Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Avalanche LLC (Date.com) Acquires Matchmaker.com

PR NEWSWIRE -- Feb 27 -- Avalanche LLC, a company owned and operated by the founders of leading online dating site Date.com, has acquired Matchmaker.com which will share a technical platform with Date.com. Said Meir Strahlberg, President of Avalanche LLC and CEO of Date.com. "Through this acquisition, we are looking forward to breathing new life into the site and reinvigorating the brand."  Matchmaker will continue to operate as a separate entity, and will become a destination for the marriage-minded single. Date.com will continue to be a home for the more casual dater. 

How Older Women Snag Younger Guys

RED EYE -- Feb 23 -- Tracy Tedesco is smart -- she spent 20 years as a corporate recruiter.  She's funny, hot and 41. Tedesco is an "urban cougar," a middle-aged, boy-hungry single woman. Look no further than the celebrity world for proof that the movement is growing. Also called "vets" in some circles, these women are the subject of a book by Valerie Gibson called "Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men," and a movie in development called "Cougars," about a divorced executive in her 40s who pursues a young stud and falls in love. In a Yahoo! Personals survey released in September, 56% of women and 51% of men said they would date someone 10 years younger than them. Slightly more men -- 52% -- were willing to date a woman up to 10 years older than them. Urbancougar.com, touts itself as the definitive source of cougar culture.

Online Dating puts Romance Just a Click Away

CHINA DAILY -- Feb 25 -- An iResearch report puts the number of people who used online dating services in China last year at a whopping 10 million, and to 29 million in 2008, said Hou Tao, an executive of the Shanghai-based research firm. Love21cn was founded by Fudan University postgraduate Gong Haiyan who claimed that since the birth of her site in October 2003, 400,000 members have signed up, of whom 26,000 have rung wedding bells. Much of the site's revenue derives from additional services such as moving ads to the front page, at 10 yuan (US$1.23) per day, and a few offline services. The iResearch report puts the online dating market at 37 million yuan (US$4.5 million) for 2004 and 91 million yuan (US$11.2 million) for 2005, and predicts it will grow to 653 million yuan (US$81 million) by 2008. Match.com and Asiafriendfinder.com have already entered the Chinese market. The US market was US$520 million for 2005, and the European market was US$110 million.  FULL ARTICLE @ CHINA VIEW

Mark Brooks: Asiafriendfinder does not charge memberships to users located in China.  It's one of Friendfinders most highly trafficed properties. Guanxi.com is Friendfinder's Chinese business networking site.

The Five-Year Itch

NEWSWEEK -- Feb 27 -- Feb. 27, 2006 issue - Mark Brooks, editor of consumer watchdog Online Personals Watch, says the industry stands at a crossroads. "I keep hearing that the industry is slumping," Brooks says. "No, it isn't, but we have got to get our act together."  Online dating in the U.S. has reached what Jupiter Research analyst Nate Elliott calls "a point of critical mass."Last year the number of users posting online personals fell "marginally," according to Jupiter, and revenue growth is expected to drop to just 6% this year, down from 77% in 2003. The total U.S. market is now worth $521 million. (In comparison, online gambling sites took in an estimated $10 billion in worldwide revenue last year. Porn sites took in $2 billion in the U.S.) The European market is still growing in high double-digit rates.  One reason for the slowdown is that the curiosity factor has worn off. Heather Hopkins, director of research for Hitwise UK says the sites are now focused more on getting current visitors to sign on as paying customers. This love slump is a bit of mystery. Indeed, it may be just a lull. Brooks predicts that the industry will see "a huge upswing" as sites add new services like Web-camera dates, help arranging dream dates and psychological profiling that attempts to find you a soulmate, not just a hunk with the right hobbies and salary profile. Others say the industry needs to move beyond just dating. Bill Tancer, Hitwise GM global research, says e-dating is following the normal trajectory of Internet businesses. "There is an environment of hypercompetition where markets are born, grow, plateau and decline, [but] it's not that the activity itself is going to go away." Instead, he predicts, dating sites will evolve into broader forums for social networking.  There are signs this is already happening. Meetic is offering a mobile-phone network called Superlol, allowing users to form groups around common friends and interests.

