Q:   How big is your website OkCupid in terms of the customer database and visitors?
A:  OkCupid is one of the largest and fastest growing free dating sites on the web.  We  have about 5 million unique visitors to our website every month.

Q:  That’s pretty large.  How about your other site CrazyBlindDate ?
A: We do run several other sites in our network that offer different dating products but OkCupid is the core site that we run and is definitely the largest.

Q:  In your presentation last month you displayed some metrics about phrases people use in their messages and how dramatically it affects the responses they get.  Those were  very interesting analysis that I have not seen anywhere else.  Which of those metrics came as most surprising when they first look at them?

A:  What we do is we analyze all of the interactions that are happening on our site.  We aggregate the data, we do some statistical analysis to try to find trends and we publish those trends back out on our blog.  One of the studies we did recently was on first messages.  What content in the message does best at drawing responses?  Just like when you go to a bar, that first line that you give, that pick-up line, is really important in determining whether that person is going to talk to you.  In the same way, what we found when you write that first message to someone on OkCupid, the content of the message is very important.  One of the first rules that we found is that grammatical errors are a very big turn-off to recipients.  So it’s very important that your message is grammatically correct and that you don’t use any sort of internet shorthand like the letter ”U” or “UR” and you should be thoughtful in structuring your message just like you would be thoughtful before you go and talk to a girl at the bar.  Another thing that we found was that men should be modest.  Yes you should be confident, but don’t focus too much on how great you are. 

 
Q:  What useful conclusions can be drawn from those metrics?
A:  I think the conclusions are that in many ways online dating is a lot like offline dating in that first impression you make is very important and that you should actually spend time reading the persons profile that you are sending the message to and customizing that message as much as possible so the recipient is really interested in what you bring.

Q:   You are doing a lot of contests and games in your site.  Could you tell us some most recent and most interesting ones that you are doing?

A:  The biggest thing that we do is every couple of weeks we publish a new post on our blog which is basically a study of the activities that are taking place on the site.  The one that we currently have on the site talks about the impact of age on dating.  What we found is that men actually do better as they age up into their twenties, then they taper a little bit more gradually.  A man in his upper twenties or early thirties is actually very desirable across a very large swath of women.  So women in their mid-twenties, women in their mid-thirties, women in their upper-thirties are all interested in men around the age of thirty and in their early thirties.  Women on the other hand peak much earlier.  Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five year old women are the most desirable and once a woman turns thirty or thirty-five, their demand goes way down.

 
Q:  You started your site when there was already a strong competitor on the market and hundreds of other sites are trying to get there.  And yet, you managed to make your site very successful.  Is there any special ingredient to your success that you can share with our listeners?

A:   We have three things that are key to our success.  The first of course is that we are free.  We really believe that women especially don’t want to pay for dating.  The second is that we brought the fun back to dating.  We think that dating should feel more like going to a bar than going to your psychologist.  Third, we use math to make dating more effective.  Ultimately if you use OkCupid, you are more likely to get a date than if you are on one of those other sites.

Q:   Speaking about the free websites, there seems to be a recent trend with paid sites opening free portals and free sites adding paid services.  Do you think that in a few years down the road, there would still be a breakdown by free and paid sites as we know them today?  Or will they evolve in some mixed models?

A:   I think everyone is working on mixed models.  I think the challenge is that the  subscriptions sites that are predominantly paid sites right now have built their entire business around having a certain expertise which is spending a hundred million dollars in marketing and trying to acquire customers that they have monetized at very high levels.  I think it’s going to be very hard for a site like e-Harmony or Match.com to change the model very much.  They do not have the right DNA, they don’t have the right expertise to build a free site because a free site has very different dynamics.  Ultimately, what we have seen in the last three years is that Match.com has stopped growing.  They have about 25% fewer subscribers today than they had three years ago, so I think that shows the market leader on the subscription side is not doing well.  What you are going to see is the free sites already out there are going to continue to grow and they are going to keep becoming the dominate players in the space. 

There are some very interesting changes occurring in the Dating industry right now. It’s almost like the ground is shifting, with many people able to sense the shift, but few understanding where it is going or how to handle it. Look for yourself:

- Paid websites open Free portals;
- Free websites add Paid services;
- Payment gateway companies, which avoided working with dating sites before - now actively look for them;
- Established dating companies are more open to new marketing opportunities, JVs and partnerships which they didn’t consider before;
- Great potential and opportunities are opening for new dating projects.

In another words: while some established sites may see challenges, new sites see opportunities.

In fact, many new dating projects already successfully use the situation in their favor:
- There is a new site which recognizes psychological differences between men’ and women’s approach to dating, - and presents them with different interfaces;
- A dating site which leverages existing profiles from social sites - instead of asking you to create new profiles from scratch;
- A project which matches people by DNA samples;
- Niche projects: sites for pet lovers, for people who love tattoos, etc.

So, what allows these new projects to grow right next to the old and established sites? What keeps the bigger sites from holding the ground better?

