Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Britain's Singles Now Prefer Slow Dating

PR NEWSWIRE -- Jan 16 -- In 2008, Britain's 8m active singles went on 18m first dates. 68% of these resulted from initial contact via the Internet. Introductions through friends accounted for 13% of all first dates, first dates resulting from chance encounters in bars 5%, while first dates with work colleagues represented just 4%. Each first date now lasts an average of 4 hours and 18 minutes, but the build-up to each date occupies over 12 hours of each person's time. FULL ARTICLE @ PR NEWSWIRE

BlackPlanet.com Gave Up On Subscription Model

SAÏD AMIN BLOG -- Jan 15 -- BlackPlanet.com's dating section is now free; probably a good move that will help their bleeding traffic. FULL ARTICLE @ SAÏD AMIN BLOG

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Markus: Successful Young Webpreneur

AOL FRANCE -- A French ranking of the webs most successful and richest young (under 30) entrepreneurs features Markus Frind, CEO of Plentyoffish.com. FULL ARTCLE @ AOL FINANCE

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Match Launches DownToEarth.com Free Dating Site

ONLINE DATING INSIDER -- Jan 15 -- DownToEarth went live Dec' 08 as free-singles.com, signing up 1k people daily. Initial testing was done with churches. ~20k people joined the site in the last few weeks according to Compete. DownToEarth.com is targeting 250k members by the end of '09. RealRatings™, encourages daters to rate other people's profile accuracy. Finally, a dating site that is taking reputation seriously! DownToEarth employs less than 10 people is located in the same building as Match & Chemistry and has no customer service, instead relying on community-based policing. Development was outsourced. The site is seeing strong signups from the south and southwest. I don't see a single reference as being a dating site. The partner page features 20+ competing dating sites with affiliate links. FULL ARTICLE @ ONLINE DATING INSIDER

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iovation To Moderate Fraud Management Panel At iDate

BUSINESS WIRE -- Jan 15 -- Fraud management solutions provider, iovation, will speak at the 6th Annual Internet Dating Conference in Miami. The session will discuss strategies to help dating sites reduce fraud and improve business revenues. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

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Match.com Expands Portfolio

PR NEWSWIRE -- Jan 15 -- Match.com, today announced the launch of DownToEarth.com, a free online dating site. DownToEarth.com's pioneering RealRatings system that encourages daters, after meeting in person, to rate the accuracy of the information provided in the other person's profile. FULL ARTICLE @ PR NEWSWIRE

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WhiteLabelDating.com iDate 2009 Afterparty

WLD BLOG -- Jan 14 -- This year at iDate 2009 Miami, WhiteLabelDating.com are platinum sponsors for the event and will be hosting the official afterparty on the evening of the first conference day, Thursday 22nd January. They are holding the party at Nikki Beach. FULL ARTICLE @ WLD BLOG

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Heavy Layoffs At PlanetOut

CNET NEWS -- Jan 14 -- A third of the staff were laid off this week at PlanetOut. On January 8, PlanetOut issued a press release announcing that it was merging with its competitors Here Networks and Regent Entertainment Media, the publishers of LGBT magazines The Advocate, Out, and HIVPlus. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS

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Plentyoffish Ditches Virtual Gifts....And Lots Of Changes

THE PARADIGM SHIFT -- Jan 14 -- Markus spent some time this weekend and rewrote parts of PlentyofFish.com.

-  Ditched the paid virtual gifts
-  Added a thumbnail cropping tool built in Ajax
-  Revamped the profile system  forcing better quality profiles
-  Semi new design and cleanup of a lot of pages

With so many different free sites all over the world the only way forward is to offer better features than paid sites  and more of them. But only if it actually helps users.
FULL ARTICLE @ THE PARADIGM SHIFT

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Matchmakers' 'Marriage Hunts' Beating Out Fate To Secure Mate

JAPAN TIMES -- Jan 14 -- Two sociologists from Japan recently coined the phrase "kon-katsu" (marriage hunting) in a bid to encourage singles to pursue marriage strategically. They hope this results in more marriages, and, ultimately, a reversal in Japan's declining birthrate. Among the 20-to-34 age group in Japan, 69% of men and 57% of women are unmarried. Among singles in the 18-to-34 age bracket, about 90% of both males and females want to tie the knot some day. Last month, Yahoo Japan launched a matchmaking site Yahoo Enmusubi. Membership in Yahoo Enmusubi costs ¥4,800 for men and ¥3,500 for women, and proof of identity is required. The service has seen membership rise to 11,186. FULL ARTICLE @ JAPAN TIMES

Mark Brooks: 30 is the new 20. (note to Irena the co-editor of OPW and my better half, who is 30 on Wednesday :-) ) So people are getting married older and taking their time to tie the knot. 90% still want to marry, and they have plenty of time. Chances are they will mostly live to 90 with the advances in medicine and gene therapy anyway.

