Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

How To Find A Millionaire (Or Billionaire) Mate

DAILY STAR -- Feb 28 -- The find-a-rich-guy sites insist they provide a valuable service to wealthy people who are too busy running businesses to hang out at bars, clubs and other social venues. "It's very convenient to sit in your office and look through a catalogue of women on your computer. It's also cheaper than traditional matchmakers", says Steven Pasternack, CEO of Sugardaddie.com. In addition to millionaire dating sites, myriad other niche sites abound. Spark Networks operates 30 special-interest dating sites, including JDate.com and eHarmony are two of the most popular dating sites in the U.S., China's QQ.com Love is the No. 1 ranked dating site in Asia. Meetic.com and be2 are No. 1 and 2 in Europe, and Amigos.com is second only to MSN in Latin America, according to comScore. The number of U.S. visitors to dating sites has fallen steadily from a peak of 21% of all Internet users in 2003 to 10% in 2006, according to JupiterResearch. Despite the drop, the revenues rose 10% to $659 million in 2006, and Jupiter forecast a compound annual growth rate of 8% through 2011. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILY STAR

Mark Brooks: This article also mentions sayheyhey.com, a dating site that uses videos as profiles. Great idea. Jupiter says $889 million of revenue was generated in the USA on internet dating services in 2007 and that will rise to $1.9 Billion in 2012. Not too shabby. Beat that, social networking industry! 

Complaints To BBB On The Rise

GRANITE CITY -- Feb 27 -- The Better Business Bureau (BBB) warns that complaints against match making and online dating services are on the rise. Consumer complaints filed with the BBB on dating services increased 73% in 2006 over the previous year, reaching 2,525 complaints altogether. Early analysis shows that the numbers of complaints in 2007 are expected to again reach record-breaking levels for the industry.

Mark Brooks: Cause for concern. Your comments please. How can the dating industry do better?

iovation Expands Its Executive Team

BUSINESS WIRE -- Feb 27 -- iovation, the device reputation authority for the Internet, announced two new executive appointments. Chris Reid and Emmett Zahn have joined iovation as VP Sales and VP Technology. Iovation's innovative technology helps online companies stop tens of thousands of fraudulent transactions each day, while protecting the privacy and anonymity of their customers. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

Mark Brooks: iovation is a client of Courtland Brooks, and a client in very good standing. This company, and the people at this company have been nothing but totally professional, always follow through, and with the full weight of whatever reputation I've built since starting OPW, I can't recommend them highly enough. I guess that's why Intel saw fit to pitch $10 million in their direction recently.

WhiteLabelDating.com Is Hiring

OPW -- Feb 26 -- While some social networks are laying off people, quite a few dating companies are hiring. WhiteLabelDating.com just listed these jobs:

 PR and Marketing Executive

Pay is $50-$100k with flexible hours, remote working, 6% salary matching. But what caught my attention was the offer of your "own Blackberry/iPhone, 23" Cinema Display, Aeron chair and MacBook Air." The 1000 UK pound referral fee is kinda nice as well, so let them know you saw the job on OPW ;-) You can see more job listings, at any time, by going to the Quick Links section and clicking on Internet Dating Jobs. Please email me the link to your jobs board if your company is not listed. (Full Disclosure, WhiteLabelDating.com is a client of Courtland Brooks).

JDate: In-Faith Dating

PHILADELPHIA JEWISH VOICE -- Feb 26 -- The Council of Jewish Federations's 1990 National Jewish Population Survey reports that an astonishing 47% of American Jews who married between 1996 and 2001 have done so outside their faith (in 1970, only 13% of American Jews intermarried). With over 600,000 active members, JDate is by far the world's leading Jewish online dating site. JDate is unique in that it also measures the users' religious compatibility by allowing preferences in adherence to the laws of kashrut, frequency of attendance of synagogue, and the form of Judaism practiced, if any. FULL ARTICLE @ PHILADELPHIA JEWISH VOICE

OKCupid Takes Aim At Online Dating

BOSTON NOW -- Feb 25 -- Free dating site OK Cupid markets itself virally, spending less than 1% of its budget on advertising. "Everything about match.com is geared toward the user getting out their credit card," said CEO, Sam Yagan.

BostonNOW: What advice do you have for others starting a business?
Sam Yagan: One of the key drivers to my success is picking really great business partners. You also have to be 100 % passionate about it.

BN: What do you wish you had known before you started your business?
SY: Human resources really are the most important thing you have, so I wish I'd spent more time recruiting and developing the crew that we had.