Several reasons:

- smaller sites usually can move faster due to their light infrastructure. So, when a market situation changes they can act faster. Larger corporate projects need to go through their routines and boardroom meetings, etc. Their larger size and complex internal connections can significantly slow down the response time;

- For established projects it is harder to tweak their old business models because it means a greater risk. It takes guts to change something what worked well for you for years. The result might not be as expected. Start-ups are free from this predicament because they don’t have any old business models to cling to;

- small start-up projects are often run by enthusiasts, people who really love and believe in what they do, to the point where they are literally ready to get to work without anyone guaranteeing their pay… This alone amounts to something. Such level of dedication is not always found in larger projects.

It is exciting to see new projects emerging, and I believe we’ll see more new sites in the near future.

Andrey Malygin - Founder, DatingAdNetwork

P.S. Stay tuned for more interviews with leading Dating companies!

Vindicia provides on-demand billing and fraud management solutions. Among its customers are Online Buddies, SpeedDate, Avid Life (Ashley Madison) and other large dating sites.  Chairman and CEO of Vindicia - Gene Hoffman answers our questions in today’s exclusive interview for the readers of DatingAdNetwork blog:

Q: How can dating sites benefit from Vindicia CashBox?

A: Vindicia CashBox is an on-demand billing solution that enables dating sites, big and small, to continually acquire and retain customers.  From the acquisition perspective, CashBox supports multiple payment methods and payment processors; handles numerous business models, including subscriptions, one-time payments, and hybrids; calculates the applicable taxes (sales tax, GST, VAT) through a built-in engine; and automates the process of managing and disputing chargebacks.  On the retention side, in particular, CashBox features automatic payment-retry logic, which helps subscription clients consistently raise their successful transaction rate every month by 1-2 percent.  In addition, with CashBox, dating sites can communicate with customers in multiple languages, a win-win for global outreach.

In short, CashBox manages the entire billing process for dating sites so that they can focus on their business of helping people find that special someone.

Q: How does CashBox differ from other billing solutions?

A: CashBox delivers many distinct advantages besides automation of the order-to-cash process. Most of all, CashBox helps clients optimize their customer acquisition and retention capabilities, resulting in boosts to customer lifetime values north of 10 percent annually.  No other billing solution manages chargebacks as effectively as CashBox, which tackles the friendly-fraud challenge that all dating sites face and rightfully returns revenue due them.

Typically, Vindicia wins 60-70 percent of the chargebacks that we dispute on clients’ behalf.  CashBox also provides our clients with a great deal of flexibility and versatility with its support for multiple business models, global payment methods, languages, and currencies. With CashBox, dating sites can quickly respond to evolving business conditions without having to wait for their billing infrastructure to catch up.

Q: Many payment processors are averse to dating sites and consider them a high risk. Why are you interested in working with them?

A: We’ve found that dating sites that take appropriate risk-mitigation measures for fraud are, in fact, high-margin businesses and ideal for the services offered by CashBox. Since many sites have as a goal notto retain customers for too long (after all, their success is defined as /not /needing a dating site), a simple, transparent, robust, and logical billing and payment service is a key facet of a satisfactory customer experience.  Bottom line: We believe that we can help dating sites grow their business and stay successful through our unique approach of building online revenue.

Q: Tell us more about your fraud-screening and chargeback management capabilities.

A: CashBox’s fraud-screening capability generates a risk score for each sales transaction so that dating sites can identify obvious fraudsters before the transaction is complete.  Many variables are factored into the risk score, including the geographical location of the customer’s IP address, validation of the billing address and BIN, detection of the related proxy, and card velocity.  Unique to the fraud-screening score is a database of chargebacks that we’ve created across a broad client base on the basis of hundreds of millions of past transactions.  As soon as CashBox detects that a credit card has been associated with a prior chargeback in our system, CashBox raises the risk score of the related transaction–essentially a red flag.

Chargeback management with CashBox comes into play post-transaction.  Oftentimes, chargebacks do not result from stolen credit cards or “true fraud,” but from people who make purchases but decide not to pay for them.  We call this behavior “friendly fraud” though it certainly isn’t.  For those cases, CashBox takes the chargeback data from the payment processor and maps it to usage and other pertinent information from the client site.  CashBox then creates a documentation package and a letter tailored for the customer’s issuing bank and “re-presents” the charge.  Aside from the positive impact of reversed revenue, our experience has shown that fighting chargebacks also provides our clients with valuable insight into their marketing efforts.

Q: Which dating sites are using CashBox?

A: There are quite a few, including Online Buddies, SpeedDate, iChurch, Avid Life, and others. They are either using or in the process of implementing CashBox.

The Big Dating Sites

Dating is divided into several markets. Let’s say, the Big guns, like Match, Lavalife, Meetic etc; they are totally focused on their brand and very little else, they mainly rely on mass media advertising which is expensive and, more often than not, ineffective. They are purely working on a Business to consumer basis and miraculously many of them don’t have an affiliate system, mostly rely on expensive alternatives, such as Commission Junction and other larger services for affiliates, but of course CJ takes most of the money and the end result is very little profit and high advertising costs. This year highlighted many of these companies as losing money; my own belief is they will survive by their sheer size and backers, like Microsoft behind Match, but never to be that successful in their own right; their sites are also so basic, that most dating scripts even have more to offer.

