However, it is growing rapidly. The number of single people in the UK is expected to rise from 10m at present to 16m by 2012 and across Europe total revenues from online dating are expected to more than double to €549m (£395) by 2010 compared with €243m last year.

Match.com, which faces increasing competition in the UK from French-owned DatingDirect.com as well as Sarah Beeny's Mysinglefriend.com, launches a major TV and billboard advertising campaign this week as well as its new Facebook site.

The moves are intended to grab as big a share of the market as possible during the peak dating season. Boxing Day and the day after New Year's day are among the top 5pc busiest days for dating services as singles look for a new start after a lonely Christmas.

But the main challenge for dating sites is to encourage more people to overcome their shyness and seek a partner online.

New gimmicks such as video dating and the involvement of friends and family on sites such as Mysinglefriend.com are all being used to encourage singles to sign up. However, there is still a certain resistance to the concept of meeting a partner online.

Mr Stockwood says: "People in urban areas like London understand the benefits and there is a wide audience. The whole social stigma has gone, but many people still think it is not for them. People say it takes the romance out of meeting someone, but people over the age of 30 find it increasingly difficult to meet a partner."

A philosophy graduate who casts himself as a socialist, Mr Stockwood says he is "evangelical" about the power of the web as a way to build social groups and help like-minded people to find one another.

He says the link-up with Facebook is just part of his plan to make Match.com more accessible.

Also on the agenda are big events that will follow on from this year's world record snogging attempt at the Glastonbury festival which involved 400 couples.

"I want to bring the brand alive off-line beyond the ads and the TV," Mr Stockwood says.

The mind boggles.

Katie Allen

Guardian Unlimited,

Tuesday December 18 2007

 

Dating website Match.com hopes to net new customers by becoming the first major match-maker to partner with social networking site Facebook.

The move comes as analysts argue free social networking sites pose a major threat to subscription services like Match. Some dating services have already exited the market as sites like Facebook and MySpace rapidly grow their non-paying audiences keen to make new cyberfriends. Others matchmakers have sought to become more like networking sites by introducing chat functions and video clips.

But dating sites argue the social networking phenomenon has actually helped them grow their overall audience by breaking down people's inhibitions about meeting online.

Match.com is now partnering with Facebook in its bid to gain more networking-crazy surfers. The dating site is offering a "Little Black Book" application to Facebook users from next week, which helps them find potential partners.

"As the market leader, our biggest strategic challenge is to grow the category and our experience tells us that social networkers have a high propensity to try online dating, which makes this a natural move for us," says Jason Stockwood head of the UK Match business.

"Match.com shares many of the same characteristics as a social network, both are about bringing people together. Sites like Facebook are great at helping people manage their existing relationship networks, but Match.com helps people expand these, by meeting new people with an interest in forming romantic relationships."

The Little Black Book service marks a departure from Match.com's subscription model and will give customers the chance to meet its members on a 'pay-per-contact' basis.

The application also seeks to build on evidence showing friends's opinions play a key role in dating, something at the core of TV presenter Sarah Beeny's Mysinglefriend.com. That site allows users to sign up single friends.

Using the Little Black Book application, friends can share potential matches with any of their other friends on Facebook and can purchase keys to "unlock" a potential match for a friend.

Match's announcement follows new research last week showing the UK leads Europe in using social networking sites. UK adults go on social networking sites an average 23 times a month and spend longer on them than their European neighbours - an average 5.3 hours a month, according to media regulator Ofcom

By Chisa Fujioka

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - It isn't quite a match made in heaven, but a U.S.-based online dating company turned to ritual prayers and a Shinto priest to help boost its business in Japan.

It is common for busy singles and their relatives to visit shrines to pray for luck in finding love in a country where hectic lifestyles make it difficult to meet potential partners.

Match.com CEO Thomas Enraght-Moony and other company officials followed suit on Thursday, visiting the Shiba Dai-Jingu shrine in central Tokyo to take part in a private ceremony that included the offering of a sacred sakaki tree branch.

In Japan, singles have warmed to online dating although it is still not as popular as in the United States and Britain. Match.com, part of Internet conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp., launched in Japan in 2004 and now has 840,000 members. "For Match to be successful, one of the things that's important is that I learn about the countries where we operate," Enraght-Moony said after the ceremony, held in an inner chamber with gold-trimmed beams and offerings of apples and rice wine.

