OPW - Feb 16 - The Plentyoffish.com team have been busy with their Portugese. Here's the top ten dating site rankings in Brazil. POF is in the top spot now.
| Unique Visitors | |||
| 1. | POF Sites | 1,078 | |
| 2. | C-Date | 785 | |
| 3. | MSN Dating & Personals | 755 | |
| 4. | Meetic-Match | 607 | |
| 5. | be2 GmbH | 558 | |
| 6. | Chifrevirtual.com.br | 488 | |
| 7. | Twoo.com | 484 | |
| 8. | Baixocidade.com.br | 396 | |
| 9. | 1001 Cartas de Amor | 242 | |
| 10. | eHarmony.com.br | 147 |
(Source: Comscore)
HERALD SUN - Feb 16 - The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is acting on online dating scams after receiving more than 2100 complaints in 2011. Australians were cheated out of $21M by online dating scams last year, up from $15M in 2010. The ACCC has released guidelines that call on dating websites to clearly issue warnings and information about fraudsters as well as publishing examples of scams.
See full article at Herald Sun
Mark Brooks: The ACCC is very active on the issue of scamming in Australia. The Aussie idating industry and the ACCC formed these guidelines for dating sites. Should dating sites in the USA and UK (and beyond) do similar?
INDIA TIMES - Feb 3 - Matchmaking portal BharatMatrimony.com has filed a complaint against Google in the Competition Commission of India, citing discriminatory trade practices related to its AdWords program. The AdWords program is Google's main source of revenue, whereby it sells keywords to advertisers and displays them in the form of ads online. Google earned about 96% of its total revenues of $38 billion from ads, last year. As per sources, BharatMatrimony has filed the complaint on the issue of keywords relating to its websites being sold to rival parties such as Shaadi.com, and Jeevansaathi.com.
See full article at Economic Times
See all posts on BharatMatrimony
See all posts on Shaadi
See all posts on Jeevansathi
TNW – Jan 19 – Founded in April 2011, I-um is an online dating service that has seen incredible success in the last seven months. Because it’s still popular practice in Korean culture to feel pressured into getting married as one gets older, young people are often set up on blind dates by family and friends instead of meeting singles on their own. I-um is primarily aimed at students and adults aged 20-39 and introduces users to one new person each day. If the interest is mutual, contact details are exchanged so they can begin talking. Since January 2011, users have increased from 40,000 to 190,000, a 375% increase. The site has also seen a revenue boost of 87%, and some 20 couples have already been married as a result of meeting through I-um.
PENN OLSEN - Jan 17 - China dating app U+ (Youja.cn) has secured $3m USD series A funding from VC funds at UMC Capital, The9 and World Trend Ventures. The funds will be used to improve service speed and grow membership further. U+ was set up by serial entrepreneurs who previously founded business social network Wealink.com and Mobile Software developer Vogins.
by Willis Wee
See full article at Penn Olsen
Mark Brooks: One to watch. Youja has a strong founder pedigree and is inspired by the best of the mobile dating apps in the West. Especially Skout, Flirtomatic and Badoo.
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
HINDUSTAN TIMES - Jan 13 - Shaadi.com got inspired by the now-legendary game Angry Birds and launched a Facebook game called Angry Brides. They have launched the game in the effort of creating awareness and discouraging the practice of dowry in India.
by Shayon Pal
See full article at Hindustan Times
OPW INTERVIEW - Jan 11 - Johnny Du runs 51taonan. Turns out, the Chinese like free dating as much as the West. Here's Johnny's story. - Mark Brooks
What's the founding story?
51taonan was founded in January 2011 in China. We wanted to leverage from the significant business opportunities in the online dating industry in China. There's no major free dating site in China and so we wanted to take and own that position in China. Currently most dating site in China are paid dating sites. The first year has been very successful with high rates of user acquisition, and a reasonable conversion from registered users to active users. In less than two years, without much marketing 51taonan has gained over 3.5 million registered users. In May this year, we were the first dating company in China to introduce a location based mobile internet dating service, which supports smart phones such as Android, IOS, Symbian, blackberry. Now we have over 250K mobile internet users.
We're now the No.1 free dating site in China. Overall, in China, we're ranked the No.4 dating site, after JiaYuan, Baihe and Zhenai.
Would you say you’re the Plentyoffish of China?
