Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Josh Meyers, CEO Of PeopleMedia

OPW INTERVIEW -- July 31 -- People Media, formerly Zencon Media, is a major niche network. IAC/Match now has them under their wing. An interesting move indeed. Here’s our interview with the CEO of People Media, Joshua Meyers. - Mark Brooks

What is the founding story of PeopleMedia?
PeopleMedia was founded in 2002. BlackPeopleMeet.com was the very first site they launched. A lot of people were signing up without doing any marketing at all so PeopleMedia started creating additional sites.

In 2007, the company was acquired by American Capital which is a very large private equity firm and that was when I was brought in as a CEO to run the company. We opened a Los Angeles office and hired a number of professionals from different corners of the Internet space. Actually, we hired very few people from the dating space; we’ve hired people mostly from online marketing and we built the number one provider of targeted online dating communities.

How many dating sites are in the fold?
We have 27 sites in total. SeniorPeopleMeet.com, BlackPeopleMeet.com, SingleParentMeet.com, and BBPeopleMeet.com are some of the largest and fastest growing sites in our portfolio.

How many people are working for the company?
We have between 40 and 50 employees and roughly half of those are in customer service and editorial departments where they do profile review and respond to customers and help them with their needs or questions.

Now, one could argue that the perfect model for the perfect Internet dating company would be one Internet dating company that has all the singles on the planet on it. Why then is PeopleMedia such a good model? Why does it work?
I think both are good models and certainly a large, very significant scale dating site would be a very valuable service. As you know, we were recently acquired by Match.com and they run arguably the largest service of such kind.

Our sites are very valuable because they offer an alternative. Users are looking for alternatives, they may join more than one dating site. So they can join the largest and also the most focused. We focus on critical relationship factors which typically are ethnicity, religion, lifestyle or life stage and these are factors that really matter when it comes to finding your mate. People who want to belong to a community of like members. So it’s a very different experience. It’s a little more of a private club in terms of the exclusivity and you’re going to be contacted by people who are like minded.

You were acquired by IAC and Match. Could you remind us what the terms of the deal were?
We were acquired by IAC and Match.com for $80 million in cash and the deal was announced on July 7th.

Are there any additional public revenue numbers that are available?
PeopleMedia has $11.6 million of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in 2008 and we continue to experience pretty significant growth. We show a 55% year over year increase in our unique visitors according to Comscore April 2009 data. According to our own internal numbers, we have 4 million unique visitors per month and 550 million page views per month.

This is the biggest acquisition of its kind with a large generic site acquiring a niche network but it’s not the first one. The first large scale acquisition was Spark Networks buying the Mingle Match network. How would you say this deal is different? Why did Match buy PeopleMedia?

PeopleMedia is at a very significant scale, I think a far larger scale than other companies in the space. We have 255,000 paying subscribers. We combined the leading company in the targeted dating space, which is PeopleMedia, with the leading company in the general dating space, which is Match.com.

You have 27 communities within PeopleMedia. But as you’re looking at new communities, prospective new areas; what are the top 3 factors you would consider the most important for success?

First I want to say that we’re not necessarily seeing our most significant opportunity as adding new categories, although there are a few things in the works. I think our primary focus is on the communities we’re already serving. I would really boil it down to 2 factors.

One is what I call the gravity of that particular target. You can create a lot of different dating sites, you can come up with a lot of different ideas but if they don’t have that gravitational pull for people they’re not going to be successful. Then the second is really a scale or the size of that community.

What does the future hold for PeopleMedia? Where would you like the company to be in 2 years time?
We will continue to see success stories rolling in from our sites and from our members who are finding the loves of their lives. We are excited to continue to grow our marketing presence both online as well as offline and also in combination with Match.com.

For example, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of seniors on Match.com and I would estimate that only a small percentage of those seniors know about SeniorPeopleMeet.com. So you can see what a significant opportunity there is for us to introduce SeniorPeopleMeet.com and our other communities to singles who are on Match.com.

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Online Gaming For Singles

PRESS RELEASE -- July 30 -- Connected Thought Ltd, has launched a new dating site, Smeetme.com. Singles can search profiles and chat and create Smeetme games and send them to potential dates . The games comprise different types of challenges - such as brain teasers, audio challenges and picture challenges. Each challenge can have its own reward if successfully completed. FULL ARTICLE @ PRESS DISPENSARY

Domains4Sale: InternetDatingTips.co.uk, OnlineDatingCanada.com, ...