Mark Brooks: Reporters are writing about the demise of the online dating industry, which is very unfortunate.  I believe we are, indeed, at a turning point.  To get to 'online personals 2.0' we need to add services and refine our sites to help put people in front of people more quickly, in greater numbers and with better matches.  (i) Personality profiling holds high promise, but needs more research.  Profiling companies should embrace academic resources and share data with them.  Let's lose the 'magic box' approach.  Users are becoming more sophisticated and want to know how personality profiling works.  Let's tell them.  And, if you're going to offer personality profiling, show matches what potential failure modes/conflicts their relationship might be susceptible to, and educate them on how they might communicate and deal with those conflicts.  (ii) Add events.  They're a pain to coordinate, but are a great way for people to meet and have some instant gratification.  They can buy a ticket and meet a roomful of singles immediately.  Then they can go and check the profiles of the people they have chemistry with to see if they are a match on preferences such as 'want kids?'  (iii) Improve safety.  Let's advise users more clearly.  They should: 1. not share contact info, 2. meet in a public place, 3. let someone know where they are going and call in to them after one hour.  Background checks are a long way from being foolproof, but are better than nothing, and worth considering.  (iv) Remove dead and unresponsive profiles, or at least indicate they are unlikely to respond.  Anyone who has not logged in or has not responded to a message for 4 weeks should not be listed as a live profile.  Let's set expectations realistically.  It's good for the industry in the long haul.  (v) Consider adding/partnering with matchmaking services for the users who have money, but are time starved.  People are paying $50 a month for profiling sites (i.e. eHarmony.com, TRUE.com, PerfectMatch.com) because they have money and want some handholding.  Let's up the ante.  (vi) Improve search.  A friend of mine is Indian.  He only wants to meet women who are interested in Indian guys.  He'd like reverse search please.  Niche sites are popping up for every imaginable preference.  Generic sites need to broaden search criteria and functionality or have the niches further incur on their membership revenues.  (vii) Add content.  Do you know your audience?  Really?  Then engage them with targeted, mind blowing content that lights their fires, educates and keeps them hooked on your site.  Match partnered with Dr Phil.  Community Connect, Gay.com and Nerve.com know content.  Guide, engage and captivate your users.  (viii) Find targeted advertising partners.  Find offers with top level brands to improve your brand.  Yahoo + Starbucks.  There's some great branding affinity there.  Brand = Trust.  Advertising on online dating sites doesn't tend to bring in much money, but it CAN improve your brand trust and capital if you find the right partners and negotiate suitable offers.  Extend your brand into the real world. 

Online dating is not taking a downturn.  $516 million U.S. online dating industry revenue for 2005 barely scratches the surface of the market potential.  Industry revenues are growing.  We have a nation of lovelorn singles poised and pleading for guidance and assistance.  The integrity of our sites can be improved, insofar as how we deliver on our core promise of putting people in front of people.  Observe the real world, bottle the best of what you see, improve on it.  The online personals world has improved on the real world in the past by offering better search (i.e. asking the important questions up front), offering multiple modes of convenient communication (i.e. email, IM, chat), and through profiling for compatible matches (i.e. asking more than just a few questions...).  Your comments please...

Mark and Irena - Myers Briggs Personality Profiling Analysis

Feb 24 -- My good friend, Pat Dines, runs Mary.com.  We often discuss the merits and pitfalls of personality profiling.  He set me and my girlfriend up with a Myers Briggs test.  I'm an ENFP. She's an ESTP. Here's his analysis of the results... - Mark Brooks  (Picture from Prague Charles Bridge)

Key: Extrovert/Introvert, Sensing/iNtuitive, Thinking/Feeling, Perceiving/Judging.  "This looks very good. Irena is borderline S/N and you are an N but a weak N so I don't see a conflict there. You're more extroverted than she is which is good. Guys have problems with women who are more extroverted than they are. You're mid point TF and she is a slight T which is good for you. Women tend to be "F" types by nature (60%). Also, F men get along well with T women because it creates a balance between the sexes. F men are more sensitive to women's needs! You're both slight P's so that bodes well for spontaneity in your relationship which is good because business tends to force you to the "J" side of things so when you're together it will be fun. The two "p's" will help take the edge off.  (you're both in business so when you're playing, you'll enjoy the relaxation that another P brings to the party).  I'd give the match five stars.  The only slight problem you may have is in understanding each other's thinking process. She may be more practical than you because she doesn't have the intuitive edge that you have. But, I think if you both communicate well with each other and explain why you think the way you do, it will be a good balance. The SN scale can be deadly if you're more than 40% apart. You're only 13% apart so you may actually complement each other. You'll just have to be a little patient with the time she takes to reason things out, and she may actually help you make sure that your intuitiveness didn't make a faulty jump."