Small General Dating sites

A very hard time for them: most are joining systems like our own, as they cannot get good deals with merchant accounts and overheads are difficult to cover in a market that is already flooded. However, the light at the end of the tunnel for them is by joining our system; this will help them to clear all operating costs and expand their brand with other languages, currencies and niches. This is a real solution for sites in hard times to expand and make money in an otherwise difficult market.

One off Niches

Each site should have their own unique quality, whether it’s a concept like eHarmony or a niche like JDate.com. These are, of course, more successful, but, of course, limited to a smaller segment of the market. Many of these sites cannot cope with ethnic sites. For example, try Chinese dating in the USA, or Indian dating in the UK. If jDate could cover all languages and countries then their niche becomes larger and, of course, more profitable.

Multiple Niches

The smaller the Niche the higher the profits, any Google AdWords specialist will tell you that this is the answer to real success. Building through 100 of these is no mean task.

Some ideas to dating webmasters and site owners

• How about starting your own dating empire? Where would you begin?
• A good name, a good Domain. Create your brand and design - and you have the beginning of your supersite.
• Build your site outwards, let’s call it superdaters.com
• Clone your site for each country, using the relevant language and currency for each site, link them all together.
• Create Niches around the same brand that cross sale well, like Gay dating or Adult Dating, and you are already making your own advertising for your other sites.
• Expanding on the above, you could create your own free dating site; why not add it to your social network? It’s a great fit and suits the free concept. Use the free dating site to make advertising revenue and then cross sell your free dating sites to your paid dating sites.
• The combinations of ways you can do this are endless; we estimate that you can create up to 13 million niches in our system. The beauty of it all is that anyone can do it from professional to amateur.
• This is a long lasting strong model that can last a lifetime and, I can say this honestly, completely addictive.

Robert Fathers, CEO, Datech Limited

A: Datech Limited is technology partner to anyone online; whether they are large brands, want a community dating site or affiliates whose only target is to make money through a system that will earn a good return in revenue. Datech offers a full range of solutions, from white labeled sites, template sites, affiliates marketing tools and – later this month – free dating sites as well. Our unique position in the marketplace is that we are the only provider worldwide that offer true white labeling and not simulated sites with just header and footer. There is also an outstanding ability to allow partners to filter data from our database of 17 million members, into any possible niche they could imagine, in over 14 languages (‘Add your own language’ is just part of the service too) and any currency at prices that suit the targeted market. It is all operated under World Dating Partners brand and covers all the headaches of running a dating site, like Merchant accounts, customer support, anti fraud scrubbing, partner support, a server system with 100% uptime and unlimited capacity for traffic. Our system is used by major dating sites like dating.com who find that our model cuts running expenses and leaves them with what they do best – marketing. Best of all of course, everything is FREE and we run as a true partnership on shared revenue with recurring payments AND re-bills, something that other sites don’t pay out on. As a partner you can also sell to other sites if you prefer Business to Business and get a generous override/commission over total revenue for every site you bring in.

Q: Your software development office is situated in Ukraine. What’s the best about it and what’s the worst?

A: We have worked in the Ukraine for over 10 years, an outstanding achievement as our own outsourcing company, where most companies fail in their first year. We believe that our key to success is our ability to understand and sympathize with a different culture, to pay fair wages and treat our team of developers and other staff like a family and part of our UK office, instead of looking on them as a resource to exploit. Our team in the Ukraine is just as much involved in the running of the company as any in our UK team, if not more. I am very proud of them all and they give all they can. This can all be achieved with very good communication and the right person in the Ukraine as a team leader. For the future we will add more and more responsibility to our Ukraine office, as the country becomes more aware of marketing techniques, we find that these skills are something to look out for in the future.

Q: Do you work with big name companies only or also with individual web entrepreneurs as well?

A: Datech has over 21,000 partners, from small to major, and running business across different industries shows the flexibility of who we work with: we work alongside over 47 TV networks worldwide, over 250 radio stations, over 120 affiliate networks, have many celebrities who work with us. Some of our bigger names are Cellcast, Bauer media, Perfspot, Sky TV; quite honestly, really too many to mark down on one page. In 2007 World Dating Partners took over and ran Relationship Exchange, the forerunner and previous leader of this industry.

Q: Which of the services you provide are most popular among your clients?

A: It is difficult to say exactly which is the most popular as different types of affiliates and partners have their own special needs and we try to cater for all, and if we can’t – we will help to create what they need. I suppose the Template system is the most used as partners can create as many dating niches as they wish; we often recommend a grouped branding, so that you can create a set of different niches that cross sell from each other or can be presented as choices on one page. Our affiliate system is very versatile, yet easy to use and really suits those who just want to target traffic and turn it quickly into cash. While some of those looking at the bigger picture may want to create a free dating site and a paid dating site, to cross sell one against the other.
The combination of utilities that are on offer is truly amazing. On top of this, each partner has their own admin that can include Google analytics, as promoting AdWords with targeted niches is one of the most effective marketing techniques on the Internet; the analytics give you the ability to understand your site and which direction to market, as well as the security of being able to verify that the money we pay you is exactly the money that you earn, this builds confidence with our partners and affiliates. We will soon be offering a bi-monthly payout to partners and have some real surprises in store just around the corner for partners that join us now.

