On friday I disabled the instant messenger on my Plentyoffish and today completely removed it. It is by far the biggest strategic mistake i’ve made with the site. Within 4 days of it being inactive my UK visits increased 10% and Australia is up over 15%…. I suppose it should have been obvious because no other major dating site has a IM system. Its hard to remove a feature that is used by hundreds of thousands of users every day but in this case the data clearly shows the site is better off without IM.
I’m also testing out a new plentyoffish logo seems to work ok…
April 16, 2009 at 3:06 am |
That’s interesting… why is that the case? Do the chatters visit pages instead of chatting?
April 16, 2009 at 5:37 am |
The common practice was to exchange MSN id’s then go chat through that IM. The POF IM had flaws that made it difficult to use, but it certainly was a popularly used feature, for beginning a chat with a new person at least, then move over to MSN.
I’m not at all certain what a traffic increase after removing it could be attributed too??? If anything. Or is it simply an increase in page views as more people spend more time browsing more profiles and using internal email to ask for a chat in MSN?
Have you seen any noticeable traffic changes in Canada and the US since dropping the IM?
April 16, 2009 at 10:48 am |
Hi Markus,
I come from a design background and I wanted to say what an awesome improvement on the new logo! Looks very clean, simple, and readable (pops of the background more). The only suggestion I have is to maybe try making the “O” in OF in a lowercase letter. Try it and see what you think!
April 16, 2009 at 1:50 pm |
M,
This is a huge mistake. Part of the POF brand is free with almost all levels of communication. People expect a certain look and feel along with functionality. NO IM will only force users into another direction. Like the person that figures out how to combine Twitter and Dating (that would be me). People want and need real time contact with the opposite sex, and POF had that.
Dating sites need to understand you have you create the bar experience for the user. Where walking up to a girl and talking to her is valuable.
-Peter A DeLuca
April 16, 2009 at 1:54 pm |
2 suggestions,
1 – In the profile, my suggestion is to change the heading “First Date” to “Third Date” because most people are writing generic boring stuff in the “First Date” space like: go for a coffee.
Nobody wants to write anything interesting in here because we’re not sure if First Date is the same as the First Meeting or what.
A “Third Date” would mean you have met someone you’re attracted to and interested in doing something a little more exciting and actually okay with spending money on someone you know and like.
2 – When I first joined I got a lot of email. It’s been my experience the best thing to do with email from people you’re not interested in is to simply delete it. When I try to be polite and respond it just leads to more pleading or annoyed people. I hear guys say please respond back even if it’s with bad news but I’ve found they can’t handle the bad news.
On PoF I noticed when I delete mail right away, men sometimes will write back disappointed I have deleted their email. I was surprised they knew I had deleted their email and I felt really bad for hurting their feelings and getting into unpleasant exchanges.
So long story short: it would be nice if there were a place I could just store emails in to eventually let your system delete them instead of me deleting them, and that way I could keep the inbox clear.
p.s. the next time you’re at the dealership buying a bunch of cars for all your friends and family, I hope you will think fondly of me and throw an extra one in
April 16, 2009 at 2:05 pm |
I started writing first to say that I hate IM on PoF and would never never use it or recommend it; massive waste of time and energy.
I think taking it off was a GREAT idea.
April 16, 2009 at 2:47 pm |
I think removing the IM feature was a great way to go. As Noreen states above it’s a waste of time and energy, especially for women. When a female logs in to POF for the first time, she ends up being bombarded with IMs to the point that it becomes quite annoying, which I imagine drives a lot of them away from the site.
April 16, 2009 at 4:20 pm |
I met my gf through chat…it must be bad feature
I no longer use the site.
April 16, 2009 at 8:44 pm |
Good thinking. It’s hard enough keeping the male female ratio even on dating sites, so features that annoy the women are mostly bad.
For that matter, the IM space is already covered by folks with budgets far larger than yours or mine.
Unless you’ve got a contender to replace AIM, i’d stay out of the space, and concentrate on making your mail operate in a more intuitive manner.
April 16, 2009 at 11:30 pm |
I like the new logo. IM on free dating sites is a bad idea. So are chatrooms. We have trialled both and both were unmitigated disasters.
