Online Personals Watch

Singles Focus On Emotional Aspects Of A Relationship

MONEY CONTROL - Feb 9 - Singles looking for love put too much emphasis on looks and passion in trying to find their perfect match, according to research released ahead of Valentine's Day by eHarmony. Single women aged under 45 were 13 times more likely than married women under 45 to stress the importance of feeling passion and desire toward their partners. Single women aged over 45 were twice as likely to stress the importance of love, compared to their married peers who were more likely to cite companionship. FULL ARTICLE @ MONEY CONTROL

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Valentine's Day Massacre On Sugardaddie.com

PR WEB - Feb 9 - Traditionally a man was safe on Valentine’s Day if he gave his love interest a dozen red roses and a box of chocolates, but over the recent years that has changed, especially on the upscale dating site Sugardaddie.com. Men on this site give extravagant gifts such as condos, cars, diamonds and trips around the world. In a recent poll taken on Sugardaddie.com, these attractive women, overwhelmingly stated they require much more than roses. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

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Success Of Ashley Madison

IT BUSINESS - Feb 9 - Ashley Madison is the fastest growing site in North America. CEO Noel Biderman says he's just offering a niche service others are ignoring. Since launching eight years ago, Ashley Madison has 5.2M members in four different countries. The secret of the site's success has a lot to do with the smart use of social media. There have also been several spin-off sites. Established Men promises to connect rich businessmen with young, beautiful women for “mentoring.” Other sites connect older women with young men, or cater to the swingers lifestyle. FULL ARTICLE @ IT BUSINESS

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iDate Miami Photos

OPW - Feb 8 - Photos from the Miami Internet Dating Conference are now up online at the iDate website. Close to 500 internet dating industry executives, matchmakers, software providers, marketing/advertising firms, venture capitalists, affiliate managers, payment processors, background search companies and affiliates were in attendance. Check out pictures from the first online dating awards. The winners were announced At the Royal Palm Hotel in Miami Beach on January 28, 2010.

iDate conventions are considered some of the most prominent and beneficial events for executives in the online personals and matchmaking industries. The next Internet Dating Conference will take place in Los Angeles on June 16-18 and will be held at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills.

The Online Dating Game

SMART MONEY - Feb 8 - The online dating market is expected to reach $1.6 billion by 2013, up from $957M in 2008, according to Forrester Research. With online services reporting an increase in subscriptions, sites could raise their prices without losing customers, says Mark Brooks, principal consultant for Courtland Brooks. PlentyofFish.com and OKCupid.com let you troll for dates free of charge. Ignore dating-site boasts about their number of profiles. "The real measure is the number of people who have logged in," Brooks says. "A paid subscription isn't worth it unless monthly traffic is at least 10,000 unique visitors", he says. Complaints about dating services rose 62% from 2005 to 2008, according to the Better Business Bureau. Read consumer reviews about a site before signing up, says Jeannette Kopko, a spokeswoman for the BBB in Dallas. Scammers prey on online daters reeling them in with promises of love and then begging for cash to afford a plane ticket or other expenses. Sites have policies in place to weed out such users, reviewing profiles and communications for red flags, such as poor grammar, mismatched photos and details, and keywords including "wire money," Brooks says. Some also use monitoring services that recognize the scammer's computer preventing him or her from creating a new account after one gets flagged. FULL ARTICLE @ SMART MONEY

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World Singles Helps Haiti

PR WEB - Feb 8 - World Singles, a provider of online personals sites for niche communities in the US and abroad, will donate 50% of its profits from membership subscriptions sold over the next 3 months on HaitiDating.com to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund to aid in the Haiti relief effort. HaitiDating.com, a World Singles subsidiary, enables single Haitian men and women to connect for friendship, dating, romance and love. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

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WAYN To Launch Dating Product

TNOOZ - Feb 8 - WAYN, the travel social network, is planning to unveil a dating service on St Valentine’s Day. A new site – WAYNDating.com – is live but has limited functionality, pointing visitors to the launch via a countdown clock. The launch will be revealed at a glitzy party in London on Friday night ahead of the service being switched on this weekend. FULL ARTICLE @ TNOOZ

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingwatch.