OPW -- July 29 -- Contact Joe Tracy if you are interested in any of the 14 online dating domains. For example: InternetDatingTips.co.uk, OnlineDatingCanada.com, OnlineDatingAlliance.com, RussianInternetDating.com, ... See the full list including the pricing.

Best Cities For Singles 2009

FORBES -- July 24 -- The New York metro area boasts a larger number of active accounts on Match.com than any other place in the country, making up 8% of the entire site's active members. Close competition with New York includes Boston, Chicago, Seattle and Washington, D.C., which round out the top five best cities for singles. Only 2% of Angelinos, who live in the second-largest metro in the country, actively use the site. To generate our list of best cities for singles, we ranked 40 of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas in seven different categories: coolness, cost of living alone, culture, job growth, online dating participation, nightlife and the ratio of singles to the entire population of the metro. FULL ARTICLE @ FORBES

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This post also appears at the iDate Forums

IAC Reverses Year-Earlier Loss

WSJ -- July 29 -- IAC/InterActiveCorp posted Q2 earnings of $40.8m compared with a year-earlier loss of $421.6m. Earnings before amortization in the media and advertising segment, which includes the Ask.com search engine, dropped 56%. The Match unit posted a 25% profit gain despite a 5% revenue drop and a 13% subscriber decrease. Excluding Europe, subscribership was up 9%. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ

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Viximo Finds Content Is King For Virtual Goods

PR WEB -- July 29 --  Viximo, has released data from a study, exemplifying the effects content has on virtual goods revenue.  Virtual gifts were ranked using criteria such as production value, subject relevancy, and interactivity on a 1 – 5 star scale. 3* gifts, being the average, represented a quality similar to Facebook virtual gifts. Sales and conversion data were compared between the ranked goods, finding that 5* gift content drove 3.7x the revenue of 3* content.  Conclusion: the quality of goods has a profound effect on perceived value. Publishers selling virtual goods sell more and fetch higher prices by well designed merchandise tailored to their sites. FULL ARTICLE @ VIXIMO

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Marriage-Maker Claims Are Tied In Knots

WSJ -- July 29 -- eHarmony has twice commissioned studies from Harris Interactive to estimate its impact on marriages. The first, in 2005, found that 90 people a day married because of the site. The second, in 2007, found that the number had surged to 236. Using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on marriages, eHarmony estimated that it could claim credit for 2% of marriages in the U.S. A Match.com media kit claimed that 12 marriages a day trace their roots to the site, but the company now says it's inaccurate. Markus Frind, CEO of PlenyofFish.com, says his site creates 800,000 relationships each year, according to exit interviews with departing members. ~100,000 marriages per year. The only statistic Mr. Frind knows with certainty is the number of members who have self-reported success stories on his site -- now ~ 2,000. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ

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Your Online Dating Site Will Fail!

WLD -- July 28 -- ‘Startups: Your Online Business Will Fail’ was an article on the site Startup Professional Musings. The post states that online dating sites will fail because:

- Direct competition is huge
- No longer a growth market
- Entry cost is very high
- Intellectual property is tough
- Social networks and search engines will lead the way

Some of the points are only valid when you’re talking about building a site from scratch. By launching a dating site with a white label provider, partners are provided with a database of active members, so that their site is never empty. The UK dating industry is worth £600m a year according to Hitwise, whilst Juniper Research predicts the number of paying members on dating sites will rise to 6M in the next 3 years, from 2.6M in 2006.
FULL ARTICLE @ WLD BLOG

New Travelodges Open In Affair Hotspots

EMEDIAWIRE -- July 28 -- IllicitEncounters.com, an extra-marital dating site, has now over 340,000 members in the UK. IllicitEncounters.com was in talks with Travelodge, a hotel chain, to negotiate an offer for their members. Travelodge may be facilitating more than people's need to sleep, after opening four new hotels in several adultery hot-spots including Edinburgh, Kent and Essex. "Edinburgh currently holds the largest number of llicitEncounters' subscribers of any Scottish county." says Sara Hartley, representative from IE. FULL ARTICLE @ EMEDIA WIRE

Mark Brooks: Sigh. Slow news day, what can I say? What does it mean IE was 'in talks' with Travelodge? They exchanged voicemail? "We'd like to have Travelodge slip a mint and and IE.com card onto everyone's pillows." Ashley Madison rules the illicit encounters segment. AdultFriendFinder, Fling and SexSearch have categories on their sites for those seeking discrete relationships. And that's a good thing. People know what they are getting in to when they see a user categorized as looking for a discrete relationship.       