April 16, 2009 at 11:44 pm |
The IM feature, although great in theory, really was a frustrating tool. I generally disabled when I used the site as it’s far easier for a man to be ungentlemanly when he has to use minimal effort. If you want to insult me, mail me, dammit! lol.
I’ve met some fantastic people on the site, met a few creeps, but sadly no “soul mate”. That is, in no way, a reflection on your site. I take full responsibility for my choices. But…lol
Honestly, I found the constant changes to the site distracting; surveys, do I have a car?, roses, gifts, etc. It didn’t convey any confidence in the site if the site wasn’t happy with itself. The “serious member” option makes you look greedy. The constant barrage of options, categories, criteria, pages of availables is counterproductive to your claim that you want to unite singles. My LEAST favourite is the “view users like so and so”. Poor so and so….he or she’s just not good enough to spend 8 seconds on. It’s designed to keep the singles forever browsing (especially those who are easily distracted) and therefore increase your revenue. Clever. Mean.
We were all happy and proud that a Canadian guy was so brilliant as to make himself rich from a free site! You really deserve a pat on the back. Then, what you assured us all would never happen…happened. Free no more and less free in the days to come. The writing is on the wall and I’m afraid that many of us will finally leave and not come back because if we’re going to pay for a site, it will be for a site that has always been a pay site. By the way…most of them have an IM option as well that you can’t always turn off but can choose to ignore.
Ultimately, it’s your choice to run your site as you see fit. The problem is, those of us who have used your site over the years also thought of it as our site as well
Thanks for listening to a little venting.
I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors, Markus.
Perhaps I’ll start regular weekly singles dances so that people can actually…gulp…meet. Just like in high school!
Andrea
April 17, 2009 at 2:25 am |
Removing IM saves you over 100,000$ a year in costs, correct?
April 17, 2009 at 3:37 am |
IM was always part of the site’s appeal to me. Sending email to me is just much to slow. I wont stop using POF, but I’ll start using other sites more like american singles or match.com. I understand that some women get bombarded, but they are always free to turn it off in mail settings.
Marty
April 17, 2009 at 3:45 am |
One other thing that is upsetting is the lack of communication about when this change was going to happen. It was just there one day and gone the next with no warning that the feature was going to be removed.
April 17, 2009 at 7:24 am |
A bold call but it sounds like it has payed off, in the short term at least. The only thing I worry about with calls like this is upsetting the userbase. Sure you might be seeing increases in page views at the moment but if the move upsets users and results in a loss of members then it is ultimately detrimental to the site IMO. Not everything can be measured in immediate income increases/decreases. However it seems like there are mixed opinions from members on it anyway so you have probably made the best call.
April 17, 2009 at 7:34 am |
i think chat is not good idea for dating and social network sites. Because chat is different. Plentyoffish is a free site so needs to ads. People have to spend time on the site. Also there is a new social network rifqee.com. I’m member of it. The site tryied to use chat but they removed it. i think chat is not usefull for Dating and social networks.
April 17, 2009 at 8:47 am |
As this might make sense for ad supported dating sites that are dependent on the number of page views, premium subscription models should always focus on the user experience. And if “hundreds of thousands of users” were using the IM every day they must have liked it, lots.
Also, I am not sure how POF profits, if users start leaving the site to chat via their private IMs. And if the IM bothered anyone, it was not well designed (missing “do not disturb mode”, privacy settings etc.).
toksta offers hosted IM and chat solutions for dating sites and social networks. Please contact me if you have any questions regarding our solutions: ff |at| toksta [.] com (www.toksta.com)
April 17, 2009 at 3:09 pm |
[...] a paid membership that has a few additional perks (see Story). For more user comments, check out The Paradigm Shift. Read our PlentyOfFish.com review for more information on this popular dating site. Tag: [...]
April 17, 2009 at 6:46 pm |
Markus,
It’s unfortunate that you feel IM was a mistake. I know if done the right way for your site, it can be a key part of the reason people stay engaged, driving the value of those users, while optimizing their experience.