Mark Brooks: So, what are your thoughts on the merits and pitfalls of personality profiling?

OnlinePersonalsWatch.com Progress

Feb 24 -- OnlinePersonalsWatch.com was started June 2004 and stands at 1101 posts with 1100 comments, has a three month Alexa average rank of 43k with 1000+ visitors a day, has been quoted in Miami Herald, USA Today, ABC, Fox, Wired, has interviewed the heads of Match, Yahoo Personals, Webdate, Cupid and is now a significant resource for both the press to research the industry, and the executives to stay ahead.  How can we improve?  What else would you like to see? - Mark Brooks .

UK Mobile Communities Roundtable

NMK -- Feb 24 -- Match Mobile users are urban, younger, of a lower socio-economic base, and (in the US) more from the immigrant population, with Match Mobile growing at a rate of 15% per month.  The most favoured mobile content applications, according to recent Enpocket research in the UK: Sharing pictures with friends and family7 – 46%, Making / receiving video calls – 36%, Downloading songs -23%, Video clip of sports highlights – 20%, Text flirting / dating – 16%, Watching movie trailers – 12%, Help in managing a diet – 11%, Celeb news / gossip – 9%.  There are 52 million handsets and 60 million people in the UK. China has 350 million handsets and 300 million texts a month are sent in Singapore and the Philippines.  overall, Japan and Korea are 2-3 years ahead of the UK, who are in turn about 1-2 years ahead of the US. 

Gay Papers to Provide Readers with Online Dating Service

GAY WIRED -- Feb 23 -- HX, the New York Blade and Toronto FAB are the first gay publications to launch fee-based online dating services through their websites through a partnership with Advanced Membership Services (the folks who run the popular M4M-USA.com site).  Steven Polakoff, president of AMS believes every newspaper should have an online dating component.  FULL ARTICLE @ GAY WIRED

Illinois Background Checks Legislation Approved; Moves to Senate

ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Feb 23 -- Internet dating services would have to tell Illinois subscribers whether other users have undergone background checks under a proposal the House approved today.  Sites failing to notify subscribers could face a fine of one-thousand-dollars or more.  The measure was approved 74-to-36 and now moves to the Senate.  Bill HB5299 RELEASE @ WQAD

Mark Brooks: Wow!  Your comments please...

Social Networking Goes E-Commerce

E-COMMERCE TIMES -- Feb 22 -- Somewhere between no-frills Craigslist and intricate eBay lies the new e-commerce offering introduced by TagWorld last week combining the new service of free online classifieds, which includes images and personalized storefronts, with auction features.  TagWorld members can post items for sale in the new classifieds section and sellers can choose a fixed price or mark the item negotiable -- which allows buyers and sellers to haggle over a price.  MySpace has some 56 million members; TagWorld, 787,000.  FULL ARTICLE @ TECH NEWS WORLD

Bebo the Top Social Networking Site in the U.K.

PR WEB -- Feb 22 -- A record 1.5 million U.K. students visit Bebo in December, surpassing MySpace for the first time, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.  "In just seven months, Bebo has grown to become the most popular social networking site for students in the U.K., and we are rapidly gaining ground in Ireland, the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand," said Michael Birch, Bebo CEO.  There are 22 million registered Beboers worldwide.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

Estonias Social Network

Feb 22 -- First there was Friendster...Actually, first there was Sixdegrees, then Planetall, Eturn, Everyonesconnected, then Friendster, then Linkedin, Myspace, Facebook, Flickr, Hi5, Piczo, Fropper.  We'll see more and more utilitarian and demographically targeted social networks pop up this year.  Check out Estonia's answer to Myspace.  www.rate.ee  - Mark Brooks

