Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Here's My Number (for Today)

NY TIMES -- Nov 30 -- "Why would I give out my cell?" said Ms. McClain, 23. "I don't need a guy I met at a bar one night calling me every day for the next two weeks begging me to go out. I want to filter out the people I don't need to have contact with." In an age of information oversharing, the mobile-phone number is one of the few pieces of personal information that people still choose to guard. And the decision to give out a cell number can haunt you for years, as people now hold on to the numbers longer than their land-line numbers. Instead of giving out her cell number, Ms. McClain has recently been dispersing what has become known as a "social phone number." A handful of Web sites are creating mask numbers, which can be obtained in nearly every area code. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES

Mark Brooks: I'm preparing a side by side analysis of over a dozen anonymous calling service providers suitable for consideration of internet dating and social networking services. Email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com to get your copy as soon as it's completed. I'm working for Vumber.com (coming soon) and this is part of my research for them.

European Internet Growth

NETIMPERATIVE -- Nov 30 -- Social networking websites are used by nearly a quarter of Europeans at least once a month, according to a new consumer survey (7,036 participants). The 2006 Mediascope research from the EIAA reveals that social networking is driving internet growth. 72% of Europeans spend the majority of their time online for personal reasons. 45% of internet users in Europe now go online every day of the week. The average European internet user spends 11 hours 20 minutes a week online compared to 10 hours 15 minutes a week in 2005 and is online 5.4 days a week on average. Social networking sites are visited at least once a month by 23% of online Europeans. 32% of 16-24 year old internet users visit social networking sites at least once a month. 31% of European online users download music at least once a month. 15% conduct telephone calls via the internet, up 50% from last year. Spain and Germany lead in the use of online forums with 36% and 31% respectively interacting with those sites at least once a month. Sweden is leading the European internet radio trend with 43% of online users tuning in at least once a month, followed closely by the Spanish and French markets. 25% of internet users in France engage with the blogosphere at least once a month. 85% of online consumers in the UK, France, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark use broadband.

Mark Brooks: Italy and Spain hold opportunity. Eastern Europe is still virgin territory.

This post also appears on Social Networking Watch

Modern Romance: Get Texted When Love is Near

CNN -- Nov 30 -- Online dating is so last year. Now, if you're thinking romance, look to your mobile phone.  Match-making companies are creating new services that allow people to post their dating profile online and then automatically receive a text message on a GPS-enabled phone when a match is nearby, say, at a coffee shop around the corner. Mobile dating is such a new trend that the size of its user base isn't even closely followed. In a survey of online dating users conducted by Jupiter Research, barely a fraction of them said they use mobile platforms in search of romance. But younger generations more comfortable with newer technologies could change how people connect. Three in four of them use text messaging (versus one in four adults) and nearly half of them use their phones to instant message. FULL ARTICLE @ CNN

Mark Brooks: Think long term, think mobile. Mobile dating will eventually produce more revenue than online dating. Who wants to sit in front of a desk while chatting up a potential date? Users want to be free, mobile, but hooked into the net. Mobile dating is far, far more compelling than internet dating. LBS + Phonecams + Palmtop computer phones (a la 'sidekick' or 'N95'). Which is why I created Mobile Dating Watch. Watch this space ;-)

This post appears on Mobile Dating Watch

International Flavor

OPW -- Nov 30 -- Online Personals Watch is short on international news.  I'd like to add some international flavor and I need YOUR help.  Please forward me your press hits and press releases (with real news) to  mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com for review.  The press uses OPW for research ya know ;-)   Sites with a lot of news get their own category listing.  - Mark Brooks

Spark Launches Private Calling and Interactive Games

PR NEWSWIRE -- Nov 29 -- Spark Networks launched live and anonymous calling and interactive games on a number of its online communities including AmericanSingles, Date.ca and CollegeLuv via Userplane Webchat and Webmessenger applications. "The leaders of the next generation of online personals sites will be those, like Spark Networks, who focus on making their websites more effective at smoothing the process of introduction," stated Greg Liberman, President/COO of Spark Networks. "Anonymous calling gives singles an additional channel for communication, while games allow our members to get to know one another in a fun, low pressure way."

