Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Integration Of Dating Photo & Profile Writing Services Via New API

EMEDIA WIRE -- Jan 23 -- UK dating profile improvement company Perfect Dating Profile (PDP) have launched a web-based API facility, enabling the integration of dating photography and profile writing services into any dating website. With no set-up or on-going costs, once integrated, the host earns commission each time a sale is generated. FULL ARTICLE @ EMEDIA WIRE

Jiayuan.com Posted CNY 480 Million Ads Online In 08

TRADING MARKETS -- Jan 23 -- Online matchmaking services provider Jiayuan.com was the top one advertiser in China's Internet advertising market in 2008, according to CR-Nielsen. The Web site totally posted ads of CNY 480 million. FULL ARTICLE @ TRADING MARKETS

70% Of Brits Spy On Their Partner Online

NEWSLITE -- Jan 23 -- More than 70 % of people spy on their partners online activity, many at least once a month. Common searches include monitoring Twitter conversations, looking to see if they are friends with ex-parters on Facebook and what comments they have left of friends photos. 68 % of Brits also admitted they would check their partner's private emails if they knew the password. FULL ARTICLE @ NEWSLITE

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HotorNot.com Comes To The iPhone

CNET NEWS -- Jan 22 -- HotorNot.com, the social rating site has a new, and free iPhone app out. It lets you pass judgment on others by scoring them anywhere from 1 to 10. It also lets you tap into its "Meet Me" network where you can get in touch with other registered users to set up dates. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS

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Talkster Invites Website Users To TalkNow

PRESS RELEASE -- Jan 22 --  Talkster, the company delivering online communities instant mobile voice and text communications, announced TalkNow(TM), a new service that gives dating and social networking sites a zero integration model for offering voice services to their members. Using a couple of lines of code the Talkster TalkNow button can be easily integrated into any website creating a new anonymous calling feature where the caller pays for the call. FULL ARTICLE @ MSNBC

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eHarmony In Major UK Push

NEW MEDIA AGE -- Jan 22 -- eHarmony is to launch a major integrated marketing campaign this month, the first since the dating site launched in the UK last year. eHarmony, which has an estimated US marketing budget of $160m (£114.8m), will launch a search, affiliate and display campaign coupled with a high-profile above-the-line marketing push to generate awareness of the company. FULL ARTICLE @ NEW MEDIA AGE

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Match.com Ramps Up Campaign In UK

PRESS RELEASE -- Jan 22 -- Match.com is set to launch a multimillion pound nationwide advertising push. In 2008 match.com focused on tempting people to try online dating and making it the new natural way to find a partner. For 2009, match.com is focused on further extending its leadership role in the UK. FULL ARTICLE @ RESPONSE SOURCE

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Japanese Must Prove Age

THE MAINICHI DAILY NEWS -- Jan 22 -- Starting Feb. 1, Internet users wishing to join dating sites will have to prove they are 18 or over by sending a digital copy of their driver's license. The requirement is one part of the amended law that went into effect Dec. 1 of last year to regulate dating sites, and comes under the rules of the National Public Safety Commission. Should site operators fail to make the ID checks, authorities will issue a warning. If a site operator continues to ignore the new rules, he or she could face up to six months in prison or a fine of up to 1 million yen. FULL ARTICLE @ THE MAINICHI DAILY NEWS

Love Is Now A Niche Affair

THE NATIONAL -- Jan 22 -- When Saïd Amin started IranianPersonals.com there were few niche sites. Today, sites similar to his make up almost half the market, and they are growing. Mark Brooks, editor of www.onlinepersonalswatch.com, said there are about 14,000 such sites currently online and nearly 43% are niche. This is up from 34% in 2006. Religious and cultural niche sites are particularly popular. At 500,000 members, ArabLounge has become a leading singles site for Arabs in North America and Mr Amin said he expects to expand. Why the popularity of internet dating? For many men, Mr Brooks said, the internet offers a new solution to that old fear: face-to-face rejection. But he also believes the way people meet online is healthier. Then there is travel. Because niche sites tend to have fewer members, Mr Brooks said travel will often be a reality for those serious about meeting someone. "Probably with niche dating, if the person lives way out in the boonies then they're going to have to travel, there're just no two ways about it. One of the key questions for people who use these sites is, 'Am I prepared to travel?' " Mr Brooks said. It was a question Mr Amin had to answer: "Yes." FULL ARTICLE @ THE NATIONAL