Q: There was a lot of buzz about while label dating sites last year. Do you see any changes in this trend in the first part of 2009?

A: There has been very little change in White Label systems in the dating industry. More services have popped up, but none of them can filter or white label in the true sense of the word. White Label Dating for example, still have the same old system, headers and footers and no way of allowing affiliates to create their own niches. They claim high conversions like so many others, but then when you sell your service for $5, you get what you pay for, or in our case, don’t pay for. We always keep our profits low, as so much continually goes into development. Our fully featured sites offer everything that all other dating sites offer combined, and affiliates can choose which features to use: from personality matching, a superb flash chat program, single events worldwide to your mobile, web cam, video – and the list goes on. We are definitely ahead of other systems and I believe this is well known in the industry. I know, for example, White Label Dating have said that the World Dating Partners system is in class of its own.

Q: What is the key to success for your clients with while label niche dating sites?

A: Niching really is key to the success of every marketers portfolio; without this the game is very competitive and, to be perfectly honest, not worth the low profits when competing with the big boys. Focusing on one or many niches should be the focus of every good marketing expert, the ability to create as many of these as you can, from Google AdWords, to focused communities – they all have a better conversion rate if your filtered target is near to your own subject. If you have a Golfing site or Golfing shop, then it obviously makes sense that your dating site should be for people who want to date and interested in golf. By setting filters in your admin panel, you can specify, for example, golfers that live in or\and around New York; this will then filter those members, who live in this area and have an interest in Golf only. You can add to this niche a specific language, when required, or even a particular currency and, again, if required, the right payment solution relevant to your country. This makes your niche very targeted and, the better more accurate your niche, the better your conversions.

A: We have positioned ourselves as a one stop shop where singles can connect online or off at local events and adventures or on exotic vacations.

Q: Do you consider traditional dating sites as your competitors?

A: The other dating services that are out there do not offer the same services that we provide. Meet Market Adventures offers a wide range of events, adventures and fun for singles in the city. We also have an online community that allows singles to create profiles, talk about events or experiences with Meet Market Adventures. Our no pressure community gives individuals the opportunity to meet other singles in a social setting that other dating services do not offer.

Q: What’s included in Free Membership and what is your business model?

A: Our Free Membership includes unlimited use of our social networking platform, access to fun events and adventures, local discounts and cheap single vacations. Our model is 3 tiered. Our revenue comes from up selling on the group discounts we get from local vendors and operators, Travel Commissions and advertising.

Q: Do you target some specific social groups or anyone can join?

A: We do not reach out to a specific social group and anyone is free and able to join Meet Market Adventures. Our target market is singles between 30 and 50. This group seems to represent the majority of our members because of trends in lifestyle, changes is personal circumstances or personal choice.

Q: What areas and cities do you already cover?

A: Our goal is to be in every major city across North America in 5 years. We are currently represented in the following cities:

• New York
• Philadelphia
• Chicago
• Toronto
• Montreal
• Ottawa
• Winnipeg
• Calgary
• Edmonton
• Vancouver

Q: How important is your own website for your business?

A: Our website is crucial. Without it we would not have been able to grow as fast as we have. Our website acts as our store front for our events, adventures and social community.

Q: I am sure you also have groups and fans in Facebook and MySpace. Do you feel the emerging impact of social networks on your business?

A: Yes, we are covered on all Social Networks. It allows us to access millions of potential clients and has become our major marketing initiative. It is a great way to virally grow your business. It is has been beneficial to see what features and applications these companies are using and how you can incorporate them into your own model.

A: Our roots in payment processing extend back to the early 1980s when our founder, Tim Litle, created the first payment processing platform designed to meet the needs of the Direct Marketing industry.

In the 1970s, Litle & Co. founders ran a catalog business and created the first full-service, third-party fulfillment service bureau dedicated to serving catalogs. The 1980s found Litle & Co. innovating the automation of paper-based work flows, again for the benefit of direct merchants. And, in 1982 - a time when catalogs were losing 2% of sales because of inefficiencies in conventional payment processing systems, Litle & Co. built the first payment management system to address the unique needs of catalogs and the card-not-present world, including installment and recurring billers. This system helped Litle & Co. keep chargebacks to less than 0.1% versus the typical 2.0%. Founded in 2001, and based in Lowell, Massachusetts, Litle & Co. is in high-growth mode- acknowledged by No. 1 rankings on both the Deloitte New England Technology Fast 50 and the Inc. 500 in 2006.

Q: What services do you provide for online dating sites & companies?

A: Our payment management engine is designed to help online dating businesses:

Grow revenue: reduce declined authorizations; improve re-authorization success rates; lower refund percentages; increase adoption of alternative payments, where appropriate, and accept international payments.

Streamline operations: simplify connectivity; reduce error rates; get clear, concise and flexible online reports, and automate chargeback management.

Minimize processing and payment management costs: manage interchange; reduce chargebacks; eliminate gateway charges and line charges.

