Why don't any of the major dating sites have contracts with a pro photographer in each city to do head shots for cheap or free? It seems like such a slam dunk idea given the economics, and yet none of the major dating sites want to do it. (Having emailed the staff of some of these sites with this idea a couple years ago on behalf of a photographer friend and receiving no response.)
Major dating sites likely still largely pull revenue from advertisement and pay-to-message hurdles.
As a photographer, however, I can attest that there is a market for people looking to pay to have a better Facebook/LinkedIn/Dating-Site profile photo.
If a good photo dramatically increases the amount of people who want to send you messages, then wouldn't subsidizing your userbase to have good photos be enormously profitable? Especially since getting just 2% of your users to take advantage of the service could make the other 98% much more likely to become paying users.
actually in Istanbul there was a studio that offered a service of making photos that look like shot in different parts of the world, partying with friends, on a sandy beach with cocktails in hand, etc. for people who otherwise never gets to be in those places and envy others on social networks that do :)
because the prevailing style of personal photo is "Internet Disease" :P
"Internet Disease means displaying old, faded, blurred or otherwise non-descript photographs of oneself, taken with bad lighting and at awkward angles" - in order to hide obesity and acne. I'd give a link to the encyclopedia dramatica definition of it if it were not for the popups on that page.
