Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

For The Best ROI, Try A Niche Dating Site

DAILY FINANCE - Feb 14 - Niche dating sites, a rapidly growing segment of the online matchmaking industry, are one way to go. Niche sites accounted for 23% of the online dating market in 2008, says Eric Resnick, director of strategy for Courtland Brooks, a marketing and consultancy firm to the online dating industry, and the owner of ProfileHelper.com, which helps people write online dating profiles. And they're up to 29% now, he says, quoting figures from Experian Hitwise. Dating experts say niche sites can better help daters zero in on what they are looking for. MarryMeAlready.com is geared toward folks in search of a permanent partner; OurTime.com (for people 50+); GreenSingles.com is for green-conscious people; Alikewise.com is for bookworms; and others. Then there sites such as Badoo or Twoo.com that are hybrid between an online dating site and a Facebookesque social network offers a free mobile app with new "interests" and "ice breaker" features.

by Barbara Thau
See full article at Daily Finance

See all posts on OurTime                See all posts on Badoo
See all posts on GreenSingles         See all posts on Twoo.com
See all posts on Alikewise

All 2012 Valentine's Day News

Badoo: Social Dating

NPR MARKETPLACE - Feb 10 - Social networks got popular and we got much more comfortable sharing our personal lives online so much that entrepreneurs are now latching onto our social networks to create social dating sites like Badoo.com. Broadcasting your private life is key to Badoo’s success. Sites like eHarmony spend millions of dollars on advertising to attract new users. Badoo doesn’t have to. Its users spread the word. Mark Brooks, a consultant to the online dating industry: "Yes they’re not paying so much to acquire users. In fact in many cases they’re not paying anything". The company says it’s on track to take in $150M a year.

 

by Sally Herships
See full article at NPR Marketplace

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Badoo: A Very Social Network

WSJ - Jan 24 - Badoo isn’t well known in the U.K. or U.S. but the service is big in France, Italy, Spain and Brazil and operates in 180 countries. Russian-born serial entrepreneur Andrey Andreev founded the service as a run-of-the-mill social network in 2006. Badoo, he says, is like a nightclub on your phone. The most popular age group is 25-34 years old, although one-third of users are over 35. This latter group spends the most money. It has 7 billion page views a month, and ~1 million users online at any time. The company is profitable and did one round of funding. $30 million from Finam for 10% of the company. It has 200+ employees.

by Ben Rooney
See full article at WSJ

See all posts on Badoo

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

How Badoo Got 130 Million People And $100M In Revenue

TECH CRUNCH - Dec 6 - Badoo has recently reached 130M registered users and now brings in $100M a year. Badoo would be the 4th biggest social network if it was just a social network. But Badoo adapts to the local needs of its international user base. In the UK it’s used for casual dating, in the Czech Republic it’s a marriage site, and in Indonesia burqa-clad women find self-expression on the site. While it can be tempting to gate some crucial features behind a pay wall, Badoo decided to make all of its core functionality free. While it was growing to a scale where it could support itself, Badoo took $30M in funding. Now it doesn’t need to take additional funding rounds. To reach its $100M in yearly revenues, though, Badoo lets users pay to be more visible and learn who they should try to start a conversation with.

by Josh Constine
See the full article at Tech Crunch

See all posts on Badoo

Seeking Fun, No Privacy Attached

THE SUNDAY TIMES - Dec 4 - Users of Badoo.com can now check which of their friends have joined up using their email address. Facebook users are automatically informed which of their friends are on Badoo. The site also gives a visitor the option of checking their email contacts list to see which are Badoo members. In a 2009 study Joseph Bonneau and Soren Preibusch, researchers at Cambridge University, ranked Badoo worst for privacy out of 45 social websites, with a score of only 23%. MySpace scored marginally better with 28%, while Facebook and LinkedIn scored 53% and 70% respectively. Mark Brooks, a consultant specialising in online dating, said Badoo’s relaxed approach to privacy was a sign of the times: “One of the distinguishing features of dating sites has always been privacy. But there are advantages to people knowing who you are. The best way to meet people is through friends of friends — social dating — and that’s what Badoo is trying to emulate. This is the future. “Yes, it’s an erosion of privacy, but the younger demographic don’t care so much. Badoo is for people who are a bit less concerned about privacy.”

