BUSINESS INSIDER - July 24 - We've got new apps popping up every day: Coffee Meets Bagel, Hook, Pinch, Instamour, Wyldfire, Whim, Floret... Online dating can often be frustrating, which in turn leads to more willingness to try new apps. A lot of people see a need to come up with new ideas. Mark Brooks, the iDating consultant behind Courtland Brooks, thinks that dating apps more closely translate the real-life experience of meeting someone. "The mobile platform is simply a superior platform for internet dating. Mobile daters will go on many times during the day but just for a few minutes, they’re chatting and then they go back to work, and then jump back on. Internet dating has never really meshed with true user behavior," he said. "The true user behavior is when someone starts chatting someone else up, they’ll be in a continuous conversation and reel them in for a date. The problem with online dating is the incentive structures are quite broken. Mobile gets us closer." These dating apps all need to figure out the revenue model. Brooks thinks in-app spending is the way to go. And then there's always ads. Larger corporations acquiring the smaller startups when they run out of money. We saw this happen with IAC. Brooks sees Match Group holding out as the powerhouse. Match Group is currently under IAC, but Brooks anticipates a future separation that would leave Match Group as the ultimate online dating umbrella. "Starting a dating app is rather like starting a restaurant," Brooks said. "It looks very easy to do. It's a very sexy business. But it's a lot more difficult because of the critical mass problem. "What I typically find happens is that entrepreneurs spend 90% of their money building the app. But it does require cold hard cash to grow. Although there may be many startups, there will be few survivors. Very few have that unique way of driving eyeballs. Tinder did well."
by Rebecca Borison
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The iDating industry has been flat the last couple of years, in terms of revenues. But as we move towards mobile, and wearable computing, I think the real heyday of iDating is still ahead of us. I'm available at [email protected] or 212-444-1636 for press interviews.
Posted by: Mark Brooks | Jul 29, 2014 at 02:45 PM