Friday, February 4, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Article: Why You Should Never Pay for Online Dating
Here is an interesting article posted back in April of 2010 by OkTrends (the OkCupid dating site blog) about the dating site business model and why it works against the end user who is trying to find a date.
Basically they run some numbers and conclude that pay dating sites like eHarmony and Match.com have a "ghost" user rate of approximately 95%. A ghost user is a user profile that essentially has nobody behind it since they have not paid for the service and cannot respond to attempts at communication (emails, winks, etc.)
The effect of this, according to the article, is two-fold - men end up getting far too few replies (since 95% of people they are trying to contact aren't even there, and, of the women who *are* there, only 30% on average will reply), and women get far too many messages, causing them to stop checking their email.
On top of this, the article goes on to argue, the pay sites themselves have a strong incentive to try and get their users to send emails to ghosts (as opposed to real users) since this is a primary method they use to get the ghosts to become paying members.
You may notice that the article is a Google cache and no longer on the OkTrends blog. This is because OkCupid was recently purchased by Match.com who promptly took down the post (surprise). What they should have done instead, if they were at all able to, was provide a counterpoint to the article. However, the fact that they didn't leads me to believe that the article was right on target.
Now, having been on various free and paid dating sites for the past few months, I can give you my personal perspective.
OkCupid (free - for now) - female response rate was low, but not non-existent. Selection of women was diverse and high-quality in terms of attractiveness.
PlentyofFish (free) - decent sized selection of users, but poor response rate;
Match.com (paid) - female response rate was nearly non-existent; selection of attractive users seemed small for a site which claimed to have such a large pool.
Chemistry (paid) - gave me the best experience so far; fair number of attractive users, decent response rate.
And, like I always say when I write a post about online dating sites, I'm in no way paid by any of them - this is just my own personal experience.
I can tell you this - the OkTrends article definitely makes me feel better about my experience. The miserable response rate from women, although a common experience based upon the conversations I've had with other men, is still extremely discouraging and rough on the ego.
Basically they run some numbers and conclude that pay dating sites like eHarmony and Match.com have a "ghost" user rate of approximately 95%. A ghost user is a user profile that essentially has nobody behind it since they have not paid for the service and cannot respond to attempts at communication (emails, winks, etc.)
The effect of this, according to the article, is two-fold - men end up getting far too few replies (since 95% of people they are trying to contact aren't even there, and, of the women who *are* there, only 30% on average will reply), and women get far too many messages, causing them to stop checking their email.
On top of this, the article goes on to argue, the pay sites themselves have a strong incentive to try and get their users to send emails to ghosts (as opposed to real users) since this is a primary method they use to get the ghosts to become paying members.
You may notice that the article is a Google cache and no longer on the OkTrends blog. This is because OkCupid was recently purchased by Match.com who promptly took down the post (surprise). What they should have done instead, if they were at all able to, was provide a counterpoint to the article. However, the fact that they didn't leads me to believe that the article was right on target.
Now, having been on various free and paid dating sites for the past few months, I can give you my personal perspective.
OkCupid (free - for now) - female response rate was low, but not non-existent. Selection of women was diverse and high-quality in terms of attractiveness.
PlentyofFish (free) - decent sized selection of users, but poor response rate;
Match.com (paid) - female response rate was nearly non-existent; selection of attractive users seemed small for a site which claimed to have such a large pool.
Chemistry (paid) - gave me the best experience so far; fair number of attractive users, decent response rate.
And, like I always say when I write a post about online dating sites, I'm in no way paid by any of them - this is just my own personal experience.
I can tell you this - the OkTrends article definitely makes me feel better about my experience. The miserable response rate from women, although a common experience based upon the conversations I've had with other men, is still extremely discouraging and rough on the ego.
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