by Jonathan Leake
See full article at The Sunday Times (the article is behind paywall)

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Badoo Has 130 Million Users

MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE - Nov 4 - Badoo claims to be the 4th largest social network in the world. Russian owned and London-based, Badoo is available in 35 languages in 180 countries on the web, and also as an iPhone, Android, Facebook and Blackberry app. Badoo has 130M members, up 62% compared to the last year.

by Tim Green
See full article at Mobile Entertainment Magazine

See all posts on Badoo

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

Badoo: No Dating Services for Now

ITPRO PORTAL - Oct 7 - Badoo, one of the world's largest social networks, has grown to 127.5M members in five years. It is still growing at the rate of 4M members a month. Facebook managed to add 20M members per month over the last year alone. As for traffic, Badoo has 46M active users. Only 60% of users on Badoo were aged 25-44 with a sizable portion coming from Generation X. Badoo doesn't have any immediate plans to launch non-core services like ecommerce features (a la Groupon) or a dating service which could dovetail nicely with the existing offering not unlike what another rival - Plentyoffish.com - is trying to achieve. 

by Desire Athow
See full article at ITPro Portal

Mark Brooks: Badoo used to be more defined as a dating site. They changed their position. Now they're a friends discovery site. Facebook is more about staying in touch with people you already know. 

See all posts on Badoo
See all posts on Plentyoffish

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

The Secret Social Network Site Hooking up Millions Nearby

THE TIMES - Sep 5 - Badoo is a cross between a dating site and a social network, but is better known as the web's premier "hook-up service". It is most popular in Spain, other parts of Europe and throughout South America. Whereas social networks such as Facebook revolve around existing friends, Badoo concentrates on connections to strangers. Dating sites match people through their interests, but Badoo is mainly about proximity, as its app for smartphones reveals nearby users. The service is free to join and makes money through add-ons, or "superpowers" in the site's jargon.

by Murad Ahmed
See full article at The Australian

See all posts on Badoo

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

Badoo COO on Social Network Dating

STRATEGY EYE - Aug 19 - Badoo describes itself as a ‘meeting network’, enabling users to find, chat and flirt with each other online. Here, COO Bart Swanson talks competition in the social networking space.
                    
Q: How do you stand out from other social networking sites?
A: We don’t believe there’s a social network out there that’s in the meeting network space. Dating sites are after people who are looking for serious relationships; Facebook is the place where you go to meet with your existing friends. 

Q: What platforms are you available on?
A: We have our own platform. We have an app on Facebook. We’re also on mobile. iPhone, Android and a WAP site. iPhone is the biggest and we see 2M downloads. 

Q: What is your business model?
A: Badoo is first and foremost a free service. We have two ways in which we monetize. By customers who pay for subscriptions, getting various added services such as advanced search. The other part is premium one-offs. For example, you can promote yourself. We have been profitable for the last 24 months. 

Q: You’ve raised $30M in VC funding. Are you looking to raise more cash?
A: We’re trying to figure it out right now. The company does not need any cash for expansion.

Q: What do you think is the hottest trend in digital media right now?
A: Location-based services on mobile

by Sarah Vizard
See full article at Strategy Eye

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Badoo: Social Networking & Dating & Location Based Service

THE NEXT WEB - July 17 - For microblogging, there’s Twitter, whilst Facebook is where you keep in touch with friends. LinkedIn is best kept for business acquaintances. Google+ seems to straddle a line somewhere between Facebook and LinkedIn and it’s too early to say on which side it will eventually fall. What about SNS for people you don’t know? This is where the story of Badoo begins. Badoo was launched in London in 2006 by Russian serial entrepreneur Andrei Andreyev. His other ventures include SpyLog, Begun and Mamba. There’s a good chance you associate Badoo with dating, but this is an image the company is feverishly attempting to rid itself of. There’s two reasons. Online dating still has some negative associations. And secondly, not everyone is necessarily interested in dating – some people simply want to meet new people. You go to Badoo and connect with others in the area. It could be for drinks, dancing or a game. Today Badoo has 121M members in 180 countries, a turnover of ~$100M.

by Paul Sawers
See full article at The Next Web

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Badoo Is Facebook’s Fastest Growing Application

ALL FACEBOOK - June 26 - Badoo is claiming the top spot on this week’s fastest growing applications list. Dating applications make a tremendous impression on this week’s countdown.

