Recently Barron's CEO Spotlight had published an article about the IAC, where its CEO talks about its vision.
It was funny because:
During the tenure of Tim Sullivan as CEO, Match entered the compatibility matching era with WeAttract's test.
During the tenure of Jim Safka, the IAC (Match) launched Chemistry (the last innovation at Match, it was during 2005).
During the tenure of Thomas Enraght-Mooney, the IAC acquired 27% stake in Meetic but lost the war in Europe.
During the tenure of Greg Blatt, the IAC bought some online dating sites like PeopleMedia's Communities, SinglesNet, YahooPersonals unit, OkCupid, 81.07% of Meetic BUT no innovation since years.
Exactly one year ago, at Goldman Sachs 20th Annual Communacopia Conference, the actual IAC's CEO had talked about Personals.
"IAC has been very acquisitive in Personals"
Yes, they had acquired rotten companies, like SinglesNet, People Media Communities, OkCupid; even Meetic, they all are like pieces of different puzzles, not different pieces of the same puzzle.
"IAC does not share databases across websites, with larger opportunity stemming not from combination but from separate growth. Mr. Blatt mentioned that going forward that approach may change and some bundling may be implemented."
Those databases are like pieces of different puzzles. Over 70% of Match profiles are fake or inactive and Chemistry is a 7+ years old obsolete site based on a Scientific HOAX.
"Mr. Blatt mentioned that there is tremendous innovation in the dating space from video to mobile to distribution across social (highlighting that no one has quite tackled social yet). He feels IAC’s Personals does not have many holes left to fill and internal development going forward is more likely; new tech is deployed globally after proving effectiveness in core market."
Ha, ha, ha, ha. That is exactly the same Tim Sullivan, former CEO of Match, said during 2003!
The entire Online Dating Industry for serious daters in 1st World Countries is a HOAX, performing as a Big Online Casino, with low successful rates.
Online Dating for serious daters does not need to be more social, it needs to be more effective/efficient. It needs to reduce the false positives problem.
Innovations are not adding more bells and whistles to actual online dating sites.
The Online Dating Industry needs innovations but they will come from only one source: the latest discoveries in theories of romantic relationships development with commitment.
Compatibility is all about a high level on personality* similarity* between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.
*personality measured with a normative test.
*similarity: there are different ways to calculate similarity, it depends on how mathematically is defined.
STRICT PERSONALITY SIMILARITY and not "meet other people with similar interests"
WorldWide, there are over 5,000 -five thousand- online dating sites
but no one is using the 16PF5 (or similar) to assess personality of its members!
but no one calculates similarity with a quantized pattern comparison method!
but no one can show Compatibility Distribution Curves to each and every of its members!
but no one is scientifically proven!
What comes after Social Networking?
My bet: The Next Big Investment Opportunity on the Internet will be .... Personalization!
Personality Based Recommender Systems and Strict Personality Based Compatibility Matching Engines for serious Online Dating with the normative 16PF5 personality test. The market remain enormous!!
The Simpsons, Apple, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Google, Hotmail,
Yahoo, YouTube, Blogger, Wikipedia, Bing, Twitter, Skype are BIG successes in
Argentina!!!
I have the theory that if something is successful in Argentina, it could be a success in the World.
If it can NOT be a success here in Argentina, it will definitely NOT be a success in the World.
NO
online dating company (for serious daters) has success here in
Argentina nor Brazil or other Latin American country.