For full disclosure, I started my company, ekko, for exactly this purpose. We optimize partner sites with real-time communication modules that are seamless and intuitive for the user. We’re not a destination site, so our focus is solely on making our partners and their users happy with a real-time services, like IM – we’ll tailor and customize solutions if need be. We deal with each client and partner directly, because we know site owners, who take pride in their services, want more than just placing a card in a form and getting a piece of code – even if it is that easy.
To that end we also try to take our platform a bit further, enabling sites to employ private label messenger systems (a la facebook) that allow control/ebb & flow however the site determines for the user, in addition to public chat rooms and access to Public IM systems.
My team and I would be more than happy to try to help you with this aspect of your service, even if you don’t wind up using our platform. If you can see past your bad experience with the last provider to entertain this section of your site again, don’t hesitate to touch base.
Cheers,
Andrew Sternthal
CEO, ekko
andrew@ekko.im
April 17, 2009 at 6:48 pm |
Are you serious? You take a sample size of a few days, and call it an increase in traffic? Could it be the holiday week, more people are off work and browsing sites? The logic makes no sense, you remove a feature that could be customized to be removed, and you increase traffic? I am no Yale MBA grad, but that certainly doesn’t make sense. No other major dating websites offer IM? Are you forgetting Match.com?
Get a clue.
April 18, 2009 at 1:39 pm |
I’ve never used the IM feature. Really pain in the ass in my opinion. Good move by removing it!
The Relationship Guy.
April 18, 2009 at 4:37 pm |
Welp, I wont be using POF anymore.
April 19, 2009 at 3:08 am |
Markus,
I thought the IM was a great feature. Those who don’t want it will will only have set IM to N somewhere.
Its a quick way to say hello to someone. I have had people talk back to me also.
After Y! disabled it on their site i stopped using them because it was an easy way to communicate instead of 3 or 4 e-mails.
POF’s IM was a great feature.
April 19, 2009 at 4:08 am |
Hi,
I don’t like giving out my email address right away to chat on msn with people I am emailing with on POF. I liked how the IM kept things a little less personal while still getting to know someone online. Now it seems like I have to send a million emails back and forth, taking up way more time than using the IM feature. I’ll definately miss it, and I am for sure not liking my POF experience as much as I did. I’m sad to see IM’s gone.
April 19, 2009 at 2:39 pm |
Not too happy about the IM removal. Your email function is so slow, its frustrating, and almost unusable. The noise I hear about IM is similar to TV….if you don’t want to use it, TURN IT OFF! I used it when it was available, but now, you are forcing people to leave to use another IM program, and from what I read on userplane.com, the IM function was paying for itself. Very disappointed in its removal…
April 19, 2009 at 8:01 pm |
The popup chat was bad. It was annoying. we are building a chat that will look more like facebooks in the bottom of the page and stay out of the way. easy toggle on and off
April 19, 2009 at 9:41 pm |
The sample doesn’t seem large enough to make such a conclusion…additionally, are you sure the number of page views didn’t just increase…? which would be likely considering people have to view more pages now to communcate with each other…if that is the case it seems like users are just more inconvenienced than before…i cant make the connection with the IM feature and an increase in traffic….
April 20, 2009 at 12:17 am |
wow, un fucking real, Big mistake, and lack of Communication on POF, moving IM. It was the only real thing that existed, on communicating with PPl on POF. what a dumb move.
April 20, 2009 at 9:23 am |
Bullshit…pure bullshit. I loved the IM system…although flawed, it was great. Stupid broads that don’t have the sense to disable it if they didn’t want bombared shouldn’t be online anyway. What pissed me off the most is that you didn’t bother to post anything on the site to say you’d taken it away, so people like me had to google to find out wtf happened. Thanks for nothing!
April 21, 2009 at 3:08 am |
the free video features of IM was the greatest feature of pof. it allows people to chat via web cams, and provides validation that the person you are talking to is real. This is a huge blow to the site, esp. since more people are embracing video chat for dating.
April 21, 2009 at 11:29 pm |
Maybe chat would work if you had bots spamming the channels/chatrooms with ads and no way of ignoring them.