The Week’s Fastest Growing Dating Apps On Facebook
Name        Daily Active Users     Monthly Active Users     Weekly Growth
1. Badoo     3,095,520                   33,156,471                 5,794,887
6. Amor         679,127                     8,369,702                 1,904,952
8. YouLike      321,740                    3,454,530                 1,560,244
14. Cupid       497,183                    8,788,709                    921,046

by Brian Ward
See full article at All Facebook

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Badoo Built A Billion-pound Social Network... On Sex

WIRED.CO.UK - Apr 25 - - Apr 25 - Badoo is a 120M-member social network that's adding ~300K users a day. Its Facebook's fastest-growing app, with 570K new daily users, making it the 3rd biggest app, after FarmVille and CityVille. Still barely registering in Britain or the US, the free network is a mass phenomenon in Brazil (14.1M members), Mexico (9M), France (8.2M), Spain (6.5M) and Italy (6M). Andrey Andreev founded Badoo and highly profitable Russian internet businesses: Mamba, SpyLog, Begun. Badoo launched in 2006 in Spain, where Andreev was living, as a photo-sharing site. The site wasn't generating revenue, but was growing sharply. In 2008, Andreev refocused the site on meeting new people. He introduced premium services. You could pay a dollar or euro to "rise up" the search results. In 2009, the site had 48M users and 20% were paying to boost their profile. Badoo Mobile launched on the iPhone and Android and was downloaded 1.5M times in 8 months. Forbes Russia put Andreev in the top 30 successful businessmen in Russia.

by David Rowan
See full article at Wired

Mark Brooks: $2 billion! Kthud! (fell off chair). There's hope and money and prospects left in the idating industry yet. ;-)

See all posts on Badoo

A New Kind Of Love Story

AD WEEK - May 3 - Not so long ago, you’d assume that a girl alone at a bar on a Friday night, furiously thumbing her smartphone, had been stood up. Now, thanks to apps like meetMoi NOW, SinglesAroundMe, and Skout, she could just be planning her evening’s assignation. While dating sites sift and sort according to compatibility, apps pre-screen for something else: instant availability. There’s another name for the inefficiency these apps eliminate: courtship. They might dance around it, but what the apps are really offering is the ability to order up sex on demand. One of the pioneering location-based apps is Grindr. Launched in 2009, it allows gay men to locate other nearby users. It claims ~1M users. The developers of Badoo, Facebook’s fastest-growing third-party app, liken its ambiance to a club. Friend.ly makes the search for love a more convivial experience by quizzing users about friends and interests. It has ~4M monthly active users. Among the newer apps is Singlesquare, a Foursquare offshoot launched in Jan.

by Hephzibah Anderson
See full article at Ad Week

Mark Brooks: Finally, location aware apps are gaining significant traction. Facebook has driven people to be more willing to share private info. The tech is now mature. Apple has driven the smart phone into ubiquity. iDating will morph considerably now.

(Full Disclosure: Friend.ly is a former client of Courtland Brooks)

See all posts on MeetMoi                  See all posts on Badoo
See all posts on SinglesAroundMe     See all posts on Friend.ly
See all posts on Skout                      See all posts on Singlesquare
See all posts on Grindr

Badoo: Global Online Dating Sensation

INDEPENDENT.CO.UK - Apr 12 - Badoo, the social network that replaces the supposed romance of online dating with instant hook-ups based on physical attraction, is now gaining some ground in the UK. Although the service is run from London, its current membership of 113M consists predominantly of users in Brazil, Spain, France and Italy and 300K people join daily. The site was founded in 2006 by now very rich Russian businessman, Andrey Andreev. The killer feature driving Badoo's success is location.