After the ceremony, he signed a huge wood prayer tablet in Japanese asking for Match.com's 15 million worldwide members to find love, covering it with red heart stickers.

More two-thirds of Japanese in 1935 had arranged marriages, in which couples were introduced by family members or colleagues and tie the knot after just a few dates, a government-affiliated thinktank says.

But those "omiai" marriages, in which factors such as a man's income and a woman's upbringing were as equally important as their personal chemistry, are now outdated and nearly 90 percent of Japanese find their marriage partners on their own.

Today's singles are generally delaying marriage as both men and women opt for carefree lifestyles, a trend blamed for Japan's rock-bottom birth rate.

Match.com has also found that many Japanese don't believe in divine powers or even technology to decide their romantic fate.

With members worried that their dates are faking credentials such as their job, salary and university degree, the service now gives members the option to fax or e-mail copies of paychecks and diplomas to prove the authenticity of their personal data.

A perfect business match online

When Jason Stockwood, a dating agency MD, wanted to give something back, a virtual relationship with entrepreneur James Davis blossomed

Mentors often say that they give up their time to pass on advice for nothing because they want to give something back. But Jason Stockwood, the managing director of match.com, an online dating agency, logs on to the e-mentoring community at horsesmouth.co.uk with another motive. “I am evangelical about the power of the web,” he says.

“I am quite passionate about the web as a social media and the opportunity for it to influence people’s lives.” And from a practical perspective, “it’s a really time-efficient way of helping people,” he says.

Fired up by the idea of e-mentoring, Stockwood posted details about his background and his business experience and waited. The process is similar to online dating in that you post a personal profile and wait to find people who share your interests, he says. The responses vary.

“It can be quick questions that are answered in quite a short time, but in the case of James, I built up quite a rapport with him. We went back and forward on a number of things and we are still in touch today.”

Stockwood and James Davis, who hopes to launch his own online business, have exchanged business e-mail addresses to make contact quicker and easier. Davis asked Stockwood to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) before he shared his commercial plans in full.

“There will come a point, now that we have exchanged details, that we will meet up.” The idea amuses him. “I’ve never talked about this, it does sound increasingly like dating, doesn’t it? But I’ve never been asked to sign an NDA in a relationship before.”

Joking aside, Stockwood doesn’t feel that e-mentoring rushes or depersonalises the mentoring process. “Not for me... it’s a useful way to be connected.

“I feel that I get a lot out of the fact that I can help him and hopefully he feels some benefit from the fact that I have a little bit of experience in the online area,” he says.

What could be more fitting than seeking advice from fellow e-entrepreneurs by logging on to a website? When James Davis, who quit his job as the sales director of a commercial radio company to launch his own online business, read about the informal mentoring website horsesmouth.co.uk, he thought it was “worth having a play with to see what was there”. Davis was looking for good advice from people who had been there and done that.

“You can’t really be taught how to set up a business, but hearing it from the horse’s mouth is invaluable,” he says.

Davis is reluctant to disclose his own plans, preferring secrecy in case the competition is reading. That same secrecy comes in handy if you don’t hit it off with an online mentoring respondent. Because both parties are anonymous, you can move to another e-mentor without any feeling of awkwardness.

After mixed success, Davis eventually found a good mentoring match in Jason Stockwood. “There is commonality [with Stockwood’s business, match.com] with what I am looking to do... listening to someone who has ten-plus years’ experience is quite invaluable,” he says.

Davis is in regular contact with Stockwell by e-mail when he needs to bounce ideas off his mentor. “I’m not using a mentor to say, ‘I’m in this situation, what’s the answer,’ but he offers his expertise in terms of experience,” he says. “He’s a bit like a father-figure but in the business world rather than life. I have found it immensely rewarding.”

The mentoring relationship is a personal one – the two share jokes, for example – although Davis has never spoken to Stockwood, let alone met him face-to-face. But it won’t always be an electronic relationship. “I do envisage us meeting up at some point and taking it from there,” he says. Stockwood will certainly be invited to any official launch of his start-up, hopefully next year. “It would be rude if I didn’t.”

