Rafat Ali’s got notes on Paid Content from IAC’s Barry Diller speaking at the @media Summit. When asked about social networks, Diller talked about Match.com, one of the big three in the online dating space.
As someone currently deep inside this vertical, and a social networking observer, his comments seem interesting because they are so, well, off.
Here’s what Ali quotes:
” Match.com is our play in social networking…a pure social network site–not that they are of value–no one has yet proved it is the easiest advertising medium. Pure social network is an upgrade from the princess telephone teenagers used to talk on for hours and hours. I do think, however, it is a great promotional vehicle. Match.com got into trouble because it added social networking, that flirting element and that friend thing. We put all these bells and whistles on the service, and confused our audience…now we have had a turn around.”
Given that Match is a paid subscription service, it seems odd that Diller is tasking them for the difficulties of delivering targeted advertising at the ROI he’d like–and equally curious that he thinks adding communications tools to the product was a mistake. (IMHO, adding Dr. Phil would be more off base than anything he describes, but hey, that’s just me.)
The other cool quote Rafat offers–Diller saying “We will buy anything that walks.”