The Biggest Problem Plaguing Many Online Communities (and why I hate Match.com)

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For anybody who has been following me for awhile on Twitter, you have probably seen one of my rants about my experience on online dating sites. Sifting through one crappy dating profile after another gets old really fast. Then, sprinkle in dozens of creepy messages from guys, who are old enough to be father, and it’s enough to make me question my decision to jump on Match in the first place.

datingmemeWhether its Match, PlentyofFish, OkCupid, Jdate, ChristianMingle or pick your online dating poison, the concept and approach is pretty much the same. You create a profile describing yourself and your interests. Then people can search for and message you on there. It’s not all that different than Facebook except it’s displaying yourself to strangers.

We are all treating how we portray ourselves and our actions in a similar fashion to how we use Facebook. That’s why our current online dating concept is so fundamentally flawed. By in large, Facebook is at it’s a core a “community” where we connect and stay in touch with friends, family and colleagues that we already know in real life. On the other hand, online dating is essentially a “community” of passionate strangers- all looking for their special someone.

Now this is where I am going to get really nerdy, but bear with me for a second. As a community manager, some of the best online communities I’ve seen are the ones with passionate people who all have a similar interest or goal. The best part of each community lies in the discussions you can have in there. These discussions can be the foundations for connections and sometimes whole networks to form. The reality is you can learn so much about a person by how they converse with others (be it people in real life or strangers online). That’s the glue that makes an online community thrive.

But where are the discussions on online dating sites?

The answer quite honestly is there are none. You have a dating profile, a search feature, and private messaging. Most also have a wink or like feature for people that you are digging. However this makes for a pretty terrible online experience in my view. You essentially have two options.

You can wink at somebody, which is pretty much the equivalent of going to a mall and giving random strangers the thumbs up sign and then immediately walking away.

Or, you can send a private message to them. That’s pretty much the equivalent of cold calling. Something the vast majority of people despise. This leads people to either not message anyone they like (think fear of rejection or worst being ignored) or people to game the system with inauthentic messages. (Aka the guy who copies and pastes the same message to 100 ladies).

It’s become a numbers game. I don’t care who you are, but I’m willing to venture that no one looking to find love wants to be considered a number. They want to find that special someone for them.

Now I don’t know (or claim to know) the algorithms that each dating site uses to send people their daily dating matches. But, I do know that the moment you create your Match.com profile, you are pretty much banking on luck to find that special someone. That doesn’t exactly create the foundation of an awesome online community experience.

So what would it take to create an ideal online dating experience? That’s a million dollar question. And one that I don’t have a good answer to.

However what I do know is that in order to have a thriving online, successful community, you have to a dedicated group of like-minded individuals discussing a specific topic(s) at it’s core.  The number of “likes,” “favorites,” and “winks” a community has means nothing if the conversation ends there. You can’t build a functional community of an action that takes a member less than a half second to complete. Thriving communities take time and effort to grow and flourish.

About the author

Jessica Malnik

5 comments

  • Jessica, I like your analogies — winking as a “thumbs up at the mall,” and private-messaging as cold-calling.
    The ideal online dating site would combine a few things — Facebook integration so you can ask mutual friends what the person’s really like, compatibility testing (OkCupid’s match questions are surprisingly accurate, especially if you rate your key questions as “mandatory” or “very important,” to weight them properly), and some sort of offline component (for quickly showing whether there’s chemistry, rather than just compatibility).
    As an introvert, I like that while online dating is not ideal, I know that if I message a woman, she’s at least *potentially* interested by virtue of her being single, too (well, in theory single). As opposed to meeting someone in real life and trying to figure out via Facebook whether they’re even single before you ask them out. Doing that research (or “research”) has saved me from several potentially embarrassing situations.
    Compared to meeting someone first in person, seeing an online dating profile (including match question answers on OkCupid) also quickly reveals potential matches or mismatches on things like values (e.g., religious views or lack thereof) or demographics (e.g., whether they have kids or allergenic pets). Meeting someone randomly in person lets you assess chemistry (online’s not there at all), but you really know nothing about whether you have compatible values.
    Frankly, online daters would do better if they thought about positioning, copywriting, and sales funnel management. “Online Dating CRM with Lead Scoring” — it’s going to be the next Big Thing.Oh — and I just wanted to add that I like going out but I also like staying in, and I like wearing jeans AND suits, and I like the mountains AND the beach. 😉

  • The problem lies with the people themselves; most on-line daters have an over-valued opinion of themselves (women…Im looking right at you.)That is why in general, you see the 32-43 age bracket for women as ‘Never Married’. What that really says is that more than likely you were too stuck-up on yourself or held an over-valued opinion of yourself to let anyone (least of all someone who genuinely wants to date you) in.
    It makes me laugh when I see the same things in women’s profiles: “I do crossfit” or “I run tough mudder” and here are best homogenous lines “Im a hard worker” or “Friends describe me as…” Yea, no your friends may say that about you when you ask , however and behind your back they think you are a compulsive douche (maybe?)
    My solution: stop over-valuing who you are. No one wants to come in any less than 1st place, on the otherhand; let us not be handing out trophies for the 4th & 5th place finishes. You are who you are and for most, if compatible, that is still damn good!

  • Many of these sites, match.com in particular are rife with con artists. I used to get 4-5 messages a day. They all followed the same pattern:

    1) They all purported to be from young beautiful women.
    2) ALL of these people lived over a thousand miles away.
    3) All of them professed a belief in soul mates or “true love.”
    4) All of these women desperately longed to meet me so that “two hearts could become one,” or some other drivel.
    5) None of these women could afford to relocate to my area.

    I am not so desperate or egocentric that at 53 years of age, I would believe that a beautiful young woman half my age would fall in love with me on the basis of my profile. Even if 1 woman had daddy issues, what is the statistical likelihood that 4-5 such women would write to me EACH DAY?

    These people were clearly scammers, looking to exploit the lonely and desperate. 

    They are also like roaches. For every scammer you report to match.com and for every profile the site administration shuts down, it seems that two more pop up.