Saturday 17^th November, Foo Fighters playing live and loud to twenty thousand people at The O2 in Greenwich. Two hours of metal, acoustic and anthemic brilliance. In the middle of which I nipped to the loo to come back to find Roger Taylor and Brian May (looked like Anita Dobson from our seats but I am told it was him) riffing on a country and western track, quite a night.

 

Thurs 22^nd November, Patrick Stewart in Macbeth at the Gielgud Theatre. An absolutely mesmeric performance by the lead actor and by Kate Fleetwood who holds the intensity of  Lady Macbeth in her eyes . The 3 hours of this performance captivated and flew by but the highlights were when the murdered Banquo strides down the dining table covered in his own blood and also Macbeth’s soliloquy on finding of his wife’s death. Get a ticket if you can.  

 

Saturday 24^th November – Grimsby Town played Barnet in North London. I don’t get to see my home team that often so when they play in town I made the trip on the Northern line to Underhill and watch the boys break their 7 game losing streak and spank Barnet 3 -0. The sloping pitch, the terrible facilities and the cold wind flying through the open back of the grandstand (attendance 2,053) isn’t The Emirates but a couple of pints of Guinness before the game, a Pukka Pie at half time and the away fans singing “we only sing when we’re fishing” for me is football at its best.

 

This week I am looking forward to seeing Jonathan Pryce in Glengarry Glen Ross at The Albemarle Theatre.  Later in the week at The Southbank a selection of writers and actors including my favourite writer Simon Armitage and Christopher Eccelstone will be reading from the work of Ted Hughes to mark the publication of his letters and the 50^th anniversary of Hawk in the Rain. Hughes' poetry comes alive when performed well (some of his own recordings are incredible) so this should be a fantastic evening.

 

 

Just spent a hectic but great couple of days filming our new TV ads for 2008. I don't want to give too much away but we've been working Nick Jones, known for his work with top comedians Simon Pegg, Mitchell & Webb and for doing the 118 118 commercial campaigns. What I will say is that Nick has 'discovered' two new comedians/actors Spencer Jones and Glen Hirst who I am absolutely certain are going to be massive stars as they are both absolutely hilarious.

More to come .....

For me Philip Roth is the greatest living American Novelist but many believe Norman Mailer has that title. I was lucky to see a talk a couple of years ago where Mailer was interviewed as part of a literary festival. My first experience of him as a writer was the novel ‘Tough Guys Don’t Dance’. It’s a crime novel about a writer with a penchant for drink and women. The main character has alcohol induced amnesia and tries to piece back the events over the previous days that culminated with him coming round with his car drenched in blood. It was my first experience of a writer’s muscular style that breathes life into characters in a way that I can think no other writer does except perhaps for Hemingway. I can’t help think that Mailer (like Hemingway) is of an era that we will no longer see again, part anachronism, part hero, part cliché (that they have created). The writer as a character in his own novels, a war veteran, a boxer, aggressive, hard-drinking, an attempted murderer (?), straight-talking and ultimately flawed. He spoke during the event I attended in his New York drawl and answered questions with great humour and clarity and captivated the audience (even those that didn’t want to be captivated). Towards the end of the event a woman stood up and levelled the claim that his attitudes towards women in his writing made him a ‘woman hater’ to which he replied “If I hated women so much why would I have been married 6 times”. I remember thinking that in the humour of his answer there was something truthful, brilliant and wrong. He was definitely an original and of his time. I don’t think we’ll see the likes of him again.

Here's a great article on Techcrunch this week that talks through the relative value of Facebook. Can the company REALLY be worth that much. Feels like the 90's all over again.

"Yesterday came news that Microsoft invested $240 million into Facebook, valuing the company at $15 billion.

How much is $15 billion? It’s hard to understand how much money that really is. But this evening a friend helped put it into perspective in a conversation about the deal: among the pure-play U.S. Internet companies, only Google, eBay, Yahoo and Amazon have larger market capitalizations. Their annual revenues range from $6 - $11 billion/year. IAC, Salesforce, Monster.com and all the rest trail significantly.

