Friday, September 27, 2013

Zoosk (rumored to be going public this year) 2013

Zoosk (rumored to be going public this year) accoding to article at CNN money.

If Zoosk plans its IPO, I will denounce Zoosk at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud. Zoosk's Scientific Matchmaking Service (ZSMS) is a HOAX.

Recently, PlentyOfFish (POF), revenue USD40Million year, failed to be acquired by IAC Personals.
If the strategy of IAC is to grow acquiring sites, it means they can not innovate any more in the Online Dating Industry. Last innovation was Chemistry during 2005 (perhaps it will be closed soon).

An Indian company plans to copycat eHarmony in different languages, soon. eHarmony was previously copycatted by TeAmoRu, eSynchrony and others. eHarmony's revenue is in the range of USD180Million.

Free/freemium online dating sites like PlentyOfFish and OKCupid are only marketing tools useful to send prospective customers to paid online dating sites. The same for social dating applications like Tinder and Twoo, marketing tools to migrate free users to Match/ Meetic and make them pay there.

The main threat for online dating sites is a new Legislation to force them disclose how many active members they have (Premium members: paid or with gift subscriptions) and to conduct ID verification, that will kill Free/freemium online dating sites like Zoosk, Tinder, Twoo, PlentyOfFish, OKCupid and other.
Some time ago, a U.S. Class Action Calls Match a 'Scam' / More than 90% of potential dates are "phantoms," suit charged then Match had morphed its marketing campaign.
During 2008, a lawsuit against Parship in Belgium about "pratiques commerciales trompeuses" forced Parship to disclose how many paid members it had in Belgium (Parship lied about their customers; 80.000 announced, 5.004 in reality, a 6.25% conversion rate, the same to say over 93% inactive profiles!!! )
During January 2011, former CEO of Match LATAM Countries recognized 75% inactive profiles at Match Argentina.

Even with no legislation the power of word of mouth killed Be2! That should be a case of study for stupid investors' series. Other online dating companies are in the same road (be killed by power of word of mouth by email chains).

Last Feb 2008, at iDate conference, Yagan's session, titled "Where's Dating 2.0? The Lack of Innovation in the Online Dating Industry ......... Our industry is missing the revolution, focusing on superfluous bells and whistles ...." but
Worldwide there are less than 7 million paid members (adding up all the ones at eHarmony, Match, Chemistry, Meetic, MeeticAffinity, OkCupid, PeopleMedia's Communities, PlentyOfFish, Parship/eCift, etc). The market remains enormous for new players.
Online Dating for serious daters does not need to be more social, it needs to be more effective, more efficient.

C-Level executives are more worried about their golf scores than their company’s long term strategy and innovations.
The biggest scammers are not from Ghana or Nigeria. They are precisely marketing executives from big sites. They use credit card billing trickery.
Lack Of Innovation & Decadence can summarize the Online Dating Industry since years. The Online Dating Industry is performing like the Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Industry before the USA Food and Drug Administration was created. There is no/weak Legislation, no ID verification, low reliable background checks, no Quality Norms.
No one compatibility matching method is Scientifically Proven.
The entire Online Dating Industry for serious daters in 1st World Countries is a HOAX, performing as a Big Online Casino, with a low effectiveness/efficiency level of their matching algorithms (less than 10%). In the same range as searching by your own.
The Online Dating Industry needs a major cataclysm to extinguish the big, old and obsolete dinosaurs (eHarmony, Match/Chemistry, PerfectMatch, Meetic, Parship, even PlentyOfFish, etc).
Soon … or later, that cataclysm will occur.


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