Match Resorts to Webcam in Ongoing Battle Against True

match_com_live.jpg

True.com has colonized sex so effectively, dating sites that once mistook sex for neutral domain are now scrambling for the next Holy Grail of human characteristics.

So in its ongoing quest to find a personality, Match.com resorts to the webcam, a tactic shared by those bastard cousins of dating sites, amateur porn purveyors. “See who’s on Match.com right now FREE!” a banner bubbles while running videos of attractive people drinking coffee and taking off their shoes.

The effort is unsettling. We don’t know if it’ll help draw hot single traffic, but we did stare for a long time. This is mainly because we harbor the quiet hope people will forget they’re being watched and do something to satisfy our voyeuristic desire to witness something childish but unsavoury, like ball-scratching or nose-picking.

But these things didn’t happen. Maybe they should. Maybe that would turn the ads into winners. It’s hard to tell at this point and we don’t see much hope for the future because Match.com changes campaigns faster than Mr. Rogers changed his sweaters.

Picture of Steve Hall

Steve Hall

RECENT ARTICLES

TRENDING AROUND THE WEB

8 things people who give thoughtful gifts pay attention to all year

8 things people who give thoughtful gifts pay attention to all year

Hack Spirit

Greif and Gleason’s 1980 research on how children learn politeness routines found that young children almost never say “please” or “thank you” spontaneously, they say it because a parent prompts them with “what do you say?” dozens of times a week, meaning the reflex adults later display without thinking twice was built through years of someone else’s prompting long before it became automatic.

Greif and Gleason’s 1980 research on how children learn politeness routines found that young children almost never say “please” or “thank you” spontaneously, they say it because a parent prompts them with “what do you say?” dozens of times a week, meaning the reflex adults later display without thinking twice was built through years of someone else’s prompting long before it became automatic.

Global English Editing

8 signs your in-laws see you as their own, not just someone their child married

8 signs your in-laws see you as their own, not just someone their child married

Hack Spirit

Many adult children remember watching a father work sixty-hour weeks for decades so the family could have what he never did, then watched him die in his sixties without ever prioritizing his own happiness, and now see that same pattern quietly repeating in their own lives, under a different name.

Many adult children remember watching a father work sixty-hour weeks for decades so the family could have what he never did, then watched him die in his sixties without ever prioritizing his own happiness, and now see that same pattern quietly repeating in their own lives, under a different name.

Global English Editing

Harvard researchers had 166 undergraduates rate their own pets on qualities like thoughtful, considerate and sympathetic, and the students who felt most chronically disconnected from other people scored their pets meaningfully higher on exactly those three traits, and no others.

Harvard researchers had 166 undergraduates rate their own pets on qualities like thoughtful, considerate and sympathetic, and the students who felt most chronically disconnected from other people scored their pets meaningfully higher on exactly those three traits, and no others.

Global English Editing

University of Arizona researchers wired 79 people with a recorder sampling conversations every 12.5 minutes for four days and found the happiest had twice as many substantive conversations and a third as much small talk as the unhappiest, suggesting the discomfort was never a social deficit.

University of Arizona researchers wired 79 people with a recorder sampling conversations every 12.5 minutes for four days and found the happiest had twice as many substantive conversations and a third as much small talk as the unhappiest, suggesting the discomfort was never a social deficit.

Global English Editing