Online Dating and Matchmaking Industry Forums

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OPW - Nov 25 - Several dating services have experimented with events in the past. Most notably, Match ran Matchlive for some years, but folded it. Lavalife ran events at cinemas and mixers. Spark Networks ran Joes Club, and more recently bought Hurrydate. Cupid bought Predating in 2004, and last month sold it back to the original founder. Does the internet dating industry love events. Nope. Why? The consensus is, they're a pain in the ass to do well, and generally not profitable. They keep you awake at night, and can be sources of major customer dissatisfaction. Also, I hear, the people who come to events are NOT the kind of people who use internet dating. Large events make money. Small events are merely cost centers, unless they're run by volunteers. And its very tough to find good volunteers that don't burn out quickly. And then there's the whole aspect of liability. Ugh! Good luck finding decent insurance.

If you want to attend some events, or would like some role models to be inspired by, here's some options I recommend looking at:

England
Spice UK - started in 1980, has 8 branches and is a very good deal.
OutdoorLads.com - Gay outdoor events group with lots of inexpensive camping options.

USA-Wide
Events and Adventures - Singles focused events and adventures.
Its Just Lunch - Lunch dates based matchmaker

Los Angeles
LAPC - L.A. People Connection has been around for years, is free and is volunteer run. (Co-founded by my ex-wife)

San Francisco
OAC - Outdoor Adventure Club, the standard for outdoor adventures.
The Meeting Game - Inexpensive dating events.
Urban Diversion - Adventure and social club based in San Francisco with some evemts in Silicon Valley.

Texas
DFW Outdoors - Dallas/Fort Worth. Powered by Memberize. A popular social and outdoors club.
Hill Country Outdoors - Houston. The original club started by the Memberize founders.

Speed dating in the USA
Predating, Hurrydate, 8 Minute Dating

Speed dating in the UK
Speeddater.co.uk - acquired by EasyDate in 2008, runs events all over the UK

If you know of more great events and adventure clubs, please add them to the comments on this post. We'll review them and perhaps create a page on OPW for people to refer to in the future. Personally, Irena and I LOVE events. We're party people and would rather be running a party or adventure hike, than sitting behind a keyboard.

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Mark Brooks
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mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com
USA: 212-444-1636, UK: 020 8133 1835

Halbert · Joined: 01 Jul 2009 Posts: 3

Online dating: join for free, pay to contact. Anonymous.
Social networking: free of charge. Not anonymous.

Will social networking service enable users to find friend, dates, spouses well enough that the industry of online dating will become much less attractive?

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mark_brooks · Joined: 16 Jun 2004 Posts: 24 Location: New York, NY

The dating industry has competition with SNS sites.

But on the other hand, SNS sites are opening up a new generation of users to the idea of using the net to find dates. SNS are great for finding dates. Internet dating sites are simply more focused on and offer better quality of experience. quality being defines as 'fitness for purpose'
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Mark Brooks
Editor, Online Personals Watch
mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com
USA 212-444-1636, UK 020-8133-1835

maxwell · Joined: 24 May 2010 Posts: 4

Hi,
Dating industry has competetion with with sns sites is the main causes of not taking part in the events .

Thanks !
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yorktown · Site Admin Joined: 16 Jun 2004 Posts: 445

The Landscape of Dating VS Social Networking has changed. In the past, SN Sites took traffic and customers away from dating sites.

The current market has determined that online dating has its place...and customers are willing to sign up, date and spend money on sites that focus on that demographic.

Marc Lesnick
Conference Organizer
Internet Dating Conference

remkyweb · Joined: 01 Sep 2010 Posts: 2

They aren't in the same category. Although, Zoosk had some good starting power using a FB app.
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