Yahoo Confirms Bartz To Be CEO

TECH CRUNCH -- Jan 14 -- After being silent all day about the selection of Carol Bartz as its new CEO, Yahoo finally got around to confirming the reports. It also announced that president Sue Decker, who was also vying for the top spot, will resign. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

iovation Helps Stop 3.5 Million Frauds In 2008

BUSINESS WIRE -- Jan 13 -- iovation, the Device Reputation Authority for the Internet, helped eCommerce companies stop more than 3.5 million fraudulent activities in 2008. In 2008, the number of device reputations increased by 263%, from 26m in 2007. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

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This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch

Credit Crunch Can Mean A Downturn In Love

BIRMINGHAM POST -- Jan 13 -- All hope is not lost for love in a time of recession. Online dating and speed dating, have seen an increase in business at a time when many other sectors are seeing growth slip away. Dating group Easy Date had seen rapid growth since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year brought the credit crisis to the consciousness of the general public. Nielsen Online indicating a 15% rise in unique users visiting online dating sites in November compared with the same month in 2007. FULL ARTICLE @ BIRMINGHAM POST

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Sex, Lies And Internet Dates

PRESS RELEASE -- Jan 13 -- According to a report released by Logitech, 58% of Europeans who have dated online have been lied to when seeking a potential match. Italians lead the way, with 72% of respondents experiencing dating dishonesty. In turn, 58% of German, 56% of French and 55% of British respondents admitted to suffering the same fate. As the world's leading manufacturer of webcams, Logitech commissioned the study to establish how much difference a video call with a prospective date would make. FULL ARTICLE @ RESPONSE SOURCE

SkaDate 7 Released

PR WEB -- Jan 13 -- Skalfa eCommerce released a new version of its SkaDate dating software - SkaDate 7. Now users can embed video clips from YouTube, Yahoo video, FaceBook, Metacafe, and others. Contacts can be imported from email services, replies are trackable in forums, and there's a new interface for creating blogs and so on. A live demo of SkaDate 7 dating site software can be found at www.skadate.com/demo. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

Mark Brooks: I still do have the hard time trusting the companies that can't get grammar right in press release, and so on. (I corrected the excerpt at least).

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Love's Great, But Sugar Pays The Bills

PRESS RELEASE -- Jan 12 -- Finding a 'sugar daddy ' is becoming a popular alternative for many daters in today's ruff economy. "We've seen a significant rise in new memberships says an official at SeekingArrangement.com. About 50%" of their users are married. The ration is 10 women to 1 man. FULL ARTICLE @ PRUDENT PRESS AGENCY

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Match.com Ramps Up Marketing Activity

UTALK MARKETING -- Jan 11 -- Match.com is launching a new multi-million pound marketing campaign in a bid to promote online dating as a natural way to find a partner. Last year, the site launched two campaigns, Cupid and Fate, and Too Many Women, Hot New Men, that helped the site achieve a brand awareness double that of its nearest competitor. FULL ARTICLE @ UTALK MARKETING

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Ashley Madison's Secret Success

LA TIMES -- Jan 10 -- Ashley Madison caters to people wanting to have an affair and claims 3.2m members. Noel Biderman, self-described happily married father of two, started the company in 2001. Biderman explained that in hard economic times, a lot of people who've been planning a divorce suddenly cannot afford one. He believes that hearing about the service in a commercial is not going to persuade anyone to have an affair. "It's a decision they've come to already. All I'm saying is, don't do it in the workplace where it could result in someone losing their job, don't go to a singles dating service and lie about your status, and don't hire a prostitute. FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES

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iDate Tickets Available Online Through Friday

OPW -- Jan 12 -- There's a few days left to pick up your Internet Dating Conference ticket online. The online price is $975 through Friday 15th January, then its $1150 at the door. Click here to get $75 off your online ticket order through Friday. This is a very special courtesy discount for OPW readers.  Attendance is looking strong and should be a little ahead of last year with ~450 people. - Mark Brooks

Sun Sets On PlanetOut

 SF BUSINESS TIMES -- Jan 9 -- Gay and lesbian media company PlanetOut Inc will merge with Here Networks and Regent Entertainment Media, two related businesses that have bought parts of PlanetOut in the past few years. Here Media and Regent will pay $4.7m in cash into the new company as part of the deal. They'll own, through special preferred shares, 80% of the business after the merger. FULL ARTICLE @ SF BUSINESS TIMES

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