Dating Site For Those Who Are Set For Marriage

FOX CAROLINA - Feb 8 - SetForMarriage.com is a dating site designed specifically for people who are ready to settle down. The bar scene is a popular and socially accepted way for couples to connect but the founder of SetForMarriage.com Brad Boynd says in today's economy spending your nights out is not always feasible. Brad got the idea for his marriage minded matchmaking site because his freinds were constantly going out on dates set up through the Internet that never became relationship. WATCH THE INTERVIEW WITH  BRAD BOYND

Online Dating: Despite Flaws, A Fruitful Tool

DISCOVERY NEWS - Feb 7 - Online dating can be misleading from the get-go, starting with people's dating profiles, research shows. Nicole Ellison and her colleagues measured the difference between dating profile "facts" and reality by comparing posted information with what was on the test subject's drivers' license. ~52.6% of men lied about their height, as did 39% of women. 64.1% of women lied about their weight. Age in profiles is also suspect, since 24.3% of men and 13.1% of women were untruthful about their age. "Never before has the dating world been so handy for married men and women looking for a fling," said Beatriz Avila Mileham, who studied online infidelity while at the University of Florida. 83% percent of Mileham's study participants said they did not consider themselves to be cheating. Despite the pitfalls of online dating, experts say certain people may benefit. A 2004 study by eHarmony's Steve Carter and Chadwick Snow shows "significantly higher levels of relationship satisfaction for married couples who met through eHarmony as compared to a group who met offline". FULL ARTICLE @ DISCOVERY NEWS

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Better Loving Through Chemistry

NY TIMES - Feb 6 - A handful of dating sites are competing to impose some science on the quest for love by using different kinds of tests to winnow the selection process. ScientificMatch.com aims to create romantic chemistry via genetic testing. Then there’s Chemistry.com, started in 2006 by Match.com. Helen Fisher, the biological anthropologist who developed Chemistry.com’s questionnaire, says the site is designed to predict compatibility based on traits of temperament like adventurousness, decisiveness or empathy. Online dating is a $976M annual industry in the US, according to Marketdata Enterprises. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES

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Traffic To All Dating Sites Declines Sharply

PARADIGM SHIFT - Feb 5 - After holding steady for years visitors to dating sites have started to drop sharply since the summer. Fortunately for Plentyoffish traffic has increased.

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2010 Internet Dating Conference Highlights

OPW - Feb 5 - The 2010 Internet Dating Conference was held from January 27^th through January 29^th at the Miami Beach Convention Center. iDate Miami is the largest single gathering of online dating CEOs, matchmakers, and social networking executives in one room. iDate2010 also included the first annual iDate Awards, results for which can be found here.

The hottest topic of the event was the competition between free sites and pay sites, as well as the convergence of the two models into an increasingly popular “freemium” model. PlentyofFish and OKCupid dominate the free dating site market and have pioneered the new “freemium” business model in which users of free sites can enhance their profile for a nominal fee. PlentyofFish offers a Serious Dater badge and OKCupid has its A-List upgrade.

Mark Brooks, editor of OPW, delivered his annual industry review addressing the top news stories and online dating trends for 2009. During the year, internet dating sites worldwide received 113 million visitors, a key indicator that the stigma of online dating is a thing of the past. Among the big stories for the year were the purchase of PeopleMedia by Match parent company IAC and Meetic's purchase of Match Europe operations. There were several key trends for the year, such as the strong growth of niche dating, the increasing importance of mobile messaging as a “must have” feature, and the implementation of personality profiling on a growing number of sites.

The Internet Dating Executive Alliance, or IDEA, hosted a brainstorming session on ways to improve revenue for online dating sites. IDEA members Scot McKay, Bill Broadbent and Sandira Calviac offered their best ideas to the conference attendees. One of the key suggestions was offering users more services beyond the typical dating functions. Scot McKay of X&Y Communications believes sites should increase conversion and retention by encouraging more creativity in profiles with free-form inputs instead of check boxes. Bill Broadbent, Instinct Marketing, believes sites should create a network of niche sites and cross-sell. Sandira Calviac was a strong proponent of offering lifestyle enhancing products and services such as personal development books and travel.

Manhunt's Jonathan Crutchley delivered an informative overview of the gay online dating market. According to Mr. Crutchley, the average subscription on Manhunt is 15 months, opposed to the 3 month average on traditional sites. Additionally, men married to woman account for 30% of the gay dating business. Brazil is the largest gay dating market outside of the United States.

Sam Yagan, CEO of OKCupid, presented his thoughts on the online dating industry. He discussed the rise of the “freemium” model which is where a site has free limited use with the option to pay for added features. Mr. Yagan also believes that sites should communicate more with their customers through blogs and social media in order to build deep bonds.

Dr. Eva Ritvo from the University of Miami School of Medicine offered her insights into increasing female retention on internet dating sites. She suggests appealing to a woman's instinctive behaviors. According to Dr. Ritvo, sites need to do a better job of protecting and educating women about dating.

She also encourages dating sites to focus on boosting self confidence, as women tend to see themselves as 20% less attractive than other see them.

