A new year, and like clockwork a whole slew of unintelligible press releases right before iDate. This one is a real winner. Go take some aspirin before reading any further.

Did You, Inc. Releases an All New Social Networking Website Called DidYouDate.com Which is Creating Controversy Over Extra-Martial Affairs.

Did You, Inc., a New York Corporation since 2005, is set to launch the website DidYouDate.com, and enter into the business of online social networking, particularly with an interest in the area of online dating, online advertising and interoperability (also known as chat). The company is being designed from the ground up as a profit driven organization. It offers a compelling value proposition for its customers, a groundbreaking online promotional tool and a high return for customers on their investment in their product. It will offer a number of features that are unique to, and will enhance the experience of, the entire global market of online dating.

Guess who’s writing their press releases in-house? Talk about confusing, “enter into the business of online social networking, particularly with an interest in the area of online dating, online advertising and interoperability (also known as chat).”

Why not call it chat? “The company is being designed from the ground up as a profit driven organization.” Great news, as opposed to what?

As for the rest of the opening paragraph, I have no idea what the hell the company does. So I dig deeper:

DidYouDate, Inc. is in the business of supplying a search tool with the ability to access the historical dating records of anyone who has a profile somewhere online, or will soon have one.

They know I may join a dating site in the future? That’s some hot AI, where do I invest?

DidYouDate.com will generate empirical data received from its applicant’s use of the software, it has the ability to crawl and capture people’s profiles from a virtually limitless supply of existing dating, networking, personal ads, and white page listing websites.

Can you say “violation of terms of service?”

Rather than searching for people and profiles on countless dating sites trying to dig up information about a cheating sex partner or ex husband or wife, a subscriber to DidYouDate.com will have access to these dating archives at the click of a button, by logging into one site.

Is this cheaper or more effective than paying a gumshoe for a days work?

The feature, named “6 Degrees,” (i.e. “6 degrees of separation”) will allow users to choose a dater and view all of the dater’s past, present and possible future relationships and the nature of those relationships.

Ow, my head hurts reading this stuff.

DidYouDate.com will utilize heavy graphical images provided by Gigapixel Creative to add a creative twist to relationship identification.

Make it stop!

DidYouDate.com’s technology will provide subscribers to online dating services the ability to chat with one another across a single platform. A person logged on to DidYouDate.com will be able to connect to any one who is logged on to any of the dating services that DidYouDate.com has enabled interop services. For instance, if there are 200,000 people logged into DidYouDate.com and 300,000 in to Myspace.com or Youtube and 1,000,000 into Yahoopersonals.com, then the DID YOU IM INTEROP TM. tool would have a total of 1,500,000 potential users that could possibly Instant Message each other simultaneously.

This site is DOA. A true Seinfeld of a press release. Get out your tinfoil beanies.

background+checks, Dating Site, didyou, seinfeld, social networking

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Every year I make a list of improbable iDate sessions I would love to attend. Here is this year’s list. Feel free to add you own in the comments. :

• What software platform should I run my dating site on
• Is Boonex really that bad or are all the complainers simply not good at technical project management
• Dialing kazakhstan for technical support
• Why run a million dollar business on a $500 script when there are so many options
• Why building your dating site from scratch is usually a terrible idea
• Why dating site customer service sucks and how to fix it
• Why your never-been-done dating site idea won’t work (special bonus: includes investor pitchs and business plans for five companies who have already tried your idea and failed.)
• How to create a best of breed social/dating site for under $100k
• How to sell my site or database because I want to go back to video editing/accounting/interpretive dance
• How to successfully sue Match, Yahoo and True for millions and keep your day job
• Single sign-on across dating sites
• The Seven-day pass
• Why we are leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table because we don’t know how to innovate
• Should we care about background checks or just pay grieving families
• Rate-a-date sites, should we stay or should we go(independent) now
• Social Networking is not dating
• An in-depth analysis of various personality testing and matching systems, their integration issues, costs and expected ROI.
• Why stale profiles will kill your business model
• Why crappy profile questions will kill your business model
• Anonymous calling, how to make your voice sound like George Clooney or Angelina Jolie
• Why Match and Yahoo and Eharmony will never let niche sites get too big

Dating Events, idate

A commenter asked about iDate:

David, would you recommend this conference to someone who would like to become familiar with this space or you consider it a complete waste? Can this show help in anyway to someone new or is it just sales reps trying to get business done?

