Online Dating

Why Online Dating Doesn’t Work

Welcome back from “Men’s Dating Series, Part 2: Getting Off My Butt”

Where we left off, you decided to try online dating.  Back in the 1990’s, only losers went online.  But, online dating has gained credibility.  More people say they go online than going to a more intensive and seemingly expensive step.

Part 3: Free Online Dating

There are multiple flavors of online dating.  None of them work.

Online dating can be separated into the following:

All of the Dating sites proclaim to help you meet someone.  Consider their mode of operation, business model, and corporate model.

Inside Unregulated Online Dating Sites

Unregulated means anyone can (and does) sign up.  This is where you hear horror stories from your friends about the person they met online.

Over 80% of active profiles on online sites are men.  Of the women, many are fraudulent.

Why do the sites keep fraudulent female profiles?  They are usually beautiful women, which attract men to sign up!  And you though the only fakes were Russian Brides!

Does a woman this attractive need to look online for a date?

I am looking for a man who like movies and dinner.

Any age is ok.

Sense of humor is good!  Also, if you can help me with my computer I will be very happy!

I like dogs, walks, hiking, indoor activities, outdoor activities, activities in between, and in outer space.

Still reading my profile?  Please send me money for my college tuition.  Did I mention I like older men?

I only look like a Russian tennis-player superstar.  I am not her.

I am so happy you spent extra money to get higher in my email inbox so I can find you.

Where have you been all my life? Meet you soon!

If you can send a message to someone for free, you are competing against thousands of other men to get into the woman’s inbox.  Consider that an attractive woman receives hundreds of messages within the first day or two of her profile.  If you were too busy at work to notice the instant her profile went live, and saw her when you got home, you’re message 6000.

Be careful about completely free sites, like craigslist (aka craigslust).  Because you “surrender” your right to expectation that the profiles are legitimate, such sites are a playground for scammers.  Sure, normal, nice people can be there.  Unfortunately, they will be drowned out by the scammers.  Scammers can be anything from a paid escort, getting spam, meeting someone who wants not to date you but sell you multilevel-marketed soap, or email you all about her poor mother in the hospital and she needs money sent to the following url.

On other sites, you can create a profile for free.  But to send a message to someone, you need a paid membership.  Most sites allow someone to respond to a received message regardless of your membership level, so that the paying customers feel they get something for their money.  If you are a paying member of the site, you will be message 300 in her inbox. Again, of paying customers, over 80% are men, hence the revenue efficacy of fake profiles!

Online dating sites want you to continuously log in.  They send newsletters and “new matches” emails regularly as part of their online marketing plan—I mean, customer service.  In the match-grams, you will see the new people who match your settings.  Will you end up in her match-gram?  Only if you meet her match settings.  So, you are being shown women who may or may not be interested in you from the get-go. Why don’t the match-grams do mutual matching?  That costs compute-farm processors.  Yes, but wouldn’t there be fewer emails?  Saving money on email servers and risk of being marked as a spammer by ISPs?  Yes, but sending you useful (women whom you would like and they would like you) email is not the purpose.  Sending you email with pictures of women you want so that you go back to the website is the purpose.  The more you go back, the more chance you will take out your credit card or press the “Buy Now!” button and be charged to your stored card.  If you get fewer matches, then there is fewer email in your inbox, less opportunities for revenue from you.  Don’t you feel taken advantage of?  And you didn’t even leave the house to go to that crappy singles’ event!

Help me meet that profile hottie! I'm tired of being overlooked!

Quickly, you wonder why you don’t get responses from people you write to.  You are presented options: new features described in the newsletters and copious ads for upsell items.  Cyber gifts like roses, candy, drinks, winks, hearts.  Highlighting your profile in yellow backgrounds, or promoting up to the top of the match-gram or search-results list.  These features are available one-time with that “Buy Now!” button, or by enhancing to a higher membership level.  Is this dating or search engine optimization?  Dating or Google AdWords/AdSense?  At least it isn’t a dating-job interview.

You know you’ve walked into one of these sites when your free profile asks for a credit card number.

To increase your time on the site, which directly relates to the likelihood of your upgrading membership levels, a constant barrage of new features to assist you in contacting that beauty.  There is the Who’s Online Now box, widget, or feature.  Live text or video chat.  Free to get you hooked; paid after a week or few. You figure (and so did their Product Manager) that if the good ones won’t/don’t respond to your messages because you’re too far down in her inbox, you can catch them live!  You buy.

Online Dating sites also have products.  E-books, webinars, live chat with a dating guru all designed to tell you things you:

• probably already know
• consider trite and can’t believe you paid for it
• could easily learn by watching an episode of Millionaire Matchmaker

Plentiful are ads for additional websites.  Question: Why would a dating website have ads for other dating websites?  Does Coca-Cola have posters for Pepsi in the lobby?

Answers:

• They are affiliate ads or Google AdSense ads.  You click through and/or sign up for something; they get paid.
• The company owns those sites.  You click through and go up to the next level: from Dating to Adult; from Adult to Niche/Cam.  This uses the combination of the man’s frustration with lack of results and the high probability that he will once again take out his credit card.  Companies make ten times as much money on Adult as they do on Dating.  And ten again for Niche/Cam.  In other words, Dating is the gateway drug to hotter and higher-priced cyber action.  And often these ads will scream “Hot Russian Girls” and give you the idea that Russian women on the internet are “bad”.  Why Russian girls in these ads?  They are the most beautiful, as declared by Vice President Joseph Biden and the Web Analytics person determining which images to use for the ads.

If a Chihuahua in a Santa suit got higher clickthroughs and conversions, that image would be there. That tiny piece of webpage real estate is all about the click and the payout.

Attracts your attention, yes?

Or is this image more interesting to click on?

How much will you spend on Online Dating in a year?

Cost:  Base monthly fee: $20-$40.  Upgrades and upsells could bring you to $50.  And most likely you’re on two sites.  That means $1000/year.  If you meet someone for your coffee date, add mileage and coffee.  The auto-renew will keep your credit card pinging monthly while you’re on that date.

Benefit:  Entertaining stories to be the center of your married friends’ attention.

Cost/Benefit Analysis:  You remind your married friends that they have it better than you.

Two questions:

1. If you meet someone, the company will lose its monthly fee.  How much in the company’s best interest is it that you meet someone?
2. Regulated Online Dating sites seem “cleaner”.  Will those work?

Answers:

1. I like the way you think!
2. Read the next article: “Men’s Dating Series, Part 4: Online Dating—Why Doesn’t a Site Like eHarmony Work?”