POF is currently the No.1 free dating site in North America and UK. We're the No.1 free dating site in China in terms of the status in the market, so yes its fair to say we're the POF of China.
How is 51taonan different from POF?
POF is a very successful and mature company. We like the POF business model and want to duplicate its successes into China. However, we're a pretty young startup company with serveral million users.
We're still exploring ways to monetize. We want to learn from POF and all other successful free dating companies. Our ultimate goal is to provide a totally free dating services to Chinese users in a successful way.
What does the name 51taonan mean?
The numbers 5 and 1, means I want. Tao means find and get. Then nan means man. So 51taonan means I want to find/get a man. Women find this amusing and seem to like it a lot.
How fast is 51taonan growing?
We have about 100K users signing up at our site each month. We're seeing the hottest growth coming from mobile internet as well as 2nd and 3rd tier cities in China.
How are you monetizing?
Right now, advertising is the major source of our income. We're also looking for any other innovative ways to monetize.
Are you looking for funding?
Yes, absolutely! In order to continue our growth, we're looking for outside investment, with a focus on 'smart money.'
(Disclosure: 51taonan and POF are clients of Courtland Brooks)
THE STREET - Jan 6 - Jiayuan.com is a very popular dating site in China. However, like most of the Chinese Internet space, the shares have been pummeled recently, falling by more than 70% from 2011 highs. RenRen, which many investors felt would bottom out at $5.00, now trades at just over $3.00. On Dec. 21, Jiayuan hit an all-time low of $5.50, prompting management to announce a share buyback program of up to $10M. The share price immediately jumped as much as 20% to over $6.50. However, the initial enthusiasm has proven to be short lived and the share price has drifted back down to the $5 to $6 range once again.
KOREA HERALD - Jan 3 - A revision to the Law on the Management of Marriage Agencies was among the scores of bills that passed the National Assembly on the last few days of 2011. The revised law contained provisions to punish marriage brokers introducing women under the age of 18 and introducing two or more women to an applicant at the same time with up to three years in jail and a maximum fine of 20M won. The law requires notarization of documents providing the personal data of Korean men seeking foreign brides and raised the punishment for running an unregistered marriage brokerage business to a maximum five years’ imprisonment and 50M won in fines from three years and 20M won. As of the end of 2010, 1,253 agencies were registered with the authorities for local and overseas business. Over 30,000 international marriages are reported each year.
PENN OLSON - Dec 15 - Starting today, the Chinese dating website Baihe.com is requiring new users to register their real name upon signup, which will be verified by also inputting their national ID card number. It raises the prospect of privacy concerns and potential ID theft that might be off-putting to some people. But BaiHe – which means ‘Lily’ in English – will have presumably considered that this move might actually be reassuring to users who are looking to meet genuine candidates for marriage (which is the main purpose of the site, not ‘dating’ as such).
BEST OF RENCONTRE - Nov 30 - Match.com and Zhenai.com are collaborating in order to expand in a country, where a site like Jiayuan.com, founded in 2003, totals more than 50 millions members. Match.com now owns 20% of Zhenai's shares, website that amounts to 30 millions users. It will however be necessary to adapt advertising campaigns, fees and functionalities in order to accommodate their future members.
by Rébecca Lazzerini
See the full article at Best of Rencontre (in French)
See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on Zhenai
See all posts on Jiayuan.com
Q: You recently made your first trip to India. What were your impressions?
Adam Sachs: It was unbelievable. I’ve done a lot of traveling in my life, but nothing really compared to the entirely different world that India is.
Q: You traveled to India to establish a physical presence for Ignighter. Can you tell us a little bit about the site?
A: Ignighter is a group dating site. Which means that you and your friends create a profile together. You find another group and you all go out on a group date. The idea is that it’s a safer, less awkward, more fun approach to online dating.
Q: How did Ignighter take off in India?
A: Over 2009 and into 2010, while we were focusing on markets like New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, we would go into our analytics and see that places like India and Malaysia and Singapore and Indonesia were just growing like crazy. At first we thought, that’s interesting, but it’s not our focus. So we ignored it. The growth continued and it started to get to the point where we decided we were going to optimize our site for these markets.
Q: What do you think you were doing right in India?
A: I think the group dating model is right fro India.
Q: Can you also give us some of your impressions about the entrepreneurship ecosystem in India?
A: I think it’s just starting to take off.
Q: Is there now a lot of support around entrepreneurs who do take the plunge?
