The Progress Bar

Single these days, I am updating my Match profile like it’s a blog. If they’re not getting with the program I’m going to do it my own way. Every woman that has emailed me said reading a frequently updated profile was more interesting than the usual stagnant “lovetotravelgosoxbudlite” male profiles.

Why do dating sites and social nets make their freeform textareas so small? Do you not want me updating my profile? Given the lackluster performance of Match.com in recent months, I would think they might want to work on the mechanics of the existing site as opposed to getting distracted with mobile initiatives.

Hint, mobile alerts for online dating is only cool if you’re hot and you get lots of emails. Otherwise it’s like having a phone that never rings. Maybe the 20-somethings will use it, I don’t know. I don’t think Match does either.

People do use anonymous calling, or so Match and Jangl want you to know. I can’t talk about the numbers, but what I do know is that adoption rates take a long time. Dating isn’t Facebook and the mainstream online daters are not the Tech Crunch 50k.

Speaking of Facebook, my phone is constantly chirping when people write notes to me, write on my wall or poke me. I like that, and I can regulate what actions get passed onto my phone.

OTOH, Facebook now requires too much of my time to try out all the cool new apps. My home page looks like the Yahoo home page circa 1999, 500 things all over the place, no coherent User Interface or design strategy.

Re: open profiles. Wouldn’t it be great if I could link to my own blog from my dating profile? The pay sites already have my money, why should they care? Because that decreases pageviews? Get over it. Dating site ad inventory is mostly junk that no other sites really want anyway. Unless you are Trojan that is.

The open profile movement is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Scott Karp, who’s blog I read often, states what I have been talking about for years. I could not be more excited, as I have advised and consulted with several companies that have toyed with the concept but never had what it took to execute on the vision. Maybe I should yell a bit louder so the blogosphere can hear me.

Another case of social networking sites kicking the collective ass of the online dating industry, the original social network. Go Facebook! At least until something better comes along, at which time we’ll need to annoy, I mean re-friend everyone.

Moving to Charlestown on Monday, I’m surprisingly packed already. Off to Newburyport for an ocean cruise and fireworks tomorrow, back on the grid on Tuesday.

Some of you may or may not know that my other blog is Online Dating Insider. When I started blogging in 2002 I was working on some dating and social networking business ideas and decided that writing about the “discovery” industry would be a good place to start. Here I am almost five years later, and I still find lots to say about the dating industry.

Of course social networking is incredibly popular now, but I remember when Match.com had a social network feature, which they removed right before Friendster started taking off. Talk about unlucky timing!

I use the phrase discovery because that is mostly what the Internet is about. We are constantly discovering videos, friends, dates, cheap couches and airfare on the net, and to me, at least most days, dating is an interesting corner of the net.

I track the online dating pretty industry closely, especially when innovation is in the air, which is not as often as I would like. Compared to my silicon valley clients, dating companies appear glacial, slow to react to just about everthing. But things are starting to change. Smart, driven upstarts are coming in and turning the traditional idea of online dating on it’s head and new sites are always popping up to challenge the big guns like eHarmony and Match.com.

As for innovation, it looks like dating sites are now starting to discover the benefits of marketing on YouTube. Which is what I’m trying to get to here.
Anyone who thinks that videosharing sites and services like YouTube and Brightcove aren’t usurping a good deal of tv time away from the major networks had their head in the sand. but I’m sure you knew that already, or you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog.
I have a set of friends who are in a band that tours around the US and EU often. Most of them don’t have cable, since they live on a bus for weeks and months every year. When they are back in town to decompress for a while, their entertainment often comes in the form of YouTube. Why give Comcast $1k a year when YouTube has the easily-digestible short videos that my friends voraciously devour upon return to home base?

Back to online dating innovation. In the past few months, online dating companies and producers of dating-related content have begun to wholeheartedly embraced YouTube as a wholesale distribution channel.

Case in point, Jackson West at NewTeeVee says:

Brandon Fletcher of New York QFVCVQLVCAEgained some notoriety by publicly asking YouTube to feature him on the front page, even flying across the country and visiting their offices. The effort, “Can YouTube Hear Me,� did get him a chat, but no promise of feature status. That hasn’t deterred the 20-year-old music and video producer, who has now put together his own reality show, “Date: Unknown.�

According to the site’s about page, there will be new episode each Monday and other short clips throughout the week. You can subscribe via YouTube, iTunes or RSS. Fletcher is paying for the dates, and invites couples near New York City who’ve been chatting but haven’t met yet to be on the show.

Let’s get something straight. A few million views on YouTube these days is a reasonable success. My friend Dave at Oddcast told me that their avatar system just won a Webby Award for best viral marketing of 2006, with over 100 million impressions! Now that’s a lot of eyeballs, and it’s just a silly interactive monkey.

Match.com, True and other dating sites have loads of videos on YouTube and you can’t load a Myspace page without seeing a co-ed staring back at you in a pseudo-videochat. Myspace and YouTube marketing is incredibly viral and.

Imagine when viral campaigns get past subservient chickens and on to more serious things like Darfur or climate change. I still like talking monkeys and awkward first dates on YouTube.