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Cnet buys Consumating, yes Match should be worried

Posted: January 26th, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Marketing | 2 Comments »

Last year in July I wrote an article titled Match.com Vs. Consumating.com that talked about a small austin based startup and how its approach to online dating was much more of an emergent, bottom up, blog like system. Standing of course in stark contrast to Match.com which controls user generated content with an iron fist. Well Cnet has bought consumating.com and I for one couldn’t be happier. I’m not claiming to be an indie guy that rocks, and I don’t where glasses, but it’s a dating service much more aligned with my personality.
Cnet Buys Consumating: Hot nerdy girls and indie rock boys! With glasses!

  • http://davisfreeberg.com/2007/02/14/because-its-better-to-have-loved-and-not-lost-then-to-have-loved-at-all/ Because It’s Better To Have Loved And Not Lost Then To Have Loved At All | Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection

    [...] Consumating – I first came across Consumating a year ago when CNET bought the company for an undisclosed amount. I’ve never had much luck actually dating off of the site, but the community makes looking for a date a lot of fun. The site uses a number of advanced social tools to encourage communication with other members and the community they’ve built is a blast to be part of. People love to use Consumating to play games and there are a constant stream of “Consumeetings” where you can meet people in a low pressure environment. From an investing standpoint though, Consumating isn’t quite ready for prime time just yet. While good for consumers, the lack of monthly fees makes this internet dating play less then ideal for those trying to capitalize on the lack of love in the world. I can understand why CNET would want to build their community out first before tyring to monetize it, but even once the community grows, Consumating isn’t going to be an easy site to monetize. With $2.5 billion in retained losses, CNet is an attractive takeover target right now, but between their widely publicized issues with stock option back dating and questions about them bleeding traffic, make this is one love story that I’m not sure that I want to be part of. Yahoo! – Yahoo! (YHOO) has been offering personals on their site for years, but anyone who has ever tried to actually meet someone through the service knows how bad Yahoo! really is at finding love. The ads are poorly written, the layout is confusing and searching for the right match is more work then it’s worth. Fortunately, for Yahoo! though, the company does have a dating gem in their portfolio. When most people think of Flickr, they think of photo sharing site, but for single people who are interested in meeting the sensitive artist type, there is no better place to find love on the net then through Flickr. With regular community organized meet ups and plenty of social tools built into the site, there are a lot of Flickr users who take advantage of the passive nature of comments and faves to do a little flirting on the site. Yahoo! isn’t necessarily making a boatload of cash from the activity of course, but it’s still a nice compliment to what they do overall. The p/e on their stock makes the company look a little expensive right now, but given all the doom and gloom about the company and with their stock price down about 6% from where it was trading at last Valentine’s day, there may be an upside if Yahoo! can turn things around and tap into the Google love they’ve been missing out on for the last few years. [...]

  • http://www.dotbeyond.com/sale/ James

    There is much more profitable niche: dating sites for people living with STDs. stdFriends.com, the 2nd largest site from this niche (42K members) is currently for sale.

    Check out this STD-related marketing research:
    http://www.dotbeyond.com/sale/home/market-research/