BN: What's the biggest mistake you made in getting your business going?
SY: I think early on we didn't spend enough time differentiating ourselves from the competition. I spent too much time on the concept of "free". It's not about just being free, it's about being free and better.
FULL ARTICLE @ BOSTON NOW

Matchmaking For Muslims Is Custom Job

CHICAGO TRIBUNE -- Feb 25 -- Today, few Muslim Americans are interested in traveling halfway across the world for an arranged marriage. "There are so many young people in the Muslim community looking to get married, but they have a dilemma: They can't date. "We offer options within Islamic boundaries", said Imam Mohamed Magid, vice president of the Islamic Society of North America. The Islamic society's chaperoned speed-dating sessions. In addition to social networks such as naseeb.com or muslimsocial.com, some mosques have started adding matrimonial databases to their Web sites. Matchmakers offer a more old-fashioned approach. Athia Syed's is a popular matchmaker from Chicago. Syed counsels young Muslims to be more active in finding their future mates, rather than relying on their parents or matchmakers. FULL ARTICLE @ CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Europe Online Dating Turnover Up To €103 Million

JUST4BUSINESS -- Feb 21 -- Germans spent 85 million Euros on finding a partner online in 2007, according to Jupiter Research. For 2008, another increase to 103 million Euros is predicted. Currently about 6.3 million Germans visit online dating services each month. In Western Europe turnover is expected to increase from 317 million Euros to 393 million Euros in 2008. FULL ARTICLE @ JUST4BUSINESS

SeekingArrangement & SeekingMillionaire Launch Affiliate Program

PR WEB -- Feb 21 -- SeekingArrangement.com (130k members since 2006) and SeekingMillionaire.com (60k members since 2007), cater to millionaires and beautiful girls and has launched an affiliate program. "While other online dating websites pay a commission only when a customer pays, our affiliate programs pays when a visitor registers, and each time the customer pays to upgrade," said Brandon Wade, CEO of InfoStream Group Inc, which operates the sites. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

Mark Brooks: WealthyMen, MillionaireMatch, FriendFinder's MillionareMate.com and SugarDaddyForMe.com also compete in the high niche.  The current rankings for this niche can be found under the Niche Internet Dating Rankings under the Official Internet Dating Rankings on this site. 

 

Sugar Daddie, Alexa ~ 1/08
1 SugarDaddie
2 SugarDaddyForMe
3 WealthyMen

This post also appears on FrequentFlirters.

Affluent African Americans Represent 45% Of AA Buying Power

MEDIA POST -- Feb 20 -- According to a recent Packaged Facts study, reported by MarketingCharts, African Americans are crucial to the consumer economy, with a population of 39 million and buying power of $892 billion, and expected to exceed $1.1 trillion in 2012. Black media continue to offer advertisers access to African-American consumers, who also share many of the mainstream media preferences of other American viewers and readers:

    * Television is a top source of media consumption, with 4 in 10 households containing 4 or more televisions.
    * Spending on magazines is 6% more than the national average.
    * Radio and newspapers are less popular than the average.
    * Internet use is still lagging, but by 2012 penetration in the African-American community is expected to reach 62%.
FULL ARTICLE @ RESEARCH BRIEF

 Mark Brooks: You can see a ranking of the top African American dating sites by going to Internet Dating Official Rankings over on the right bar and clicking on Niche Internet Dating Rankings.  Here are the current rankings for Black Personals.

• Black Personals, Hitwise ~ 1/08
  1 Black People Meet
  2 OnlineBootyCall
  3 Black Singles 

E-dating Goes Niche

METRO.CO.UK -- Feb 20 -- According to press agency Response Source, 7.8 million people in Britain went online to find their match last year, up a third on 2005. And "e-dating" became more specialised. Mysinglefriend.com, where people nominate their unattached chums, was one of the first niche markets. WooMe, is an online speed dating company, and LoopyLove is a social networking site for singletons. Then there is the slightly more risqué market. AshleyMadison.com is for people looking for 'extracurricular activity'. Sugardaddie.com is aimed at women looking for a man with that extra bulge where it matters most, the wallet. Launched in 2002, the site now has a database of 250,000 members and is growing at a rate of 4,000 a week. FULL ARTICLE @ METRO.CO.UK

A Date Without Words

NEWS TIP -- Feb 20 -- Jiffr.com is a new dating site, a flickr-mashup, currently in a private beta. It's a picture based dating service that works without words. All members need is a flickr account to upload their pictures. On Jiffr, members introduce themselves without words, only using the language of pictures. It's a sort of encoding of their personality.