Mark Brooks: Wise move on both counts. My client, Vumber.com, will release a standalone solution for anonymous calling shortly. Email me if you want early notification, mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com .

JLove: For Jewish Singles

MARKET WIRE --Nov 29 -- JLove launched in early 2006 and is dedicated to preserving Jewish values and keeping the essence of Jewish unity alive. In August 2006, JLove became the first and only Jewish community site to offer a personality assessment, the JType Personality Profiling System.

Mark Brooks: JLove is going after JDate and taking a little of it's market share. JLove is a better name, but JDate owns the market...for now. Here's the Alexa graph comparing the growth.

China.com Partners with Meetic

BUSINESS WIRE -- Nov 29 -- China.com, a leading ISP in China partnered with Meetic to launch an online dating service in the China market. Meetic is the largest dating website in Europe with 25 million registered users and since its launch in 2002, more than 500,000 couples have become engaged.  "According to industry research, the scale of online dating in China will reach more than 100 million people by 2008," said Xiaowei Chen, Ph.D., CFO of China.com.

Mark Brooks: If you want a piece of the Asian online personals market, come to the Asian internet dating convention in May 2007. There were tentative plans for it to be in Tokyo but I confirmed with Marc Lesnick of the Internet Dating Conference that it will be in Shanghai.

Domain Names

OPW -- Nov 29 -- If you have domain names for sale that are suitable for internet dating or social networking sites, please email your list/pricing to mark@courtlandbrooks.com. Thanks. 

Internet Dating too Good to be True

POST TRIBUNE -- Nov 29 -- 60,000 new people register on Match.com every day, and last year, 400,000 formed long-term relationships through the Web site. The FBI said online crimes are increasing as more and more people become adept at using the Internet. Match officials said they reject about 15 percent of the submitted profiles that don't reach their standards.

Caller Privacy For Dating Sites

USA TODAY -- Nov 27 -- Are you ready to get Jangl'd? Michael Cerda, the co-founder of Jangl, a telephone service start-up, sure hopes so. "We give consumers the ability to call each other without giving out phone numbers," Cerda says. Go to Jangl.com, and sign up for a free account. Provide an e-mail address and telephone number. Create a "Jangl ID." Once you have your Jangl ID, Cerda says, "You can stop giving out your phone number and just Jangl." Callers must go to the Jangl website and key in their Jangl ID. To be accepted, callers have to provide enough personal information so that the Jangl system — which is bi-directional — can connect you with that caller. Once the required information has been keyed in, the Jangl system hands over your contact "phone number." In reality, however, it's a unique telephone ID for that particular relationship. As soon as the call is placed, Jangl forwards it to your real phone number. The privacy protection is bi-directional, so recipients don't know the real numbers of callers, either, Cerda notes. For security reasons, each call is announced with a short preamble that includes the caller's name. Recipients can accept, reject or block any call. Jangl is a natural for online dating services, which have long favored anonymous e-mail systems to protect the identity of users. On Nov. 2, online dating giant Match.com started offering Jangl as a free service, called "matchTalk."  Jane Thompson, a Match VP, says response to the feature has been "extraordinary."  She says 275,000 people already have used the feature.  One surprise: Match.com had expected the service to be used mostly by younger romance seekers, she says. But so far, 50% of users have been in the 35 to 49 age bracket. About 8% are over 55. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY

Online Dating: Truth Beyond the Misconceptions

PR NEWSWIRE -- Nov 27 -- Onlinebootycall.com began in 2002 and now has 1 million customers.  1. Misconception: Online dating is all about finding the love of your life. Truth: Online dating is about finding some love for tonight.  2.  Misconception: People who date online are desperate and can't get a date in real life.  ruth: Most OBC daters have no problem meeting people. "Booty at your house with the click of a mouse." The other truth: If you have a hard time meeting and connecting with people in live, face-to-face situations, you probably won't succeed with online dating. 3.  Misconception: Online dating is more dangerous than meeting people in clubs or other social settings. Truth: Online dating is LESS dangerous than direct meetings, says Brown. Online daters meet ON LINE. The real booty traps are in live settings. FULL ARTICLE @ PR NEWSWIRE