We help our clients accomplish this through a full suite of Merchant, Processing, and Recurring Billing Services. See our Payment Management Engine illustrated here: http://www.litle.com/what-we-do .

A good payment management strategy can help achieve the following:

1. Convert traffic into paying subscribers.
Your marketing efforts are wasted if you don’t turn browsers and trial users into subscribers. To convert as many browsers and trial users as possible, you need to:
Process payments in real time — not ‘after the fact’ batch processing — get immediate feedback to the customer, and let them handle payment issues on the spot.
Give your customer alternative payment options such as PayPal. More payment options mean more payments.

2. Prevent subscriber attrition.
Smooth, seamless recurring billing is one of the most important services that Online Dating sites provide. Our Merchant Services Group specializes in helping you to take advantage of the best tools available, such as Account Updater.

3. Make the most of your marketing efforts.
In order to get the greatest possible lift from your marketing efforts, you need a payment processor who won’t over-react if your chargebacks increase, and who will help you manage chargebacks so that they never stop you from marketing to your community effectively.

Q: Do you do international payment processing?

A: Litle & Co. processes more than 200 currencies for settlement in US dollars. Litle & Co. settles locally in US dollars, Euros, Pound Sterling, Hong Kong dollars, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, and Japanese Yen.

We continue to add foreign currencies for local settlement based on our merchant demand.

Q: How exactly do your services help to improve conversion into paying subscribers?

A: Easy connectivity and extraordinary uptime make it simple for visitors to subscribe quickly and painlessly. Real-time authorization processing also allows you to catch declines on the spot, letting you offer the customer another payment alternative before you lose the subscription. Services such as Account Updater also work seamlessly with our sophisticated Recurring Billing service so that you don’t lose subscribers when their cards expire or renew.

Q: Please share your view on online dating fraud prevention problem.

A: Much of the fraud in online dating is not attributed to consumers that want to use the site free of charge or to scam money from the site’s client base. In many instances, the fraud is attributed to scammers that want to test credit cards. Online personals sites are an easy target for a scammer who wants to ensure a credit card is still valid so it can be used on another site to buy big ticket items. The risk in using online personals sites to do this is low considering no physical goods are being shipped, phony or no profile information can be entered in order to access the purchase page, and email validation is not required in many cases.

One of the most important aspects of an online dating site is ensuring the integrity of profiles available to paid subscribers. Managing the fraud and ensuring profile content is valid is a costly mission. Whether the company chooses to handle this internally or outsource it to a 3rd party, constant monitoring and updating of fraud rules is necessary.

A: SpeedDate.com’s philosophy and the way we work is simple – we believe in instant chemistry, and that people know very quickly if they feel a connection to each other. The major dating sites require lengthy profiles and have a lot of steps before you can actually talk to someone you are interested in! We felt this was a pretty backwards approach to dating and wanted to create a site that was completely different and really catered to what singles wanted and enjoy. Because we allow people to meet each other in a faster and more fun way than many other sites, SpeedDate has mostly grown through members inviting their friends. Since we launched in 2007, we continue to grow quickly and currently host 160,000 dates per day! The growth that we have experienced shows that people are really looking for a new type of online dating experience focused on live interaction.

Q: You started as a free site; do you plan on adding premium/paid features and how it may affect site popularity and traffic?

A: While it is completely free to meet new people for live chats, SpeedDate also introduced a premium service, which is relatively new to the site. We are still in the process of introducing our users to the added features and functionality available with this membership level. The difference between a free membership and premium is that premium offers users the ability to be first in the dating line, choose specific individuals to date, see who has viewed them and much more. So far, the premium membership has been very popular and we have seen rapid growth since it was launched.

Q: Could you tell us more about your patented technology behind SpeedDate: what’s the major novelty of your invention?

A: SpeedDate.com leverages technology to create a fast and fun way to meet new people. One of the major innovations of SpeedDate.com is its method for introducing singles to each other via live interaction from the comfort of home or wherever they have an internet connection. Instead of filling out long profiles and questionnaires, SpeedDate users meet each other in three minute speed dates using instant messaging, and in-browser audio and video. SpeedDate has also developed a proprietary real-time matching algorithm that finds relevant dates within our online membership base in a near instantaneous fashion. SpeedDate.com leverages the rapidly expanding infrastructure for instant messaging and peer-to-peer video and audio chatting, which includes increasing penetration of broadband, webcams, as well as browser-based real-time video functionality.

Q: There are a lot of talks about scammers activity on dating sites. Do scammers bother you and how do you manage to keep them away?

A: It is extremely important for us to create an online speed dating environment where our users feel completely comfortable. We do not tolerate scammers or any other forms of misbehavior on SpeedDate. We have developed a combination of technological innovation and intelligent processes to make it as likely as possible that users can interact with each other in real time without worrying about scammers. The vast majority of our users use SpeedDate for its intended purpose – finding other singles in a fast and fun way.

Q: You recently released SpeedDate for iPhone: is it a tribute to the iPhone crowd, or a bare necessity?