You Can't buy Friends Like These, Well, Actually, Now You Can

BOSTON GLOBE -- Feb 21 -- Catch27 was created last year by E. Jean Carroll, an Elle advice columnist and former 'Saturday Night Live' writer. Carroll specializes in riffing off established social norms.  Her last site was GreatBoyfriends.com, where women can recommend ex-lovers.  "I was watching all these kids on MySpace, spending all their time saying, 'Add me. Add me,' and I thought: Why not buy people? So you understand? The whole thing started as a joke."  Members join, upload a profile, and site staff would assign the newbie a monetary quantity based on their overall attractiveness. Members who wanted to be friends with other members would either have to beg or trade their way to the top.  FULL ARTICLE @ THE BOSTON GLOBE

Mark Brooks: The site peaked last year at around 40k Alexa rank.  Alexa rank is 78k average now. 

Yahoo! Launches Social Network Site for UK

JOURNALISM.CO.UK -- Feb 21 -- Yahoo! has launched a social network and community publishing platform for the UK.  Yahoo! 360° invites users to build their own profile page incorporating their blog postings, Flickr photographs, reviews of local events and restaurants, links to friends' blogs and discussion groups as well as lists of favourite TV, books and music releases.   The UK version is being launched in beta and has been developed using research and feedback from the US version.  Around one million of MySpace's 50 million registered users are in the UK. MySpace UK will be promoted on other News Corporation platforms such as Sun Online and Times Online and will initially aim to build its audience through the UK music scene.  FULL ARTICLE @ JOURNALISM.CO.UK

WebmasterRadio.FM Airs Exclusive iDate 2006 Radio Special

PR WEB -- Feb 21 -- WebmasterRadio.FM, a free, business, 24/7 internet radio network, announces the iDate 2006 radio special airing Thursday, Feb 23, 3pm EST. Hosted by FriendFinderInc.com, the iDate special will cover all aspects of the recent iDate conference. Held on February 2-3, 2006 at the Wyndham Miami Beach Resort in Miami, the iDate conference is the biggest dating industry event of its kind. The third annual Internet Dating Conference (iDate) Miami 2006 event focused entirely on the business management, marketing and technology of online dating and social networking Web sites. Programs are available immediately in podcast and archived format at www.WebmasterRadio.FM.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

Yahoo's Challenge

INFORMATION WEEK -- Feb -- Yahoo's chief data officer Fayyad knows if you're about to buy a new car. "When you're on the Yahoo network you're telling a lot more about yourself and your intent...I can turn that into a very powerful ad-matching machine...in many cases, much more powerful than search." Yahoo; $5.26 billion in revenue last year, 47% more than 2004.  Google; $6.1 billion in 2005, a 92% increase. Between November 2004 and November 2005, Yahoo went from handling 32% of Internet searches to 29.5%, according to comScore Media Metrix. Google's market capitalization stood at $106 billion earlier this month, more than double Yahoo's market cap of roughly $46 billion.   Yahoo is more diversified than Google, with 12% of its revenue coming from user fees.  Yahoo has more unique users and they spend 10 times as much time on Yahoo. "If I get 10% more usage from the average consumer, I have suddenly created 10% more inventory for my ads," Fayyad says. Yahoo accomplished something like that last year when it made an effort to improve user retention with Yahoo Mail.

Mark Brooks: Yahoo Personals, complete with premier profiling, is a goldmine for contextual advertising.

Online Personals Watch Interview-CEO of Plentyoffish.com, Markus Frind

OPW Interview -- Feb 21, 2006 -- I met Markus at iDate2005 and barely gave him the time of day; a hokey little site called Plentyoffish. I have a lot more respect for him these days.  Plentyoffish is free and has snuck up on the Canadian market and now he is sneaking up on the American market.

 

What's your background Markus?

Computer programming. I went to a Technical Institute for a few years and then worked for a few dot com companies. Every one of them went under after 6 months. I was a developer of websites and databases; nothing glamorous. I was really good at making things efficient. They threw me from project to project making things super efficient. 

Why did you decide to offer plentyoffish for free?

