Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Double Your Success With Virtual Gifts

DATEHOOKUP BLOG - Mar 8 - Not sending virtual gifts is a huge mistake. According to stats from DateHookup people who sent a gift with their message were nearly twice as likely to receive a reply than those who did not send a gift. 26% of messages that include a gift get a reply vs. only 14% of messages that don’t include a gift. A gift stands out a lot more than a regular old message. And those who stand out always get more attention. Another reason they work is because people appreciate a nice gesture.

 FULL ARTICLE @ DATEHOOKUP BLOG

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Internet Dating Industry Weekly News Nov 19th, 2009 - 4 mins

This is the news for the week of November 6th through November 12th, 2009. We hope you enjoy the new weekly news format. Please follow this link to enjoy the high-resolution version. Here is the news we covered for this week:

• October Online Dating Rankings from Hitwise
• Earnings Reports from Spark Networks and Meetic
• Number of Senior Online Daters on the Rise
• Interview with Steve Odom, founder of Gelato

Single Shot: How To Be A Cheap Date

SEATLE PI -- Oct 10 -- Dating in the New Improved Depression means learning to make do with the simple things in life, the things we've been blathering about for 30 years: long walks on the beach, snuggling in front of a fire and enjoying The Sunday New York Times. Free personal sites are one of the hottest new trends in online dating, according to Mark Brooks, editor of Onlinepersonalswatch.com. The top three contenders, as ranked by Hitwise, are Plentyoffish, DateHookup and OkCupid, but there are many more, including HOT or NOT, Webdate, Matchdoctor, Bookofmatches and Smooch. FULL ARTICLE @ SEATTLE PI

See all posts on PlentyofFish    See all posts on Webdate
See all posts on DateHookup    See all posts on Matchdoctor
See all posts on OkCupid          See all posts on BookofMatches
See all posts on HotorNot         See all posts on Smooch

Top 5 Free Dating Sites

OPW -- June 17 -- It seems that there are more free dating sites starting than paid these days, but I can't help thinking that the growth of Plentyoffish.com is somewhat of an anomaly.
Here's the line up of the top 5 free dating sites on Compete (by visits).

And on Quantcast  (Both Compete and Quantcast just measure USA traffic). 

I thought DateHookup was going to give Markus a run for his money but it seems their growth ran short of steam last month. Still, POF continues to surge as Markus chews on the UK market. I work for Markus and I've still not figured out how he does it. The answer I give is, POF has grown largely because 'it works.' They don't send bogus winks, or deny people access until they sign up. Dud profiles are kicked off the system regularly so there's less chaff for users to dig through before they get to the wheat. And the site is simple a la Craigslist (with the addition of ads).* Customer service is non-existant on the site, but its so darn simple, there's not an awful lot to need explaining, and because POF it's free there's no billing related issues to deal with.  Can anyone stop this juggernaut? Google could, of course. But the dating industry would immediately stop its Adwords spends then, right!  Your comments please. (Disclosure: POF is a client of Courtland Brooks) - Mark Brooks

*Talking of Craigslist, I worked with another site run by a one man band (hi Rob!) in 1999, called Hypermatch.com. We had a deal on the table with Craigslist for it to become the personals section on Craigslist.  There were two stipulations, we weren't to make money from memberships, or from advertising. We were stumped, so the site was sold to EZboard who slowly killed it off.

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DateHookup.com To Offer Demographic Targeting To Advertisers

EMEDIAWIRE -- Feb 19 -- DateHookup.com now offers advertisers the ability to target its ad inventory by specific demographics, including age range and gender, thanks to Google's new demographic bidding feature. Google's demographic targeting feature recently entered beta testing. FULL ARTICLE @ EMEDIA WIRE

 Mark Brooks: Here's a comparison of DateHookup.com and Plentyoffish using Compete.com. Both sites are growing gangbusters. DateHookup.com, like Plentyoffish, is also run by one person. Plentyoffish also offers ad targeting via Google Adsense. Direct advertising deals for top tier dating sites are available on Plentyoffish now, btw. (Full Disclosure: Plentyoffish is a client of Courtland Brooks)

The Hottest Trends In Online Dating

NETWORK WORLD -- Feb 7 -- No one knows online dating better than Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. Brooks is a modern-day Cyrano -- he's a consultant to many of the Web's largest online dating sites as well as traditional matchmaking services. Network World interviewed Brooks about the hottest trends in online dating.

Q:How many online dating services are there?
MB: Hitwise has estimated there are 800-plus. I think that's about right for the U.S. A lot of them are affiliate sites that are driving traffic to the main dating sites.

Q: How has online dating affected traditional matchmaking services?
MB: Internet dating has warmed an entire generation of users to the prospect of getting help in dating and paying for that help.

Q: What new technologies are you are seeing in online dating?
MB: One of the biggest innovations is avatar-based instant messaging. One site that's pioneering the use of avatars is OmniDate.com. Another emerging technology is iovation, which helps online dating sites battle fraud. With iovation's Reputation Manager, one dating site can flag a person as abusive and throw them out and then let other sites in the online dating community know about it.

Q: How has online dating technology changed in recent years?
MB: Actually, online dating is in about the same place that it has been in for the last three years. One of the things I'd like to see is more technology being applied to personality profiling. In this area there are four companies worth mentioning: Perfectmatch.com; eHarmony.com; Chemistry.com; and True.com.

Q: Have social networkings like Facebook and MySpace cut into online dating traffic?
MB: The numbers show that less people are coming to Internet dating sites. According to ComScore the number of people who came to Internet dating sites in December 2007 was down 10% over the prior year. But I don't think it's the end of online dating. I think the lookilous have gone away.

Q:What are the hottest trends in online dating?
MB: One is the rise in Baby Boomers and also rise of free dating sites, such as Plentyoffish.com, DateHookup.com, OkCupid.com, Matchdoctor.com, Bookofmatches.com, Smooch.com and CrazyBlindDate.com.

Q: What do you see as the future of online dating?
MB: It's difficult to enter the market and be a large generic dating site at this stage. The only thing you can build today is a niche dating site, and even niches are hard to build. That's why we're seeing the rise of a bunch of companies that offer white-label dating services. One of these companies is Whitelabeldating.com.
FULL ARTICLE @ NEWORK WORLD

Personalization at DateHookup.com

PR WEB -- Nov 29 -- DateHookup.com attempts to break the mold of traditional dating services by introducing a host of new personalization features. Users can now completely customize the look and feel of their profile by editing the actual HTML and CSS code. Every member gets a personal address, for example: http://www.datehookup.com/ddogg.  RELEASE @ PR WEB