- Is it worth *anything* attending?
- Are there speakers one should NOT miss?
- Are there events one must attend?

Finally, if I may, what are the things YOU would have wanted to know when you got started attending your first show.

All good questions. I think if you are entering the market it’s imperative to attend. If you are an industry veteran this is the only show to network with your peers. Or in the case this year, buy or sell your company before it’s too late.
Exhibitor sessions are usually sales pitches, some better than others. The industry overview (both for dating and social networking) should be good. All the background check, chat and billing companies will be exhibiting, easier to talk to them one on one.

I wish the iDate website didn’t make it so difficult to link to speakers, what’s with the Javascript popups?

Speakers not to miss (partial list):

Susan Mernit: I’ve not heard her speak, at least someone at Y! Personals is talking.
Mike Jones: Userplane is the industry standard video/chat application. Mike knows all and everyone. You will run out of paper writing down all his insights. Yes they are a sponsor of this blog, consider my bias. After you listen to Mike you will understand why I like him and Userplane so much ( Hi Janet!).
Kate Hansen: Marketing for Social Networking and Internet Personals Websites. This is pretty important stuff, haven’t heard her speak. Will be a sales pitch but one worth listening too. What, are you going to spend your precious marketing budget on Y! Search?
Markus Frind: Markus will talk about how great PlentyofFish is and how everyone else sucks for 20 minutes. If you can stomach the bravado, he is incredibly knowledgeable about turing eyeballs into dollar signs and a lot of what he says is spot-on. Definitely one of the smartest people in the dating industry. Ask him to show you his oversized Google check.
Panel: The Social Networking & Online Dating Industry - Issues from Executives and Management. I hope this is good. If not, at least you can get buzzed for free.
Matchmakers: Room full of women with insights into the dating space that us “internet people” haven’t thought of yet. Refreshing perspectives and nice folks on the front lines of working with your customers. Hint, they actually know more about the human condition than you know about PHP or billing fraud.

I cannot believe there is not someone from Myspace or Match speaking. That’s like ignoring the elephant in the room.

Not sure about the revenue models for online dating panel, worth checking out if you’re just getting into the space. That used to be my topic at SITRAS. That could be a really good session, or not.

The rest are sales pitches. Hit the ones that make sense and then go to the pool where the real networking happens.

Pretty disappointing Day Two, with apologies to Multiuply and Tickle, not seeing much value in the second day unless you are a matchmaker. Advanced session on billboard advertising and various SEO players which most can’t afford and don’t understand. I don’t get the “how women relate to me” session. First session for those too hung over from Monday night?

Previous post about iDate. My post about last year’s iDate, Your Armchair Guide to iDate, may be of interest to some.

Last year, there was iDate Radio at Webmasterradio.fm. Lot’s of vendor pitches, useful if you weren’t at the conference. Not sure if they are doing this again this year.

Dating Events, idate

I’m watching the news scroll by at MacRumorsLive, which is liveblogging Steve Jobs two-hour keynote address at Macworld. The master just announced the iTV. I’m heading over to the Apple store to pick one up if they are available today.

While I’m preoccupied…

Just heard from findmedateme, the world’s first social network for online dating and online daters.

Suppose you find a member on Match.com with the username Jen4Luv interesting. On Match.com both you and Jen4Luv must pay Match.com to send and receive a contact. Here on findmedateme, you simply search for Jen4Luv by entering her username in our search form and contact her for FREE.

I think both people need to be members of the service. Not so useful if thats the case. More details coming soon.

Dating Site, findmedateme