I originally created the site because I had to learn asp.net and I didn’t want to buy a book, so I created the site and I just kept adding things to it that I liked. I had to continue to learn new things and it just kind of became a dating center; it wasn’t meant to be an actual site. Then I wanted to learn SEO (Search Engine Optimization), so then I read up on SEO and I integrated that into the site and taught myself. Then it just kept growing and every time I wanted to learn something, I would add that to the site. Eventually it just became a huge thing.

How do you make money?

I make money off the ads upselling to other sites. It doesn’t need much money to run. The site does about 13 million pages views a day, making it one of the top 5 sites in Canada of any site and in the top 60 or so in the region according to Hitwise.  I started this in March, 2003 and I haven’t kept track of the registrants, but my traffic has grown 12 fold in 12 months overall in both markets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How can you afford to do radio and TV advertising?

My costs are next to nill Look at American Singles. According to their quarterly reports they spend a million dollars a month just handling servers. I spend about $15K a month tops.  It is cheap to advertise on radio if you have none of those other costs.

Who do you regard as your top competitors?

I’m really competing with Match.com.  In Canada, I started at 3% last year and I’m sitting at over 50% market share and in the next 6 months I will double the size of the dating industry in Canada.

Are you at all worried about other major players or new entrants starting up with free sites?

Not really. A lot of VC’s are throwing around a lot of money and probably have funded some of the other free sites, but I have so much of a head start that I don’t think there’s much they can do.  Google and Yahoo would only affect me little if they went free, in fact I think they would help me rather than hurt me. If the average dater is using 3 dating sites, they are probably currently using Plentyoffish and Match and Yahoo. If Google comes in and offered a free site, most of the paid dating sites like Match and Yahoo would get pushed out of the market. I took a poll today that says that over 55% of my members are paying members on other sites or have been in the past.

What's next for plentyoffish in 2006?

Plentyoffish is already blazing the trail. All the other dating sites are attempting to go niche, whereas plentyoffish is the only site that segregates the database on the spot, so no individual user has access to whole database. When they login and create their profile, the database is refined and they only access to a limited subset. So basically, as soon as you sign up, a niche is created around you. You only have access to that specific niche. Currently, no other site is doing this. This is like creating a niche site on the fly. If you logon and you don’t want to see ‘smokers’; every person on there that is a smoker will get filtered out of the search results and no smoker will ever be able to message you. This is specifically the reason why people leave the big sites or the niche sites, because a lot of the people that they don’t want to message them are messaging them. If you filter them in real time, the brand power of a large site will blow away a billion niche sites. No one will remember a tiny niche site and they won’t have the brand to be able to compete. 2006 is setting the stage for a show down with Match.com.

   

Spark Networks Reports Q4 and 2005 Financials

SPARK NETWORKS NEWSROOM -- Feb 16 -- "2005 was a turnaround year in which we made significant strides towards right-sizing our cost structure and generating cash flow from operations," stated David Siminoff, Spark Networks CEO. "We begin 2006 newly listed on the American Stock Exchange. We are energized by recent technology improvements and are poised for balanced growth with significant operating leverage."  "Our next level of growth will come from leveraging the communities we acquired in the MingleMatch acquisition in order to move quickly into new vertical markets..."

Record results for JDate. Revenue grew 9%, to $26 million. Other Businesses segment grew by 72%, partially driven by the purchase of MingleMatch in Q2. Q4 revenue was $16.6 million, down 3%. 2005 revenue was $65.5 million, up 1%.  Q4 net loss was $403,000, compared to a net loss of $1.6 million.  2005 net loss was $1.4 million, compared to a net loss of $11.6 million for 2004. The net loss for 2005 includes compensation expense related to share options of $2.7 million.   EBITDAS (EBITDA adjusted to remove share compensation expense) for Q4 was $2.0 million, compared to $7,000 for Q4 2004. EBITDAS for 2005 was $6.0 million, compared to an EBITDAS loss of $6.0 million in 2004.

Q4 2005 revenue for AmericanSingles was $6.7 million, down 22%.  2005 revenue was $29.2 million, down 17%.  Jdate average paying subscribers was 73,700, during Q4, up 8%. AmericanSingles average paying subscribers in Q4 was 91,900, down 29%.  Q4 average paying subscribers for Other Businesses
was 58,600, up 88%.  Total Q4 average paying subscribers for Q4 was 224,200, down 2%. 