Happy Thanksgiving

Mark and Irena are on hiatus for a long weekend.  No news through Tuesday.  Have a great Thanksgiving weekend.

eHarmony CEO Interview

MARKET WATCH -- Greg Waldorf is a founding investor and CEO of eHarmony. 

Has the cost to acquire subscribers gone up now people are more comfortable meeting on social networking sites?
I don't think social networking sites have affected our acquisition costs. If anything, the social networking sites give people a taste of what it's like to be like online and it allows them to clearly differentiate a social service vs a more serious approach to online matching.

Match.com grew sales 22% to $80 million in the recent quarter.  Are you growing faster than Match.com?
We're growing at about the same rate as Match.

How are you going to grow your revenues next year? 
Most likely through more people coming onto the site. Between 15 and 30 million people will be a unique visitor to one of the major online dating sites. At any given time, only several million people are actually subscribing. There's a high degree of interest, and now we need to get more of them to convert. 

How many subscribers did you sign on this year and what do you expect for next year?
Many hundreds of thousands. 14 million subscribers since inception.

What is the average lifetime value of a subscriber?
Well over a $100.

$1.99 Per SMS!

MDW -- Nov 22 -- ChatDate.com is advertised in major newspapers and would seem like a license to print money. They're charging guys $1.99 per SMS, no less. And the carrier charges on top of that. Does anyone know of any chat services more pricey than this? Are their any real women answering the messages? Here's a totally B.S. letter from a happy group of wild n crazy sorority sister users. - Mark Brooks

Dating Service Connects with U.S. Marshals

VANCOUVER SUN -- Nov 20 -- Bennett was wanted in connection with the killing of Pierce Odell, 79 and his wife Mary Odell, 78. Frind -- who operates PlentyofFish from his downtown Vancouver apartment -- said he got an e-mail from the U.S. Marshals Service at 8:16 p.m. Saturday. Someone watching Americas Most Wanted had called to tell them they saw Bennett's picture on PlentyofFish. Frind combed through the messages Bennett had sent to other users which showed that Bennett had been sending messages to various women as he travelled north from Arkansas. One woman had agreed to let Bennett stay at her place. Frind checked that woman's profile and realized that both Bennett and the woman had recently logged into PlentyofFish using the same IP address -- meaning they were visiting his site using the same computer. Frind wasn't able to figure out the woman's phone number or address from the messages she sent, but was able to give police the phone numbers of other people she had contacted. Frind spoke with U.S. marshals on Sunday, following Bennett's arrest, and they thanked him for his help. "They told me it was vital information," he said. "Basically they had no idea where he was until I gave them all the numbers and the information." Frind is not worried about the bad publicity Bennett's case may attract.  "When you're dealing with millions of people, it's bound to happen," he said. "It's like getting struck by lightning." He said nothing like this has happened on the site before. Frind was never served with a search warrant and voluntarily looked through Bennett and his girlfriend's message traffic. He said he wouldn't hesitate to look at a user's private messages again "if a crime has been committed or someone is in danger." FULL ARTICLE @ VANCOUVER SUN

Mark Brooks: What would you do if you were Markus?

Single Parents Doing It Online

MARKET WIRE -- Nov 21 -- See SingleParentLoveLive.com. Single parent families are the fastest growing household type in North America and single parents represent 30% of the online daters today. There's 20 million single parents in the United States today.

Mark Brooks: SingleParentMeet.com (6k Alexa) is the niche leader. Also see Singleparentsmingles.com (74k Alexa), Parentsalready.com (133k Alexa) and SingleParents.ie, a new site for Irish singles.