Big Internet properties like MSN/Live.com, AOL and MySpace can’t be directly compared because they are part of larger corporations. Still, its easy to imagine that Facebook, at $15 billion, is perhaps worth more than AOL and MSN/Live.com. Is it worth more than MySpace, which was acquired for a mere $580 million in 2005? The total value of parent company News Corp., with $30 billion or so in annual revenue, is just $70 billion.

Of course, Facebook is not being valued by the public markets like the others. And it may be some time before there is any updated valuation for the company. They are now positioned with a huge war chest of cash (the actual amount raised is likely above $240 million; rumors of a hedge fund or other financial partner who put in additional cash are already swirling) and a massive stock valuation. They can make acquisitions of key technology and talent without spending much. And they can go for years as a private company on that cash. Even with the 700 employees the company expects to have next year, they shouldn’t spend more than $50 million or so per year to run the company."

 

I spent the first half of this week in Dallas and flew back overnight Wednesday to present a the seminar I'd been invited to do at Oxford University's Internet Institute. I am grateful to Professor Bill Dutton for the opportunity which turned out to be great fun and an excellent opportunity to present and discuss my thoughts on how I believe online dating will become the 'new natural' over the next few years. The basic premise of the thesis is that the fixed inheritance of our genes and Darwinian impulses that drive us towards finding a partner remain essentially constant. On the other hand the cultural influences and context in which we operate are changing rapidly and these changes are being accelerated through the increasing adoption of new technologies particularly those applications built around the internet.

The debate that followed the presentation was excellent, it is always interesting to hear people's perceptions of the  dating category (in my presentation I discussed how this as one of the challenges of the 'serious' brands to break down some of the sterotypes and misconceptions). One of the questions was whether the web is eroding morality in society and 'dating' sites are the root cause of immoral behaviour, which based on last weeks blog entry is very current. My view remains the same, that whilst online technology can faciliate certain behaviours any belief in free will, which is necessary to any notion of responsibility in ethics, dictates that our moral choices come before any action. As Adam Hanft (HanftRaboy Partners) say "there's nothing the web taps into that isn't already there."

Interesting article in The Sunday Times this week about the shameless attempt by a 25 year old girl to bag herself a millionaire using the internet. The important point about the article is the way it highlights the “obsession” with “consumerism” and begs the question of why someone pre-occupied with material wealth is setting their sites on a husband to provide this? Someone should introduce this girl to the writing of Angela Dworkin.

 

The salient point that the article touches on is that “gold-digging” as a behaviour is by no means new (or indeed just specifc to women see an earlier artile citing an 'ad' from 1779) see an earlier artilebut that websites gave this character a more immediate audience (perhaps more immediate than she imagined in the case of the journalist).

 

For me this missed an important point and hopefully people do not need to be told that there aren’t a different set of social rules or moral code that apply online when it comes to finding a partner. Clearly dating sites do provide an environment that can avoid some of the initial social awkwardness of ‘talking’ to someone. This is positive in most cases such as enabling that first “hello” and initial conversation that we all know isn’t always easy. Or in the negative extreme case above, where doubtless this public declaration is made easier by the partial anonymity of the web. That said, it is not the case there is necessarily a different morality (or lack of it) that exists on the web when it comes to online dating. On dating sites you will find the sort of cross-section of society that exists anywhere else and for the most part Match.com is for people who are serious about finding that significant other.

 

My point is that if you happen to earn $1m and your proclivity is for money-grabbing glamour models there are (I am told) any number of clubs in Soho where you could achieve your hearts desire. I am constantly encouraging people to apply the same rules and etiquette to meeting people online as they would in the real world. I for example am in a very happy relationship, however if I was on the site as a 37, balding, short Northerner (actually reading that back its surprising I am in a relationship at all) and I am contacted by “spectacularly beautiful “ 25 year old then using my deductive logic (the same logic that applies in London and Grimsby) it is spectacularly unlikely that this person is interested in me for my physicality and may therefore have an ulterior motive (perhaps my username “millioniarewithhistoryofheartdisease” would draw them in). Clearly you need to use your common sense as, like life,  there are people out there whose intentions aren’t always for the best, however on the flip side there are millions of decent people who are using the technology as an enabler to find that significant other, many with great success.