Direct subscriber acquisition costs for JDate in Q4 was $12.25, up 15%. For 2005 it was $12.70, up 57%.  "...the marketing mix has shifted from a primarily online, direct marketing effort to one that now includes a wide mix of offline initiatives..." stated Siminoff. Subscriber acquisitoin costs for AmericanSingles in Q4 was $36.66, compared to $36.52 for Q4 2004. For 2005 it was $35.16, down 19%, compared to $43.29, for 2004.  And for Other Businesses in Q4 it was $29.73.  RELEASE @ SPARK NETWORKS NEWSROOM

Mark Brooks: Spark is focusing more on it's niche businesses and Minglematch sites.  They are admirers of Friendfinder's business model.

Pickiness Dominates Quest for Perfect Mate

WASHINGTON POST -- Feb 20 -- Falling in love has never had a reputation for making much sense. Dante glimpsed Beatrice a few times and wouldn't shut up about her for decades. Why should not falling in love be any more rational?  There is something peculiarly modern about this phenomenon, something aligned with our dark privilege of too much, this consumeriffic culture in which jeans and houses and breasts and ring tones are customizable. Consider it all: geographical dislocation, cities filled with singles, extended childhoods and postponed childbearing, speed-dating, the growing sense that the dating pool is as vast as the 454 men-seeking-women between the ages of 29 and 31 within five miles of your ZIP code on Yahoo Personals.  FULL ARTICLE @ THE FORT WAYNE JOURNAL GAZETTE

Mark Brooks: We are in a throw away culture...why commit?  Seismic changes on our views on marriage and long term relationships (commitment) will continue.  How will this affect online dating. More importantly, how will online dating influence these seismic changes?  Your comments please.

The Growth of Gay Online Dating

THE INDEPENDENT ONLINE -- Feb 19 -- Gaydar has 3.5 million members globally. The UK is by far its biggest market, with a total of almost one million members. Most are in big towns and cities, especially London, Manchester and Brighton. Most members are between 25 and 34.  There are leather queens in LA, sugar daddies in Shanghai, and, at every point of the compass, married men seeking "discreet meets". When Freud talked about "polymorphous perversity" he foresaw Gaydar. The site caters for any and every preference. Specialised chatrooms include chastity, chubbychasers, Eurovision, hypnosis, kilts and scallies. There is plenty to amuse and arouse, much to disgust, but absolutely nothing illegal. Gaydar membership is £60 a year.  This year, Europeans will spend £157m on online dating. They will spend £291m on "adult content." Go figure. Sex is what's really getting us online in such record numbers.  "Most of the big dating sites claim to be about actual dating aiming at actual relationships," says Nate Elliott of Jupiter Research. "Sites like Match.com and Datingdirect say they want people to meet and fall in love. Users say that friendship is their main goal, not physical intimacy."  The current advertising campaign for Match.com is the UK's biggest online dating promotion. Slogan: "We guarantee you'll find someone special within six months."  Gaydar's homepage features pictures of semi-naked men beckoning you to log on. Slogan: "What you want, when you want it."  "People definitely lie about what they're looking for," says Dr Monica Whitty, social psychologist at Queen's University and co-author of Cyberspace Romance: the Psychology of Online Dating.  "Often women will try to attract more men by claiming they're only after a casual relationship. Men will do the opposite. Both sexes are playing a game."  Gaydar makes ~£1 million a year in the UK alone.  Q Soft Consulting, currently employs a total of 40 people and owns, among other products, Gaydarradio and Gaydartravel. Today Gaydar has more than three million members, while Match.com has just 500,000 gay members.  Gaydargirls.com launches next month. Already 140,000 gay women have signed up.  In December 2005, Gaydar accounted for more than half of all gay website visits.  FULL ARTICLE @ THE INDEPENDENT

Mark Brooks: Fascinating insight on the gay and casual dating market. Sexsearch and Adult Friend Finder are the leading adult dating sites in the USA.  They fly under the wire because the personals rankings don't include them because of their adult content.  I never see them mentioned in the press.  The press don't want to talk about them, the analysts don't include them...but the people are voting for them in droves.  We're in the business of love, which means we're also in the sex business.  Better matches > more love > more sex, and the freedom to express one's sexual preferences are paramount for the success of prosperity of this industry.