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BlackSingles And HurryDate Partner With Eizzil Entertainment

MARKETWIRE -- July 27 -- BlackSingles and HurryDate partner with Eizzil Entertainment in support of Eizzil's feature-length romantic comedy, "SPEED-DATING." The film is slated for a 2010 general release. As part of the national promotion tour, the companies will present BlackSingles.com HurryDate events in 12 major cities across the country. FULL ARTICLE @ SOA WORLD MAGAZINE

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Domains4Sale: countryMatch.com

OPW -- July 27 -- Contact Josh Joffe if you are interested in a niche domain portfolio (120 total nationalities) using the match suffix. For example: CostaricanMatch.com, BritishMatch.com, AustrianMatch.com, SpainMatch.com, .... See the full list here. The price is $24K.

Breaking The Ice With A Virtual Gift

ZOOSK -- July 24 -- Zoosk conducted a survey among one thousand Zooskers to learn more about their thoughts on virtual gifts.

- 76% would be more likely to respond to a potential match if they received a virtual gift from that person
- 15% have ever sent someone a virtual gift
- 37% send “traditional” virtual gifts, such as digital flowers or a box of chocolates
- 27% show off “wild side” by selecting virtual gifts like a martini or a strawberry dripped in chocolate
FULL ARTICLE @ ZOOSK BLOG

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This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

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Luke Chao, CEO Of Done For You Dating

OPW INTERVIEW -- July 25 -- When users sign up for internet dating sites, I don’t think they realise that its not ‘instant gratification.’ They have to invest time into the internet dating process. Done For You Dating takes the time investment away from end users. Agents pose as users. Its a little controversial to say the least. Here’s my interview with the CEO and Founder, Luke Chao. Your comments please… - Mark Brooks

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Why did you start Done For You Dating?

I’ve had a hypnotherapy center in Toronto for the past 3 years. It takes up a lot of my time. So I said to my secretary Sue one day, “Why don’t you write a profile for me on LavaLife?” because I bought a lot of credits and I’ve had them sitting in the account for about half a year and never did anything with them. She wrote the profile and asking me, “What do I do next?” I said, “Why don’t you find some women who match these criteria and write to them?” It got to the point where we had a lot of back and forth conversations about what I was looking for and she was able to represent me very well.

 

It worked for me and I realized that there have to be other people who could benefit from the same service. So in April of this year I registered the domain. I started representing some friends of mine to see how it works. Because it worked for my friends as well, I then decided to launch Done For You Dating. So far the service is very new and we just started advertising on a prominent website.

How does the service work from the user perspective?
It’s not quite a matchmaker service and not quite a secretary or virtual assistant. It is something that is so new to people that they have to understand what it is about.

When people decide they want to sign up for the service, we spend about 1 to 2 hours talking with them and asking them questions about their tastes in music, film, food, places they’ve been, etc. Sue picks up the phone and she role plays a date with them which ensures an easy transition from online to offline.

After the profile is set up, we begin to send out messages on behalf of the client. Those messages are initially screened by the client and then after the client says, Okay, you can represent me well”, then we represent them like Sue represents me. We send the client photos and a profile of a woman he might be interested in. If the client says yes and the woman says “Yes, let’s meet up”, then we bill the client for the work we did and they take it from there.

I love the fact that you do the screening of the communication. There are a lot of people out there that don’t have time and they just want to go out and date. They want to use Internet dating because it’s really a value and a lot less expensive than a matchmaker. But my concern with the service is misrepresentation. When you did this with your secretary, at what stage did you let the dates know that this wasn’t you? Or did you at all?
I didn’t, actually. My philosophy is that in this case the end justifies the means. Of course, I make sure that everything that Sue sends out represents me accurately and fairly. We don’t have anybody in house right now who specialized in coaching men in dating. Sue is a young woman and she can play the role of a date and provide critiques and feedback to the client. So that is the service we offer right now. But definitely in the future, if we can also help the client be a better date then I think it will benefit both the client and the women that they meet.