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1,600 Dating Sites Registered In Japan

JAPAN TODAY -- Jan 22 -- More than 1,600 dating sites were registered with local public security boards during a period of about one month after a stricter law regulating such websites was introduced, the National Police Agency. The NPA said a total of 432 applications were filed between Dec 1, 2008 and Jan. 5, 2009 to register a total of 1,627 online dating sites. FULL ARTICLE @ JAPAN TODAY

OmniDate Receives Red Herring "Top 100 Global" Award

PRESS RELEASE -- Jan 19 -- OmniDate, developer of a virtual dating application, receives the Red Herring Top 100 Global Companies Award, recognizing most innovative technology companies. Past winners of this prestigious award include Google, Yahoo!, Skype, Salesforce.com, and YouTube. FULL ARTICLE @ FREE PRESS RELEASE

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Too Lazy To Do It?

THE GAZETTE -- Jan 21 -- toolazytodoit.com is open to anybody and it's a place where ideas already implemented could be developed for other markets. It offers users a chance to publish their own ideas, or share the ones they love with others. One of the success stories that has already made it onto the site is that of Markus Frind of plentyoffish.com, who launched a completely free dating website five years ago and now collects ad revenues of $10 million a year. FULL ARTICLE @ WORKING.COM

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WebmasterRadio.FM Launches "Inside Internet Dating"

PRWEB -- Jan 21 -- WebmasterRadio, 24/7 Internet business radio network focused on the B2B marketplace, launched new weekly radio show  "Inside Internet Dating". Inside Internet Dating will feature exclusive interviews with CEOs conducted by show hosts Mark Brooks, the Editor of Online Personals Watch, and the organizer of the Internet Dating Conference, Marc Lesnick. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

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Skout Brings Location-based Dating To The iPhone

VENTURE BEAT -- Jan 21 -- Skout is unveiled it's location-based dating app to the iPhone at the iDate conference in Miami this week. Users load up the app and can see others around them who are also running it. If they see someone they might be compatible with, they can click on their picture to find out more about them, see a stream of their recent activity, look at pictures and comment on items, and live chat with them. FULL ARTICLE @ VENTURE BEAT

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Sugar Daddy Site Discloses Private Chats

SOFTPEDIA -- Jan 21 -- SeekingArrangement.com has been allowing virtually anyone to view the private discussions between its members for the past two years. The security hole has been recently fixed after a reporter contacted the adult social networking website. According to Brian Krebs of Security Fix, who reported the security breach, the vulnerability is exploitable through URL manipulation. FULL ARTICLE @ SOFTPEDIA

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WhiteLabelDating.com Recruiting At iDate 2009

WLD BLOG -- Jan 20 -- WhiteLabelDating will be attending iDate Miami as Platinum Sponsor. They'd like to meet with people who can help them with:
- Growth in USA and Canada
- Partner managers in USA and Canada
- Development support
- Marketing
FULL ARTICLE @ WLD BLOG

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Radio Date™

SAÏD AMIN -- Jan 20 -- PeopleMedia landed a sweet biz dev deal with the syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show. Local radio is huge for reaching African-American consumers and attracts some $805 million/year from marketers. According to ROI Media Soultions/Arbitron (2007), radio leads African Americans' daily time spent with media. FULL ARTICLE @ SAÏD AMIN BLOG

Arthur Radulescu, CEO, ASE Softnet

OPW INTERVIEW -- Jan 20 -- Arthur Radulescu is the CEO and founder of ASE Softnet , the company behind several quite popular internet dating and social networking sites. - Mark Brooks

 

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What is your founding story?
I started working in the internet industry almost 10 years ago. I had almost no idea about computers or programming. I spent the first 3 or 4 years working all the time including weekends, which allowed me to get all the information I needed in order to start my own company.