Paltalk Adds Vumber's Disposable Phone Numbers To Video Chat

MASHABLE -- Feb 19 -- There are a number of VoIP services, like Jangl and Jajah, that let you chat online, or even via landlines without having to reveal the phone number. Paltalk has integrated Vumber's disposable number service. The biggest benefit of Vumber is that its users can have an easier time taking their Paltalk video chat sessions offline. Paltalk customers get a 30-day free trial of Vumber's service, after which the $4.99 per month rate will kick in. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

TrustCash And Paivis Partners

MARKETWIRE -- Feb 19 -- TrustCash, the anonymous payment systems provider, and Paivis, a telecommunications carrier that sells prepaid "point-of-sale activated" and live cards, begin working closely together on numerous aspects of their businesses. One project which will benefit from this integration is a pre-paid debit card.

DateHookup.com To Offer Demographic Targeting To Advertisers

EMEDIAWIRE -- Feb 19 -- DateHookup.com now offers advertisers the ability to target its ad inventory by specific demographics, including age range and gender, thanks to Google's new demographic bidding feature. Google's demographic targeting feature recently entered beta testing. FULL ARTICLE @ EMEDIA WIRE

 Mark Brooks: Here's a comparison of DateHookup.com and Plentyoffish using Compete.com. Both sites are growing gangbusters. DateHookup.com, like Plentyoffish, is also run by one person. Plentyoffish also offers ad targeting via Google Adsense. Direct advertising deals for top tier dating sites are available on Plentyoffish now, btw. (Full Disclosure: Plentyoffish is a client of Courtland Brooks)

Alternate Dating Sites

CNET NEWS -- Feb 18 -- Worldwide there are more then 1400 internet dating sites. Given the market saturation online dating consultant Mark Brooks says newer sites are forced to innovate both in concept and technology. Want your avatar to meet mine? Try out OmniDate.com or let's find out if our voices are compatible. Log onto LoveDetect.com. Another one of those alternate dating sites is CrazyBlindDate.com. Prior to the date you only get to see a pixilated photo of your match and you can only communicate by texting through the site's cupid line. Unlike more established dating sites, webcam sites like SpeedDate.com, Woome.com and Camlink.com require very little personal information to get started. As long as people are out there looking for love there will be a website to cater to their needs, desires, fantasies and fetishes. SEE THE VIDEO HERE

Online Dating Firms Split Over Screening

ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Feb 17 -- New Jersey became the first state to enact a law requiring the sites to disclose whether they perform background checks. True.com already does such screenings.
"The online dating industry tends to get a real bad rap because of criminal activity," said True.com's founder and chief executive, Herb Vest. "If we were to clean up, there's hordes of offline singles who'd come online to find their soul mate." Many critics contend that True.com's screening method is incomplete and too easily thwarted, potentially creating a false sense of security for customers. Match.com said it had been assessing online background checks for six years and concluded they offered no extra protection. FULL ARTICLE @ SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Match.com To Double U.K. Ad Spend

MAD.CO.UK -- Feb 18 -- Match.com will double its £4 million marketing spend this year. Match.com's current outdoor campaign, Cupid & Fate, runs across the London underground network and was created by US agency Hanft Raboy & Partners. The site's strategy is to show that online dating really works by highlighting its successes, tempting new people to the category and challenge the British character. FULL ARTICLE @ MAD.CO.UK

iovation Helps Stop 10,000 Frauds Per Day

BUSINESS WIRE -- Feb 13 -- iovation, the device reputation authority for the Internet, is currently helping its online customers stop more than 10,000 fraudulent activities per day using its device-based fraud management solution. The company expects that number to nearly double by the end of 2008. Using patented technology, iovation's ReputationManager™ fraud management service uniquely identifies devices that have been used for fraud and abuse. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

Mark Brooks: iovation offers a device identification platform and a means to share the reputation of those 'devices' industry wide.  I've worked with iovation to help them sign up an initial batch of dating sites that are now feeding the iovation system. iovation recently raised $10 million from Intel Capital. (Full Disclosure: iovation is a client of Courtland Brooks)

Orly The Matchmaker Attempts To Break Her Own Guinness World Record

1888PRESS RELEASE -- Feb 16 -- The Guinness Book of World Records recently contacted Orly the Matchmaker asking her if she will break her own world record. Orly has set the standard in professional matchmaking for the past 25 years. Her clients include the elite and wealthy, royalty, celebrities and international movers-and-shakers. Orly is currently recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the priciest matchmaker who's fees were recorded at $100,000. Her fees at the time could run upwards of $200,000. Orly is attempting to command up to $1,000,000 per client depending on the geographic locations and desired criteria. FULL ARTICLE @ 1888 PRESS RELEASE