A: We decided to create an application for the iPhone because it just made sense for our users and our brand. We were the first site to simplify the online dating process and allow singles to find instant chemistry – not lengthy, complicated profiles – to help our members connect with each another. Developing an iPhone application, which is immediate and portable, was the ideal next step. The SpeedDate.com iPhone application simplifies one of the biggest hassles of dating, finding the time to connect with new singles. We expect that the number of dates on our web site will increase as we provide new and existing SpeedDate.com users with the opportunity to make mobile love connections.

Q: What trends in online dating do you see emerging during the next 2 years?

A: Online dating is here to stay and will continue to grow over the next several years. The instant messaging and live video capabilities that we have on SpeedDate.com will definitely be an emerging trend. SpeedDate is at the forefront of the industry in terms of using live interactive technology to making it easier for people to meet each other. People nowadays don’t have time to email back and forth numerous times to see if there is a connection. Live interaction is the best and most immediate way to determine if you are a match with someone. Another area that will continue to grow will be development of dating applications on social and mobile platforms. Many dating companies spend millions on advertising to bring people to their sites. SpeedDate does the reverse. In addition to offering our destination site, www.speeddate.com, we bring our product directly to where people are already spending time: on social networks like Facebook and mobile devices like the iPhone. I believe these trends are good for singles because they’ll be more likely to find each other quickly and have fun while they’re at it.

Q: Personality profiling by PartnerMaps – is it about matching people by personality?

A: Ah well, the simple answer to that question is no! PartnerMaps is a psychometric application designed by PeopleMaps and it produces a range of personality reports for singles and individuals in relationships. The principle is that the understanding of human behavior is the bedrock of successful relationships; the relationship you have with others and the relationship you have with yourself. PartnerMaps profiling is a method by which you can gain an understanding of your self – and it’s easy, instant and online.

For a relationship to work people need to share similar goals and values and without this, no matter what personality mix the relationship is likely to flounder. You cannot change another person’s behavior but you have complete control over how you respond to any situation. As Carl Jung (on whose psychology PartnerMaps is based) said, “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people”.

Simply put, any personality type can work with any other personality type, when it comes to personal relationships. You will have seen this from your own experience. You will know couples that are poles apart in terms of personality – and you will know couples that are two peas in the pod. People’s life experience is full of examples of this and you would be hard pushed to convince them otherwise.

So can personality profiling help you with your relationships? Absolutely, but the profiles have to be aimed in the right direction and they have to be helping you ask the right questions. The question isn’t “Is this person’s personality type compatible with mine?” Instead the question should be, “How will this person and I make it work, knowing what we do of our personalities?”. It’s not a case of “Can this work?” – It’s a case of “How will this work?”

PartnerMaps is primarily a tool of introspection, not suspicion. The real power of personality profiling is revealed when it is used to develop a deeper understanding of self. Of course if other people share their profile with you then it is helpful – but it is nothing compared to the empowerment that comes from developing a deeper understanding of self.

Q: Ok, so PartnerMaps is only one of the psychometric applications based on PeopleMaps.com? What are the others?

A: PeopleMaps has been producing online psychometric applications for over 5 years, although initially concentrating on a range of personality reports for jobseekers, we soon realized our customers wanted more than a simple personality report, so amongst a whole range of reports we also released our personalized career coaching application Dream Job.

Create a Google or Twitter alert for “personality test” and you’ll be provided with plenty of evidence that the general populace are crazy for them – from Star Wars tests to the Simpsons, so we also developed applications for social media platforms like the Twitter personality report – your personality in fewer than 140 characters – and our Facebook application. We’ll be developing these more as the sites and the users change.

Amongst a range of solutions for employers and HR professionals (we have personality reports for short–listing, interviewing and developing many job roles from PAs and admin staff through to senior managers), we now provide a wide range of apps for the corporate market, some with serious output like Driving Psychometrics – helping to reduce road accidents involving young drivers and professionals.

But it doesn’t have to be serious output – where people are involved, there’s generally an opportunity to build personality in. And that’s what PeopleMaps does. We satisfy people’s curiosity about their self – and others – and build applications around that. Over the years, we’ve developed a huge vault of many hundreds of personality topics – written in plain English – and wrapping those up in an application reduces the requirements to hire a consultant, or undertake training to figure out what it all means!

I like to think we’re bringing professional personality profiling to the people. We even have some personality topics delivered by video – and that’s something we want to do loads more of – it’s the YouTube factor!

Q: How many people have tried your questionnaires? Do you have any science behind it?

A: The personality questionnaire is unique – and took nearly 2 years to develop. It consists of only 10 questions and can be answered in only a few minutes – this is unlike most other “personality tests” that consist of hundreds of questions and can take over 30 minutes to complete! This actually provides a more accurate result – fewer questions online help avoid something called “candidate fatigue”, where the respondent begins to lose interest because they just want to finish answering the tests and get to the result!

Designed exclusively for the internet (there’s never been a written version) it works by measuring the bipolar scales based on the psychology of Carl G Jung, the Swiss psychologist. With well over 1.2 million registered users, the most common feedback we receive is that the reports are “spookily accurate”! In fact, personality is quite mobile and affected greatly by the environment, so we would expect someone to agree with 80 per cent or more of their report. It’s very unusual to find someone that doesn’t agree with most of the content. One time, there was a woman who insisted the report wasn’t accurate – it turned out that her husband had completed the questionnaire for her!