Yahoo, Newspapers Form Major Alliance

MEDIA DAILY -- Nov 21 -- Yahoo and a consortium of 176 newspapers nationwide have entered into a far-reaching alliance encompassing classified advertising, content, and search. The first phase of the deal will allow the newspapers' help wanted advertisers to post classifieds on Yahoo HotJobs, while the newspapers' online career sections will be powered by HotJobs. The job sites will be co-branded between Yahoo and local newspapers in 38 states including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In addition to MediaNews, other companies involved in the newspaper group include Belo Corp., Cox Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers, Journal Register Company, Lee Enterprises, and the E.W. Scripps Company. (circulation of 12 million, and Web sites that draw a total of 58 million monthly visitors). FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIA DAILY

Mark Brooks: ...and personals. I'd expect them to be pushing to extend the deal to personals classifieds. 

Markus Nails One of America's Most Wanted

Homicide fugitive seeking online love arrested
REUTERS -- Nov 20 -- A fugitive, wanted for a double homicide in Arkansas, was arrested on the weekend in Wisconsin after he posted his name, picture and address on PlentyofFish.

Man sought in Arkansas double slaying captured in Wisconsin
ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Nov 20 -- Wisconsin authorities arrested Calvin A. Bennett, 26, on Sunday after a segment on the killings was aired Saturday night on the television show "America's Most Wanted." The television viewer's tip led police to PlentyofFish, run by Vancouver based CEO Markus Frind. A U.S. Marshal e-mailed him Saturday night. Within 10 minutes, Frind had gathered messages sent by Bennett to five women on the site ranging from "call me" to "I'd love to talk to you and get to know you," Frind said. From the messages, Frind could tell Bennett had moved into a home of a site user. He also found Bennett's cellular phone number. With that information, an Arkansas State Police investigator contacted Wisconsin authorities. About a dozen officers arrested Bennett as he tried to leave a home in Rothschild, Wis. Frind said he has removed Bennett from the dating Web site. But he cautioned that the arrest shouldn't dissuade people from attempting to find matches online. "I've made 112 million introductions since the site started," Frind said. "One in 8 million people get hit by lightning in the U.S."

• KTBS Video
• Discussion at PlentyofFish Forums

Mark Brooks: Markus happened to stay in Saturday night and caught the email from the US Marshals and was able to quickly turn it around. What might have taken hours at some dating sites, took minutes...and the bad guy got nailed. Nice! Well done Markus. 

Universal Music Sues MySpace

MEDIA POST -- Nov 20 -- Continuing its aggressive campaign to remove unlicensed clips from video-sharing sites, Universal Music Group Friday sued social networking site MySpace for copyright infringement. The suit charges that MySpace doesn't adequately police users from posting Universal-owned clips. FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIA POST

Online Dating & SN Site Google Page Ranks

iDATE FORUMS, Marc Lesnick -- Nov 20 -- Here's Google's Page Ranks for various online dating and social networking sites:
9 -- Match.com
8 -- Y! Personals, MySpace, Orkut, Chemistry
7 -- eHarmony, JDate, Date, Lavalife, TRUE

6 -- Cupid.com, eCrush.com, Gay.com , Parship.de, Plentyoffish
5 -- Baihe, Dating.dk, Mate1, Manhunt.net, Sexsearch
4 -- SportsFansMatch, Tianji, WebDate
3 -- eRomance, JWoo
0 -- GreatExpectations, AmericanSingles, Friendscout

iDate2006.com scored 6.  Google scores 10. So did the New York Times. NASA and the White House. Google gives a ranking of 6 to Lancome, Revlon and model Pamela Anderson. How did the other models do? Page ranking of 5 to Heidi Klum and Cindy Margolis. Unbelievably, Cindy Crawford got a page ranking of 3. FULL ARTICLE @ IDATE

Mark Brooks: ...and Online Personals Watch scores a 5. What does your site score?  What have you done lately to improve it? Does it matter? Your comments please...but not here. Click here.