What is the cost now? What kind of pricing do you think you’re going to be charging in a few months time once you’ve got the service really up and running?
Right now the most important thing is that we get clients. Until the end of July, there is no set up fee. It means we set up the profile, interview the client, we begin to find matches at no cost. We get paid when we present the match to the client and the client says, “Yes, I like her and want to go out with her.”

What do you have in mind for that, how much?
$200 to $300 for the profile writing, photo retouching services and getting to know the client. Then after that it’s $247 US per date. If the client just wants the phone number and take it from there then it’s $197. But those prices are based on the time it takes to set up a date.

Have you had any difficulties so far with working with the dating sites? How would you like to work with them?
There is one dating site we’re working with right now. I first contacted them because I wanted to advertise on the site. I told them about the service and asked if they were okay with this. They said “Yes, absolutely”. I described it as beneficial. Our service keeps people on the sites. Also the quality of the profiles, pictures and the messages improve as a result of the service.

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Internet Dating World Map

CB -- July 23 -- Using Hitwise, Comscore, Nielsen Online, iResearch China and Alexa data, we've created an interactive map showing the top internet dating sites around the world. Plentyoffish.com rules the US, Canadian and UK Market according to Hitwise (Jun '09). Deutsche Telekom's FriendScout24 is the top dating site in Germany, Spain and Switzerland according to Nielsen Online (Jun '09). Apparently Nielsen Online doesn't think Meetic has much of a traction in France. EasyFlirt is the top dating site in France as well as in Italy. See the interactive version of the map. For future reference see 'World Map' under the 'Internet Dating Official Rankings' section.

Who Buys Virtual Goods?

VIXIMO -- July 22 -- There is a common myth that virtual goods are only bought by teens or kids. But if you look at industry data you will notice that all ages, demographics, and cultures actively spend money on virtual goods. Here are a few examples in each age segment:


35 – 50 Years Old
Dogster – 67% between 35 – 50 years old
Scrapblog – 58% older than 34

18 – 34 Years Old
HotorNot – 50% between 18 – 34 years old, 35% older than 34. HotorNot was doing around $2.5M a year on virtual goods.

12 – 17 Years Old
Gaia Online – 60% between 12 – 17 years old. Gaia has reported that it makes $12M a year in virtual goods.
FULL ARTICLE @ VIXIMO BLOG

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

iovation Exceeds Two Billion Fraud Checks

BUSINESS WIRE -- July 22 -- iovation, provider of the world’s first device reputation service for preventing online fraud and abuse, has provided over two billion reputation checks for its customers. These checks have resulted in the identification of over 140M unique device reputations, a growth of ~500% from one year ago. iovation uses device fingerprinting to identify unique devices and establish device reputations that are based on each device’s history of fraud or abuse. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

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This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

be2 Conquers Asian Dating Market

BE2 BLOG -- July 21 -- be2 Singapore was launched in 2008 and has grown to 42k members. Due to the continued success of be2 in Singapore, be2 has launched its service in Hong Kong and Taiwan. FULL ARTICLE @ BE2 BLOG

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Are Online Matches Happier?

ABC4NEWS -- July 20 -- About 20% of couples meet online. The other more traditional ways include meeting through friends, at school and at work. Dr. Gonzaga is a senior research scientist at eHarmony whose life career is to study the success of online dating. He goes as far as to say he thinks online dating users will have a lower divorce rate in the future than those who meet through other means. Dr. Gonzaga says eHarmony manages to set up 236 marriages a day simply because the survey matches ‘like with like.’ Contrary to the popular adage, the love doctor says, “opposites ‘do’ attract…but then, they attack.” FULL ARTICLE @ ABC4NEWS

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India Says "I Do!" To Divorce

THE WIP -- July 20 -- The Indian capital New Delhi has the unenviable distinction of being the country’s divorce citadel with about 9,000 cases annually. Other Indian cities are not far behind. Most are young couples, typically in their late 20s and early 30s. India is a remarkably young country with 70% of its billion plus population under the age of 35. The younger generation is willful, independent and adept at rationalizing their decisions. Remarriage was once unheard of but that’s changing. SecondShaadi.com narrows it down to all those who have been either divorced or widowed, and visitors to the site know at the outset what they are getting into. FULL ARTICLE @ THE WIP

Mark Brooks: Those that are single and never married, tend to prefer to communicate with those that are similar and never married.  This is true in the USA, and more true in India.

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