Interestingly, we only use one questionnaire, no matter the application – so the PartnerMaps ‘test’ asks the very same questions as the ‘test’ for Driving Psychometrics. It’s also available in other languages, including Slovak and Thai! We’d love to develop more.

Q: So, how exactly can dating sites benefit from PartnerMaps?

A: PartnerMaps is a complementary product for dating sites to use in a number of ways – for the benefit of the dating site owner and the members! After consulting the industry, we decided to create a report specifically for singles – it covers eleven essential personality topics including Commitment and Intimacy – and your perfect date! And there will be another version for individuals already in relationships.

More importantly, PartnerMaps allows you to offer your visitors professional personality profiling – without having to develop your own system – and offering free personality reports is a great way to attract new visitors! By publicizing your ‘free personality reports’ you can also begin to compete with some of the bigger sites that lead on their personality tests.

PartnerMaps is a flexible application and you can choose to resell reports for a generous share of revenue, or you can add value to your existing offer by buying reports at a discount and giving them away to VIP members at no cost. There is a free report available for every visitor, whichever model you decide to follow.

The affiliate system carries your logo, url and personalized message throughout the visitor experience – so your visitor isn’t carried away from your site, never to return! You don’t need to use a banner link, but can instead insert the questionnaire widget directly onto your web page. Our team are developing a report widget, so in the very near future you will also be able to deliver the personality report direct to your visitor, without them ever having to leave your site.

Q: Do you have any other partnership of affiliate opportunities?

A: Thanks for asking that! We’re actually looking for partners who may wish to contribute Bonus material to the PartnerMaps sales cycle. Pre-launch data shows a conversion rate of around 2% from readers of the free report to buyers of the more detailed report – and we’d like to keep improving on that figure.

We know that quite often consumers will purchase a product based on bonus offers alone, and we’d like to add some genuinely useful, good quality bonus material. We’re experts in the personality of relationships, but would like to call upon dating industry experts who might wish to contribute a complementary bonus product to the mix. But in fact, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a dating-related product – just something of the right quality and value.

Lastly, one of the most exciting opportunities is that we can build you your own personality application – customizing the existing PartnerMaps report set, or creating your own. If you’ve a special request such as a different language option, then we’re happy to deal with that too. Just blast me off an email (julie [at] peoplemaps [dot] com) and I’ll be happy to look at it with you. PeopleMaps is moving away from the traditional affiliate model to the SAAS model – and custom app development plays a big part in that. We’re excited about the possibilities – and think PartnerMaps can help play a big role in that!

Q: Gimmeo - how did you come up with this name and the whole idea of the project?

A: We had a good idea and a great partnership model; we just needed a good name. Originally name for gimmeo was GiftFish but we wanted something more unique. The name came from my wife. She pointed out that the main reason gimmeo would be adopted by the end user was not because people wanted to give, but because they wanted to get gifts and we should make a play on that. She suggested the word “gimme” be used somehow. The “o” was added the following day by Hugh. It’s catchy and blatantly honest (plus the URL was available).

As a company, gimmeo started with a typical one-up conversation between friends. I was telling Hugh Plautz (CEO and Founder of gimmeo) about how iTunes went wrong and my great idea for distributing online media. Hugh one-upped me with his idea for real-world gifting through social media by means of an e-commerce privacy proxy. Needless to say his idea was better and he won the one-up contest as I began groveling for a chance to be a part of Hugh’s idea – this technically was our first board meeting.

The true origins of gimmeo as an idea goes clear back to 1999 when digital music first was becoming available online. Hugh thought it would be a great idea to be able to gift a song to a friend via the Internet. The idea evolved over time from digital music to real-world gifts and eventually into gimmeo as we know it now.

We doubt we are the only ones to have thought about real-world gift giving in online relationships. We and about everyone we talk to is incredulous that nobody else is doing this – that’s why we applied for a patent. Granted there are a few other small companies trying to add real gifts to social media, but none of them we have seen are looking at the whole picture. We built gimmeo to be the evolution of online relationships in virtual worlds. gimmeo has the potential to create an entirely new type online transaction – not just on one site with a smattering of gifts, but industry wide on dating sites, social networks, even chat. The gifting possibilities are also as endless as the internet.

gimmeo has one other major point of differentiation and that is we built gimmeo to be an ecosystem of partners where each benefit from the other more than by trying to do it all themselves. We knew that our success was based on the success of others. Rather than looking for the way to grab the whole pie we sought ways to create value for our partners knowing that in doing so would make the big bigger and better. We set out to create the best partnership, a social media site could have.

Q: How does it work - from both frontend and backend point of view?

A: gimmeo is not a merchant or a website – this is where most people get confused. gimmeo is a privacy proxy (think Paypal) that allows one person to purchase a real-world gift for another without either party knowing or disclosing their private information. gimmeo resides as a feature on social media sites. The only way to use gimmeo is to find it on a social media site. If your favorite sites don’t have gimmeo, send them an email, or sixty, asking for it. (hint, hint)

The simplest way to explain gimmeo is like this. The sender wants to send a gift to a recipient, but they don’t have their address, but gimmeo does, so the sender pays gimmeo to send a gift to the recipient. gimmeo does not reveal anything except the screen names of the two parties. The gift is exchanged, both parties are happy, but neither party has the ability to discover the others personal and private information.