April 22, 2009 at 4:49 am |
I think a significant number of people really enjoyed the chat feature as it was dynamic and instantaneous and much like chatting to a new person you met in real life. taking it away with no notice is not only poor customer service it also seems like a power trip and thus a little irresponsible – free site or not!
btw – up until this i thought your site was the best thing out there…hope you listen to people’s feedback..
April 22, 2009 at 12:47 pm |
I really doubt its heady to stormy waters any time soon. I do think that Markus needs to re-think the conclusions he takes from data though…maybe even re-think how he gathers it. Also, he needs to re-think what he does based on the data. His decisions seem rather impulsive…
April 22, 2009 at 10:12 pm |
His luck will last some time. He’s playing a numbers game. As long as they are positive (there is revenue) it will continue.
Realize pof makes it’s money on advertising. Most of which it pours back into advertising itself.
So long as he can get a click for less than he makes from it, it’s a done deal. Self supporting. Doesn’t matter how happy you are with the site. In fact, the more it annoys you, the more he makes…
The problem with advertising based sites is it’s actually in his interest to drive you away and click on the ads. This is why his move towards “serious members” is a good one, the IM feature doesn’t matter, the sucky thumbnails don’t change…etc etc…
April 22, 2009 at 10:46 pm |
Makeoutspace:
That makes absolutely no sense. your illogical. more annoyed members mean less growth which means, in the long run, less revenue. he wants you to click on ads, but he wants you to come back as well.
April 23, 2009 at 12:39 am |
That’s a shame, I’ve only visiting the site to see if the IM function was working over the past week. Never have been a fan of sending silly inbox messages that usually just get ignored! I had much more communication with the IM feature. Some kind of notification would of been nice, instead of me having to google for users who might of had a similar problem with ” missing the IM ” feature. Good luck with your site.
April 23, 2009 at 6:43 pm |
I wonder whether the reason for this is because your members use PM more once IM was disabled hence the increase in traffic.
April 24, 2009 at 12:10 am |
You know I realized the only people on your site are losers… Okcupid has better quality people, yahoo personals has okay quality people, eharmony has good quality people, match has a lot of great members, but your sites if a POS that only attracts losers, it is a shit magnet .. Maybe due to the anthropic principle, because your sites sucks and only shitty people gravitate towards your site, you have succeed in creating a critical mass of retards and sluts and whores and losers and horny old men on your god damn bull shit ass excuse of a online dating site…. I boycott your site foreverz!
Peace
April 26, 2009 at 11:05 pm |
I think it was a big mistake to start charging, and a big mistake to discontinue the IM feature. POF was not always as large as it is today. It’s “free” feature was the draw. Now it wants to charge, and concurrently offers fewer features (no IM?)! I used the IM feature every time I signed-on; sometimes to just say “hi” to an old friend, other times to contact a “new friend.” I think pof has overestimated the loyalty of its members. They will seek-out other free sites which still offer IM, such as datehookup, etc. POF will soon be categorized (and in competition) with the paid sites (Match.com, Yahoo Personals, etc). A shame, it was a nice place to meet people, and the notion that just one individual started and maintained it, made some feel flattered that they were part of a success story and proud of Marcus.
April 26, 2009 at 11:54 pm |
95% of the woman on ALL DATING SITES are gold diggers, borderline hookers, ACTUAL hookers, spam profiles, and bots. Get a grip.
April 27, 2009 at 7:55 am |
The IM function was great on PlentyofFish, if you measured the traffic on sites like Facebook and Myspace before they added chat and after you probably will see scientifically that IM increases traffic and AD exposure time which equals more money, plus check the traffic of sites with IM and without should be clear to most smart people IM systems that are properly designed work. You are very misinformed if you say no other major dating sites have IM to correct you Match.com, Yahoo Personals and most major dating sites have IM. They recently added Call the Person to Match.com where I think you can use a forwarding number to call people which is really nice. Facebook and Myspace both do IMs and that was a major step forward, please don’t go backwards and remove IMs. If you want more traffic try adding more to the site not taking away features.