See full article at Independent.co.uk

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Badoo: Fastest Growing App On Facebook

FINANCIAL TIMES - Mar 20 - Badoo, a “social dating” service that helps people to meet new friends online, has become one of the fastest-growing apps on Facebook, this week overtaking Zynga’s popular Farmville game in terms of user numbers. The service is little-known in English-speaking countries, but has become very popular in continental Europe and Latin America, where millions of people use it for online flirting, often leading to offline encounters. “Facebook is about my friends. Badoo is about meeting and discovering other people,” says Bart Swanson, a former Amazon executive who joined Badoo as its COO in September. Badoo, founded in Spain in 2006 by Andrei Andreyev, a Russian entrepreneur, now has its headquarters in London. Badoo's Facebook app now has ~50M monthly active users, according to AppData, adding 1M people every day.

by Tim Bradshaw
See full article at Financial Times

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Athens Ranked As Most Flirtatious City By Badoo.com

REUTERS - Mar 1 - Athens topped a “World Flirtation League,” which ranked cities by the number of online flirtations initiated per month by the average user in each on Badoo.com. Moscow came second, while Rome placed 8th and Madrid 31st, Paris 38th, London 57th, Berlin 79th, and New York 89th in the study of nearly 200 cities across the world in which Badoo analysed 12M flirtatious contacts made during a month, with 108M users chatting and flirting in 180 countries.

by Paul Casciato
See full article at Vancouver Sun

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Does Online Flirting Predict Offline Revolution?

PR NEWSWIRE - Feb 17 - While researching something else entirely, Badoo has discovered evidence of a striking correlation between online flirting and offline protest. "We were compiling a league table of the most flirtatious cities in each continent," explains Lloyd Price, Badoo's Director of Marketing, "ranking cities by the number of online flirtations initiated per month by their average Badoo user." Interestingly enough, the most flirtatious African city Tunis. Cairo was Africa's third most flirtatious city. And Africa's 2nd most flirtatious city is Algiers. One answer might simply be age. Badoo's users in North Africa are predominantly "Generation Y", in their twenties and thirties, like those spearheading the protests. And these protesters are wired. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS INSIDER

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Social Media Sites May Be Ready For Romance

CNBC - Feb 8 - Dating has always been a “social” activity, but could social networks win over the dating crowd? “To some degree the answer is yes,” says Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at the NPD Group. Social networking could solve many of the complaints of traditional dating sites he says. “It can be almost like a full time jon", says Cohen. “People need to weed through the potential matches and that’s a big investment of time.” Facebook could have an advantage over dating sites, because love can be found when you’re not even looking for it. And then there are the companies that are adding the love element. The Facebook app Are you Interested reportedly has ~13M users, which rivals the number of users for Match.com and eHarmony. This month Badoo.com announced that it has passed 100M users, mixing social networking and online dating. FULL ARTICLE @ CNBC

See all posts on Badoo              See all posts on AreYouInterested
See all posts on Match.com       See all posts on eHarmony

Badoo Has Reached The 100 Million User Mark

MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT - Jan 26 – Social dating company Badoo has reached the 100 million user mark with 300,000 new users per day. The four year-old start-up is a global, multi-lingual, location-based, social dating network, focused on chatting, flirting and meeting new people. Badoo is available in 180 countries and its site receives 7 billion page views per month. Badoo's Facebook app is used by over 23 million people per month and ranks seventh in the top 10 of all Facebook apps. “The first and biggest shift is from ‘marital dating’ to ‘social dating’ or casual dating”, says Bart Swanson, Badoo's COO. FULL ARTICLE @ MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT

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Badoo.com Reaches Top 10 Facebook Apps, Now Largest Facebook Dating App

SOURCEWIRE - Jan 17 – Badoo's meteoric rise to the top was fueled by an impressive 370% increase in users over the holiday season, gaining nearly 14 M users in less than 4 weeks. The 4 year old start-up based in Soho, London has surpassed Are YOU Interested? by SNAP Interactive, Pet Society by Electronics Arts and Quiz Planet by CrowdStar to claim the number 7 spot in Facebook Apps. The app is gaining 300,000 new users a day. With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, Social Media Industry analysts are suggesting 28 million monthly users and a Top 5 Facebook App rating is in the company's near future. FULL ARTICLE @ SOURCEWIRE

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