A: Absolutely. I met with a lot of great VCs.
Q: What’s your future plan in India for Ignighter?
A: Our future plan is to continue to understand what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong. We’re in the process of opening an office in Mumbai and hiring people.
Q: Who is Ignighter's target customer in India?
A: Our average age on the site is between 23 and 24
Q: From a management perspective, what do you see as your main challenge in India going forward?
A: I think operating a company on two sides of the world is going to be a challenge. India is by far our biggest market and our primary concern. But it’s also not our only market. We have had success and we’re having a lot of early successes in other markets.
BRIMBANK WEEKLY - Nov 24 - Online dating no longer has the stigma it once had or is seen as a last resort. For many, it’s the first place they turn to as the more conventional means to meet their match. Australia’s first online dating site RSVP has recently celebrated its 15th birthday. They had ~1.8M members and ~8000 marriages and 900 babies from people who had met on the site. Speed dating is also taking off. Justin Parfitt, owner of Fast Impressions, started his company in 2002. Events include nights for people who like literature, travel and trivia, particular religions and can also cater to same sex relationships and even psychical preferences — such as tall men, slender women and nationalities.
PR NEWSWIRE - Nov 18 - Flirt.com's Android App is now available in the USA and Australia. Flirt.com's app offers:
- Location-based search
- Alerts and notifications
- Chat rooms and more
THE NATIONAL - Nov 19 - ~60% of residents in the UAE would not trust the internet dating to find a possible partner, a survey has found. Technology moves very fast, however tradition changes very slowly in UAE. 71% said they would trust the internet to pay bills, and 61% would use it to voice their opinion about social news. Asians showed greater acceptance of online dating. Four in five (82%) Asian respondents thought it was socially acceptable to find a partner online.
by Manal Ismail
See full article at The National
PR NEWSWIRE - Nov 20 - Cupid has now expanded ClickandFlirt.com to Australia and Canada. This latest launch is in response to the success of Cupid's other brands; including BeNaughty.com, Cupid.com, GirlsDateForFree.com and Flirt.com have already seen in the Australian and Canadian markets (currently ~3M active members).
PR NEWSWIRE - Nov 18 - Net revenues for Q3 '11 were RMB90.9M (US$14.3M), a YOY increase of 84.5%. Operating income was RMB21.5M (US$3.4M), a YOY increase of 132.4%. Jiayuan had 5,560,387 average monthly active user accounts during the quarter, compared to 4,201,952 in the corresponding period in 2010. The number of average monthly paying user accounts in the third quarter of 2011 was 1,250,439, almost double the 649,250 average monthly paying user accounts recorded in the corresponding period in 2010.
VANCOUVER SUN - Nov 14 - On a sunny day on the outskirts of Shanghai on Sunday, 20,000 hopeful, curious and in some cases desperate Chinese gathered for the world's largest dating event. At least a third of the attendees were parent. For China's bachelors, the obligation to buy their brides a marital home weighs heavily. The government has tinkered with the law to dissuade women from marrying for money, rather than love, but there was little sign on Sunday that the message had sunk in. For many couples, the money for the house and car comes from the parents, giving those wandering the fair plenty of influence when it comes to picking their in-laws.
JAPAN TIMES - Nov 1 - The number of unmarried people is on the rise and Japan continues to be troubled by a low birthrate and an aging society. According to the internal affairs ministry's 2010 data, 71% of men aged between 25 and 29 were single. Also, in 2010, 46.5% of those between 30 and 34 and 34.6% aged between 35 and 39 were also unmarried. Meanwhile, single women are also on the increase. Does the rise in singles mean more people don't want to wed? No. According to 2005 data by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research on singles, it shows that ~90% of all men and women want to marry at some point. According to a 2006 survey taken by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the estimated matchmaking market size was ¥50 billion-¥60 billion with 600,000 single male and female clients. More business-oriented omiai agencies have emerged, including Zenkoku Nakodo Rengokai, which was set up in 1970 and currently has 1K matchmakers nationwide.
EHARMONY LABS - Oct 28 - People are delaying marriage. In Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, the mean age for marriage is 29-30 for women, 31-33 for men. The percentage of those never married before age 40 has been on the rise. Educated women are less likely to marry. This is the opposite trend compared to those in the US and Europe, where marriage is more common among those more educated.
by Erina Lee
See full article at eHarmony Labs
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