Setting up a dating site - most attractive features to offer?

Ones with consistent traffic and one that is serving its purpose of matching people together. One that has no experience with either is not successful in my opinion.

 

You've pretty much said it all.

 

the online video that was suggested as a feature that has to be added can surely contribute to a site's attractiveness and increase the users I guess.

 

Question should be "How can you hold a person as a member to your site for a long time?"
What I have noticed that people usually leave the site after 3-5 months for 2 reasons... A: Found someone. B: Couldn't find anyone.
Have a section on site where users can contribute tips, articles and stories, help each other by answering one another's questions and so on.
I may not be looking for a dating site but might be interested into finding help about the problems I am having with my current relationship so I signup (free) just to ask a question... Know where I am going with this?

 

That is where the videos could kick in. Users could record videos telling other members about their success or just giving them simple hints and ideas.

 

The problem is there are already 100s if not 1000s dating sites have this video upload feature. Some even provide live webcam chats.
Text is what bring more users from search engines.

 

Mesum, can you think of a method or some sort of an approach that can increase the users of a dating site by using videos. Like for example, you give your users the possibility to record videos on your dating site. How would you go about it? What would be that special thing that you would offer? I've been reading your comments and it seems that you've got the "know how" if I can put it that way. Thanks in advance.

 

This one of them. One of the things that are worth doing.

 

I am not a tech guy so I can't give you any technical details but I have seen getting this done 2 ways.
A: Let a user record a video using their personal computers and then have it upload it to the site and then convert it using FFmpeg.
B: A rare solution but sites like youtube and dailymotion have it and that is let users record a video using their webcam directly from the site.

Now as I said before, many dating websites are using the basic profile videos and webcam chat already. If you want to stand a little different, try something new.
Right top of my head, I can think of few things but of course they aren't planned and you or anyone who is intested will have to go over it. I am more than happy to work with someone on an 1-on-1 basis if someone is interested.
* Have a "speed dating" section of site where users must upload a video about themselves to use it. You can setup rules like "must describe where or how you want your first date to be".
* Have a section where users volunteerly upload a video and then let people help them set up a match.

Another idea outside of videos is having a "date score" where if 2 users hookup and go to date, they can rate each other based on some checklist.
If you want to talk more about it then I suggest you contact me via PM. I don't want to hijack this thread.

*EDIT: Oops, I thought Shuttle was the one who started this topic. I guess we can continue exchanging ideas here.

 

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate all you have said!

I like these two maybe I will give them a go.

About the two options you gave me, yes you are right about them. However there's a tool that seetheface offers which allows you to integrate a video recording player with your site and let your site users record and publish videos on your site. I think i will stick to it for now. But the ideas you gave me are priceless. I have to admit that I haven't seen the things from this angle. Thanks a lot again.

 

That tool is way off the hook, Nathan. I have tried it twice on their site.

 

Honestly, you should have a free dating site. The one guy makes like 500k/monthly from adsense alone, and his dating site is compeltely free.

 

can you put your finger on any successful sites that do it like that? I would be really interested to see some and learn from them.

 

I think the double match idea on hotornot is quite good. Wondering if they have the patent / exclusive rights to that idea though....

 

Can you explain what this double match thing does?

 

I know 2 sites that are making more than 50K a month with advertising.
OKCupid.com and plentyoffish.com. Both of them are 100% free to use. OKCupid does offer some paid extras like bigger mailbox, more photos ect for little extra.

 

Hi all.. I have followed this thread for a while and finally I am happy that I will start the sale of the perfect Plentyoffish.com clone next week.. Check out my signature

 

POF is doing far far more that 50k per month.

I've been a user of plentyoffish.com for over 6 months. It is a truly great site. And as far as a person using it for dating, there really is nothing more needed to make it better. Adding new gimmicks are just that, gimmicks.

And I believe that dating is one niche where Video is not going to be a big thing. A dating site is not a social networking site. It kind of is but there is an essential difference from the users perspective. They want a certain level of privacy. Not an open free for all. Thats a fact of human nature, our love lives have elements of privacy attached to them, always have and always will.

Now video might be ok, some users will use it, but if you think that video is what will make your new dating site a real contender in a massively competitive field, then your bound to fail.

In 2 years from now, POF may still not have video and will still likely be one of the biggest dating sites around. It's really that good. And as far as it looking like an old web 1.0 site, well that is part of the reason its so successful. It disarms users because they feel like the site is not trying to hard, it just does what it does, does it very well, and nobody cares that its not web 2.0 pretty with whitespace, fancy fonts, rounded corners and gradient colors.

AND, if you think you can run with a $49 clone script and turn it into a $10k per day adsense revenue generator without a huge marketing budget behind you (by huge I mean at least $20k to get it off the ground) your bound to be disappointed.

 

i have handshake unused license ... if your interested pm me..

 

Axemedia, why are you so skeptical about video on dating sites?