(Online Dating Industry Journal) Former Match.com CEO Jim Safka was named CEO of Ask.com two months ago and is now being asked to turn Ask.com from a search engine to a Website for married women to get advice.
Ask.com failed to gain ground on Google as a search engine, despite spending millions of dollars in advertising last year. Now the company hopes that focusing on married women will increase the company's revenue. The first task for Ask.com's retooling is the firing of 8% of its workforce.
Both Match.com and Ask.com are owned by IAC InterActiveCorp.
Joe's Comments
The failure of Ask.com was due, in part, to its unfriendly attitude towards Webmasters. I was hired as a Web marketing consultant, several years ago, for a new search engine company and one of the first things I emphasized is that they had to reach out to Webmasters and establish a relationship with them (that's my one sentence summary of a 20-page report). The head of the search engine company said no, insisting that his target was only end users. I explained that Webmasters were the doorway to users. In the end they ignored my advice and recommendations and are a nobody in the marketplace now. Strategy is very important in the online world.
There is a lesson here for the online dating industry. Research shows that the majority of users are dissatisfied with online dating services. Online dating services need to be more proactive in providing great customer service. Ask.com threw a boatload of money into advertising last year, yet they failed to connect with users and continued to alienate Webmasters. By doing so, they dug themselves into a hole that they couldn't get out of. The best online dating services. like other successful online businesses (i.e. Amazon.com), court Webmasters. If you're starting a new online dating service, you need to get Webmasters on your side, helping you create a winning venture. That's step 1...
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