Julie Spira, best-selling author and host of “Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert” Radio Show, speaks with Ravit Abelman from OmniDate.
Would you like to know about kissing on a virtual date? Click here to listen to an abridged version of the broadcast: Julie and Ravit discuss virtual dating
How does one compete successfully in the hyper-competitive online dating space?
A couple of books provide a valuable perspective: The future of online dating belongs to Visionaries, not Historian.
The first book, “Blue Ocean” by Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne views the world from the business strategy perspective. It uses the metaphor of red and blue oceans to describe the market universe. Read the rest of this entry »
(A)
(B)
Can you guess which type of virtual dating women prefer by looking at these images?
(A) is a webcam date (yes, it’s a date using a webcam and not an interaction with a call center rep). Research shows that majority of women dislike using webcams for dating.
(B) is a virtual date using 3D photo-realistic avatars. Women strongly prefer this type of interaction for getting to know men online as the foundation to meeting in person.
According to Hitwise, the top three social networking sites are responsible for 2/3 of the market - that’s huge! After that, there is a big drop … as if falling off a cliff.
Who do you think is drawn to Virtual Dating? If you guessed “young males” - you’d be wrong.
Take a look at the demographics for OmniDate, which has developed a virtual dating application that it licenses to dating sites. The company also maintains a small virtual dating site for the purpose of testing and refining its product.
According to Quantcast, a leading provider of internet metrics, OmniDate appeals to Women and people in the 35-49 age range.
Recently I had an interesting conversation with someone about why it makes sense to bring certain “virtual world” elements into the online dating space. We talked about how in virtual worlds there is much to do, but little purpose for being there … while in the online dating space, the opposite is true: a clear purpose for being there (i.e., to find a mate), but little to do (other than flipping through profiles and sending emails). So, giving users with a purpose a better virtual experience should keep them engaged longer … and, thus, should result in longer “time on site.”
So, today, I wanted to see if real-world data would lend support to this thinking. I pulled up Alexa (an online analytics tool) and compared “time on site” for several “virtual world” sites and OmniDate, which is a proxy for a “virtual dating” site. Read the rest of this entry »
Here are few photos from the iDate Conference, Miami, Jan 22-23, 2009 (thanks Marc!):
Ravit (OmniDate.com) on the Final Debate panel:
Ravit Abelman, co-founder of OmniDate, met with Hon. John McCallum, Member of Parliament and Liberal Finance Critic, to discuss growth opportunities for technology companies and women entrepreneurship in Canada.
Here’s a great post by Matthew, a news writer for Geek.com: OmniDate to replace real first date with virtual one.
Matthew correctly describes the objective of virtual dating: “… to try and remove some of the barriers to going on a first date. Their idea is simple. Replace the first real date with a virtual one … [from] the safety of your own home.” Read the rest of this entry »
Just wanted to share this posting by Mr. Online Dating: Virtual Online Dating - Can Online Dating Get Any Easier!