I had the advantage of discovering the Internet in its early stages. In the last 10 years we've built hundreds of websites including dating and community sites.

What are some of the top internet dating sites that you built?
One of the biggest and I think one of the most known websites, we've worked on few years ago, was a gay dating site Adam4Adam.com. Other websites, we've worked on, were Mary.com, PeopleFishing.com, MyPartner.com and Shopmania.com which is a price comparison and also social shopping community.

Which sites would you say you're most proud of and why?
At this moment the website, I'm most proud of, is Shopmania.com because it combines everything we've learned so far. It's a very large community of users in 25 countries and is translated into 15 languages.

What would you say is your site building philosophy?
I think we can always do better than what we did last time. With every new site we build, we try to bring in something new and this helps us to evolve. Also it's important for us to work on some challenging websites that require interesting and complex solutions.

What are the main building blocks? What are the main technologies that you like to use?
We're using PHP, Perl and MySQL. We're also developing on Oracle. But what we like using most is PHP, Perl. It's very fast and reliable.

What do you do better than your competition?
We're not only doing programming, we offer programming consulting services. We've built so many websites and have some very good knowledge with internationalization and localization, adapting the software to different languages and regional differences. Even though it seems easy, it's not. We have a very powerful mechanism that we developed for creating multi-language websites. There are many problems that can appear when you develop an international website starting with computer text and coding, formatting of numbers, writing directions from left to right or from right to left that could cause problems in design.

What proportion of your business now would you say is social networking and internet dating related?
It's about 50%.

How is business now? The climate has changed a bit so have you seen things move in any direction?
We still have enough clients and I would not consider this a significant crisis. I think things are going to change in the next year and we'll get back to normal. On the other hand, I think in such periods you have the opportunity to develop a new business because the competition is less significant.

I must say your pricing has been extremely competitive in the past. What would you charge for building a dating site like Date.com?
It's hard to say. It really depends on the requirements. You need to consider more and you can't build a website like Date.com from the first step. A website like this gets developed in time. There is a first version, then a second version and then it will improve. The website will need millions of users and this can't happen in a month.

Say if you had 6 months to work on a site, what kind of ball park price would you say?
I would say from $30,000 to $50,000. But again we build the first version and then improve it. You can't launch a perfect website. You need to understand this because this needs to be added to your marketing strategies. You have to wait 3 or 4 months to get the best conversion, to see the website is perfect and then okay you can put money into advertising.

The dating industry seems to be doing quite well right now surprisingly or not surprisingly really if you think about it. On the one hand, we were concerned about the slump and people bailing on their memberships but on the other hand it still represents a pretty good deal. So business is up.

There's Money In Mobile Dating Services

TECH CRUNCH -- Jan 19 -- According to Juniper Research the value of the mobile dating and chatroom market will grow to nearly $1.4 billion by 2013, and also pegs the total UGC market to reach $7.3 billion by the same time. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

Jobless, Lovelorn Rush To Network

CRAIN'S NEW YORK BUSINESS -- Jan 18 -- For the last four months of 2008, LinkedIn, which has 1.4 million members in New York state, reported an 11% increase in the number of connections made between users, a 10% boost in invites sent among members and a 9% uptick in page views. Facebook reached 150m+ active users earlier this month. Interactive One, which operates BlackPlanet.com, AsianAvenue.com and MiGente.com, has seen a 12% jump in uniques. Sign-ups from New York state residents on Lavalife.com were down 13% until the stock market meltdown, according to Marina Glogovac, CEO of Lavalife. New York membership increased 7% each month from the beginning of the 3rd quarter through the end of 2008. Although OKCupid met its goal of reaching $2m in revenue last year, Mr. Yagan admits that his site is vulnerable to a declining ad market. FULL ARTICLE @ CRAIN NEW YORK BUSINESS

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