Steve Faktor, American Express, gave his insights on the economic factors in the current online dating market. More people are switching to lower cost entertainment, fueling the growth of online dating. Women increasingly have stronger and more stable incomes. There is also a trend of longer relationships prior to marriage, which is likely to affect dating sites in the coming years.

The Internet Dating Conference was ended with the traditional Final Panel Debate. This lively discussion was dominated by the free site versus paid site battle. In the end, it was evident that free sites and paid sites have a form of symbiotic relationship which serves to advance the dating industry as a whole. There was also a general consensus that the best way for a new site to enter the market is to find a niche that is under-served.

The next Internet Dating Conference will be held in Beverly Hills from June 16^th through June 18^th. For more information, visit www.idate2010.com.

Adult Site Operator FriendFinder Shelves IPO

REUTERS - Feb 5 - FriendFinder Networks Inc indefinitely shelved its planned $220M initial public offering on Friday. The company did not say when it might again try to price the IPO, but said in a statement it would not proceed "until market conditions improve." FriendFinder intended to sell 20M shares for between $10 and $20 each and use the proceeds largely to pay down debt. FriendFinder first filed for the IPO in Dec 2008, and initially sought to raise as much as $460M. FULL ARTICLE @ REUTERS

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Meetic And Match Forge Joint Venture In Latin America

PRESS RELEASE - Feb 4 - Meetic and Match.com will contribute their respective properties in South America to the new joint venture: Meetic’s Brazilian site, ParPerfeito, and Match.com’s activities in other South and Latin American countries. Match.com and Meetic will each own 50% of the economic interest in the entity, and Match.com will control the new entity’s operations. Match.com will pay Meetic $3M in cash at the closing, which is expected by March 15, 2010. Meetic’s participation is subject to put-and-call rights that can be triggered beginning in the fourth year, whereby Match could purchase Meetic’s stake at fair market value at that time. An additional payment of $1.5M could be triggered at that time. Read the full press release here.

Mark Brooks: Match.com operates in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. It also owns Netclubencuentro.com, but this website looks to be down now. It was working ~2 months ago when we were researching the South American market. The South American idating market skews a lot younger, and has low registration to paying member conversions. Its still a growth market, a few years behind the USA market growth curve.

Twitter's Now A Dating Tool

STRAIGHT - Feb 4 - Meeting a romantic partner on-line isn’t a new phenomenon, as dating sites like Lavalife and eHarmony have been around for years. However, social-media services like Twitter and Facebook are opening up new avenues through which people can make on-line connections. While profiles on dating sites may offer only select details, social media can enable people to gain more insight into other people’s personalities. The rise of social-media services doesn’t worry Kate Bilenki, the operations manager for PlentyOfFish. Bilenki told the Straight her company is confident that its service remains the best way for people to make a romantic connection on-line. Bilenki asserted that, for the purpose of looking for love, Twitter is inefficient, as it connects users with a vast number of people, of which only a small percentage are possible romantic partners. “A lot of people on social-networking sites are married, they’re in relationships, and they’re not looking to date,” Bilenki said. “On our site, they’re looking for a relationship.” FULL ARTICLE @ STRAIGHT.COM

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This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

iovation Wins Best New Technology Award

BUSINESS WIRE - Feb 4 - iovation, provider of the device reputation service for preventing online fraud and abuse, was presented with the award for Best New Technology at the first Internet Dating Awards ceremony which took place during the 7th annual Internet Dating Conference in Miami. The award recognizes iovation’s fraud protection service as the best individual technology created by a vendor for dating and matchmaking sites. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

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Match.com's Mobile Push

FORBES - Feb 3 - So far Match.com has produced apps for the iPhone, Palm's WebOS handsets and Research In Motion's BlackBerrys. Software for phones that run Google's Android operating system is in the works. The addition of the Android app will bring Match.com to between 80% and 90% of the world's smart phones. The company also supports a mobile Web version of its site. Juniper Research estimates that revenues from the global mobile dating market will grow to ~$1.4 billion by 2013. The next few years will determine whether Match.com remains the industry leader or loses ground to fast-moving upstarts. FULL ARTICLE @ FORBES

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ManCrunch.com Denies Accusations Super Bowl Ad Was Just PR Stunt

FOX  NEWS - Feb 4 - Last week gay dating site ManCrunch.com cried foul when CBS rejected their ad submission for this year’s Super Bowl, claiming that the creative did not meet “broadcasting standards” and that the sales department had difficulties in verifying the previously unknown site’s “credit status.” This sparked speculation that the whole commercial, which the site said cost $100,000 to make, was a PR stunt, and that ManCrunch never had the $2.5M to pay for the spot. The site is actually owned by Avid Life Media, which reportedly makes ~$30M a year in revenue. FULL ARTICLE @ FOX NEWS

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