ISSUES I HAVE OTHER THAN THAT:
- The search filtering options aren’t very good. Like for example online now shows the whole L.A. area when I wish it would just show near me
- Giving people gifts is really lame, I’d rather there be like Quizes like OKCupid does, this definitely attracts traffic to their site as most ladies I’ve met off there just came there for the quiz and referred their friends for it and the whole quiz matching rocks too. Overall you should copy OKCupid which is free and does IM. I only dislike that you can wink at 3 people a day, it should be unlimited as if a certain amount of people flag you as spam that takes care of itself.
- You could also try making the whole flirting process a little more interesting like where on OKCupid you have to answer questions that the person specified before you can e-mail them.
- Allowing people to upload videos of themselves (maybe hosted on a dif site to save you bandwidth) and being able to sort videos would be amazing. I’d def create a video for ladies to check out that told them about me.
So overall you need to declutter the site, make it clear what I’m looking at. Add functionality to the site, more social features and fun little things like games or quizzes.
That
April 28, 2009 at 2:54 am |
Keep up the great work Markus! Way to destroy a good thing with 2 decisons, the serious member upgrade and the removal of instant messaging.
Watch out … you’re traffic is dropping according to trends online. Other free sites are grabbing your members!
April 28, 2009 at 5:21 am |
It is usually difficult to change stuff a site has been know for but sometime its necessary, I remember how controversial some of the changes Google made to their algo a few years ago with SEO saying this is the end of the road for Google etc etc but it was not, I am sure Markus know what he is doing and his sites will come out stronger. More grease to your elbow markus.
April 29, 2009 at 3:01 am |
Oh no, Markus did some stuff. It might work, it might not. What will the rest of us do?
I am so afraid.
April 29, 2009 at 6:21 am |
The thing is if you do not take risk, you can not find out what works and what does not work.
I have a felling the changes he made to his site will strengthen it.
April 30, 2009 at 4:12 pm |
OK…. Enough already with all the nit-picking.
You’ve got to understand maybe things have gotten a bit over his head which is affecting his decision making process.
So give the poor guy (Markus-CEO of POF) a break and let him continue to play with his site. It’s his little creation anyway so he can do anything he wants to with it.
As for the rest…..Just stop worrying about him and start looking for the “Next Big Thing”. Remember there’s plenty of talent out there to be discovered and to be supported by all of us. So let’s get out there and start looking for the next best thing.
May 1, 2009 at 6:12 pm |
Ya I actually visited your site earlier this week and saw the new logo, it works for me. With respect to the instant chat I was thinking about putting it on one of my free dating sites but haven’t been able to properly code it to work with my existing software but now that you’ve found that it’s not beneficial to your sites success then maybe I should re-think the idea. Thanks for the tip…
May 5, 2009 at 2:04 pm |
Hi Markus,
I was a regular user of POF last year, under three usernames. Found myself leaving and then returning again (not because of the site). Just had my first look at the design changes and I’m really impressed. It looks great.
I’d love to share an idea with you if you send me your contact info. Hoep to hear from you.
May 6, 2009 at 2:08 pm |
[...] You can read the post here: http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/no-more-im/ [...]
May 8, 2009 at 12:20 am |
[...] really. Companies like Toksta and Ekko.tv stand to benefit from the void Userplane will leave. Markus Frind says that IM was his biggest mistake. He’s getting far more pageviews now he’s pulled it. But paid sites are less interested [...]
May 10, 2009 at 2:34 pm |
I totally agree, the IM is a waste. Old style msg are the best. It works great for everybody.
May 21, 2009 at 2:54 am |
Hey, Markus. Don’t listen to these haters. I’ve got a great idea for a feature, though! Disable emails and just have people give out mailing addresses so they can snail mail each other. Traffic will skyrocket! You could even go full paysite at that point!
May 22, 2009 at 5:26 am |
To my surprise many people miss the IM option. I know another site that has IM and it’s free, so maybe you should try it. It’s livedatelove.com
May 26, 2009 at 9:26 pm |
Seems counter intuitive. Any ideas why traffic improved?
May 26, 2009 at 9:31 pm |
[...] May 26, 2009 · No Comments Markus Frind claims that by removing IM functionality he increased site traffic. [...]
May 27, 2009 at 5:07 pm |
I need $50 grand for a new facebook/plentyoffish application.