To send a gift, a user simply clicks a “send a gift” button while viewing an online friend’s profile, selects a gift from any of the participating merchants’ shops and proceeds through a standard checkout procedure with the exception that the sender does not enter the recipient’s delivery information. And when they are done, they are back looking at the online friend’s profile. Using gimmeo is not much different than sending a virtual gift except, of course, the real gift is a lot better than a picture of a teddy bear.

gimmeo is a simple concept with a lot of complex technology behind it. Data bases, APIs, filters and firewalls, nothing new and nothing exciting as far as the technology goes. What is exciting is how we put it together to do something novel to address a real need in social media.

Q: How do you see social networks and dating sites using your service?

A: Social media has two main challenges; monetization and stickiness.

Our revenue sharing is simple – we give the entire sales commission to the social media partner. That’s right, 100%. And since gimmeo has no licensing fees or external costs to the social media partner site, this is pure profit. There is no way they can make more money doing it themselves. gimmeo is a simple and turnkey solution to the problem of monetizing.

Stickiness is also something social media sites are concerned with. One of the problems with pay-per-click advertising or affiliate programs is that in order for the social media site to get paid, they have to send the site user off their site. gimmeo functions not as a separate site, but as a feature within the social media site itself and is skinned to match the social media partner site’s brand. From the perspective of the gimmeo users, they do not leave the social media partners website when they send each other gifts, keeping the social media site users onsite socializing longer.

Merchant partners also benefit from partnering with gimmeo. Our merchant partners gain access to millions of potential customers with literally billions of friendship connections – any of which is a gift giving opportunity. Merchants also do not pay to be a part of this partnership with the exception of the sales commission offered to the social media site. Merchants are already paying to acquire customers and sales. gimmeo is just tapping into this practice and funneling that money to the social media site as a commission.

And the end user benefits too. gimmeo is providing them with the opportunity to make their online relationships much more real with real world gift giving without compromising their privacy. gimmeo makes it impossible for either party to discover the personal and private information of the other through a gimmeo transaction. We know from our research that social media users want a way to send real-world gifts and for the most part are not satisfied with virtual gift application. Just read the follow-up posts after any article mentioning virtual gifts on TechCrunch and you will see the market we are trying to serve. gimmeo does need to pay the light bill and we charge a nominal fee to the gift sender to act as a proxy and keep everyone’s information secure.

For social media users who do not require privacy, gimmeo offers the convenience of not having to ask for birthdays, gift suggestions, sizes and shipping addresses – making sending a gift simple and quick.

Q: What social media sites are already supported by gimmeo?

A: We are working to bring the first sites online shortly. We will be staggering the first few implementations of gimmeo over the next couple of months, but plan to offer gimmeo freely to all social media sites by early summer. There are well over 30 social media sites interested in gimmeo including some of the largest dating sites on the web. Those who adopt gimmeo first will have a competitive advantage to attract new members – another benefit we bring our social media partners. We will be announcing the sites using gimmeo as they come online via twitter @gimmeo.

Q: What gifts are available?

A: Literally anything could be given as a gift using gimmeo. gimmeo has partnered with some of the biggest and best e-commerce merchants to provide gift options. These merchant partners have literal storefronts inside gimmeo and manage their shops just as they do their main website to keep the gifting possibilities fresh. gimmeo users on dating sites will be able to purchase flowers, chocolates, cakes, perfume, gift baskets, jewelry, clothing and more. We have the ability to customize the merchant partners to fit the demographic of each site. Some sites might have a small selections of merchants, others could have virtual shopping malls, it is up to the social media partner sites to decide which merchants and how many.

Q: So, why should and how can webmasters of dating sites add your service to their sites?

A: The answer is simple: money. gimmeo is a new and powerful way for social media sites to monetize. Our merchant partners pay a sales commission each time gimmeo generates and order for them. These commissions are generally $5 or higher per transaction. gimmeo passed 100% of the sales commission on to the social media site. Since there are no lisencing fees or external cost to use gimmeo as a feature on a social media site, 100% of revenue generated by gimmeo is profit. There are many other secondary benefits gimmeo brings, including increased interactions between the site users, potential advertising relationships with the merchant partners, more accurate information about the site users for more targeted and valuable advertising, and providing a service that the site users want. There is no reason we can think of not to add gimmeo.

Implementation of gimmeo on a social media site only takes a few days and is designed to be as turnkey as possible. We will be taking the first few site implementations slowly, but the estimated time needed to get gimmeo running is only two days. Once gimmeo has been added to a site, there is very little to do as far as the social media site is concerned.

Social media is still finding its virtual feet and many sites are still searching for a revenue model that works. For many social media sites, especially the free site, gimmeo is the answer to their financial woes as advertising revenue flees the sector. We are very excited to be a part of this amazing transformation on the Internet we call social media. gimmeo is just one more step towards a more real online experience.