Women Want Romance; Men - Numbers
The difference between men and women was clearly evident last week at the annual online dating conference, iDate, in Miami.
The final session of the iDate conference typically involves a debate. This year’s debate was moderated by Mark Brooks. On the panel: Martin (Make Friends Online), Ravit (of our own OmniDate), Sam (Christian Cafe), Markus (Plenty of Fish), Dan (Speeddate.com) and Michael (Online Booty Call).
In the middle of the discussion on conversion rates, CPM, and other numbers, a woman in the audience asked: “Dating is not all about numbers, it’s also about romance. What are dating sites doing to facilitate romance?” (To which Dave Evans, who happened to be sitting just a few seats over, instantly reacted with a joke: “Romance?You must be new here.”)
Ravit shared her female perspective on how a dating site can facilitate romantic interaction online, which would create a woman-friendly environment. Her comments generated two rounds of energetic applause from the women in the audience. Several panelists (Martin, Sam) also agreed that more can be done to create a fun type of interaction to facilitate online romance.
But not all men wanted to talk about romance or building women-friendly sites. One site operator at the back of the hall angrily demanded that the discussion be returned to conversion rates and CPM.
Ironically, many of the sessions throughout this year’s conference dealt with the issue of making dating sites female friendly … go figure.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Ravit did great at the panel. She had to battle against various people’s skepticism regarding the benefits of a virtual conversation. Props to her!
February 3rd, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I fully agree that dating sites lack the romance. I don’t understand who still thinks quantity is more important than quality. I’m a guy and I’ll take 1 romantic interaction any day over 100 mediocre ones.
The internet by nature strips out the true emotions that exist between 2 people when they meet for the first time in the non-virtual world. Hopefully something can be done about this.
March 5th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?