Want to be a investor?
Email me and I can tell you the details.
June 2, 2009 at 11:44 am |
[...] a paid membership that has a few additional perks (see Story). For more user comments, check out The Paradigm Shift. Read our PlentyOfFish.com review for more information on this popular dating site. Tag: [...]
June 8, 2009 at 10:42 pm |
Seems that new hire of your’s might have taken the site down for quite some time this afternoon and evening. Good luck with that. The site’s deteriation continues as does the failure of the economic stimulus package. I agree that the IM package could use improving, but it was better than nothing.
June 8, 2009 at 11:17 pm |
Hey, to whom it may concern, I was just about to send a first communication, a well thought out one that I spent HOURS planning out to a woman whom seemed perfect for me then your plentyofish website crashes, as Charlie Brown would say, AAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please fix it.
June 9, 2009 at 4:01 am |
I usually copy to notepad before sending. That way you don’t lose it if something like that or if a session timeout occurs.
June 8, 2009 at 11:44 pm |
While I can see it would increase pageviews not to have IM, I would hope that benefit to end users would at least count for something. It does have a purpose as it allows people to communicate using a medium sort of half way between email and a phone call without the security risk of giving out phone numbers.
I’m sure women get inundated with IM requests but I think that problem could be solved. Add a mechanism to allow a user to enable specific other users to initiate IM with them. The email reading screen could have an “Allow Sender to IM You” button.
A guy would send an email to a lady and say, “Would you like to have an IM conversation? If so, click the ‘Allow Sender to IM You’ button and, next time I see you online, I will IM you.”
Just a thought.
June 9, 2009 at 6:21 am |
I can see why a free dating site like POF can take that decision, IM eats a huge amount of bandwidth and perhaps does not contribute that much to users on-line experience.
June 11, 2009 at 5:44 pm |
I’m glad the IM feature is gone. Almost every time I logged on, I’d get an IM request from a woman that 95% of the time didn’t take the time to read my profile, which is kind of annoying. I don’t like hurting women’s feelings, so I’d always answer them. When I’d go an look at their profile to see who was IM’ing me, they usually were not even close to what I was looking for. Then when I’d politely tell them that they weren’t my type and wish them good luck, they’d get offended, and a few of them got rude about it…like I said, I don’t like hurting women’s feelings, but at that point, I didn’t feel so bad about abruptly ending the IM session.
Keep up the good work, POF is the best dating site on the planet!
July 4, 2009 at 12:19 am |
Getting rid of IM was a huge!! mistake. You are now feeling the brunt of low membership turnout, I know. It would be a huge mistake to NOT reinstall it. You better place that feature back on if you want to compete with the market in the upcoming years!! Believe that!
July 24, 2009 at 2:55 pm |
Removing PMs is a mistake.
After not using the site POF for about 6 months I recently rejoined and thought something was wrong with my account set-up that that there was no IM feature. It was an important link in terms of email first then moving to the IM then MSN. Too bad. It’s made me think about joining another site that allows for it. How about phasing it as a feature that opens up after you use the site for a while.
August 14, 2009 at 6:32 pm |
how about just using the phone to communicate with people DAH !!!
August 17, 2009 at 4:15 pm |
This was really interesting, but the users will use the IM like Yahoo, etc after exchanging PM, email etc.
August 18, 2009 at 9:39 pm |
Well no need to spend extra time there now….answer email, that is it. I can not believe advertisers would go along with the change. I loved the IM’s, met some friends that i would not have chatted with otherwise. Huge mistake to take it off….(IM’s)
September 15, 2009 at 7:45 pm |
I am being harrassed by a user named “ohwoody”. I need to report him so he can be eliminated from POF or reprimanded. How do I go about making a report? Andrea
October 3, 2009 at 11:57 am |
Hello! I am lonely young girl. In search lonely man! If who that wishes to get acquainted with me that write to me on sweet_sweet56@yahoo.ca
October 26, 2009 at 12:39 am |
My best guess is Markus did not disclose the actual reasons for the seemingly impulsive disabling of the IM feature, then taking the weekend to think it through before removing it all together.