Mark Brooks interviews PerfectMatch

Mark Brooks has posted an interview with PerfectMatch CEO Duane Dahl. Dahl is focusing his efforts in recent media attention on downplaying Eharmony. Picking out a competitor may have been a smart marketing decision but going one-on-one in an industry blog doesn't do it for me. I know far too much about both companies to drink that Cool-Aid.

Duane thinks PM can trounce Eharmony. I'm not so sure. He got his team back together very late in the game, although I think their deals in print and tv have been heads above what everyone else is doing. PM gets marketing online dating better than everyone else except Eharmony.

Everyone in the industry is too busy pointing fingers at True on television and in front of congress-people yet remain mute about Eharmony. Eharmony just loves the fact that their practices continue to fly under the public radar while they continue to add members. I'm surprised that a competitor has not launched an investigation on PrimeTime or 20/20 or 60 Minutes.

As much as I have a problem with some of Eharmony's exclusionary tactics, I'm beginning to appreciate that they do the heavy lifting for members. The thought of using a dating site search engine from any company is frustrating. The differentiators are too great, the algorithms different and the results from a direct comparison between services impossible to measure in a meaningful way.

As long as Eharmony is clear and up front about the demographics it caters to, I don't care what that demographic are and neither should the industry. The problem is that Eharmony has so much traction now that pretty soon they will reach the tipping point and then they can choose to do something like partner with a site that caters to the demographics they're not interested in and make even more money.

Christian dating is emerging as the next big demographic shift to online dating. Lot's of new services and alliances will be announced soon. Interesting point,

I spoke with a woman yesterday who said she was afraid that she was not Jewish enough for JDate. How can that be?

The June 3rd PerfectMatch/Dr. Phil promotion should be interesting to watch for the entertainment value if anything else. Definitely a Red state kind of show as PM skews to the older female audience. Not going to find PM on AskMen.com.

Dahl hired Dr. Pepper Schwartz, who is just as much a spokesmodel for PM as Dr. Warren is for Eharmony, regardless. If Ben Afflec started promoting True.com as a member, the site would go ballistic. When it comes to subscriptions, people don't know about the "back end" of the service, all they see is the person in the advertising. PM does a good job promoting how sensitive, caring and feel-good the service is up front. They're definitely on to something.

PM has a 10-point plan for helping members make the most of the service. That's good to see and reinforces that the industry is not doing nearly enough to work with their memebers. Online dating is a subscription-based business, the customer service will never be personalized enough. That's why E-cyrano and ProfileDoctor and PersonalsTrainer all exist, to address the needs of the date warehouses in ways they never will be able to.

How much use to members get from monthly advice columns at sites like Date.info, PM and Match? Yahoo has made inroads but doesn't have a real "face" to the service yet.

Notice how Dahl doesn't mention anything about Jose Bisset, the spokesperson they hired a few months ago. Whatever happened to her? Must have been the Italian porn movie she was in.

I do not understand why dating sites think they have to review each and every video or audio clip. Why not come up with a rating system and let people tag their video themselves?

PM could do a deal with one of the review sites like TrustDater and let people flag and rate other people's videos. Inexpensive, easy to implement and further strengthens the sense of community on a site, which is all but non-existent at the moment except for scary chat rooms.

Obviously there are issues here with inappropriate behavior but someday videos are going to be the primary way we are introduced to people online. Just like with VCR tapes in the 80's but this time with streaming media.

Overall a luke-warm interview. Nothing earth-shattering, just Dahl plugging away at his chosen competitor.