Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Modern Dating Offers Innovative Ways To Meet New People

SOUTH UNIVERSITY - Feb 5 - Janis Spindel of Serious Matchmaking, says her business has gone up by 62% since shows such as Bravo’s The Millionaire Matchmaker have made her matchmaking services better known. Spindel goes to breakfast, lunch, or dinner every day of the week with a different potential client. She takes note of behaviors such as good eye contact. Spindel’s clients are all men, ranging in age from 27 to 78 years old. She describes them as very well-educated, upscale, professional, awesome men. In order to find matches for her clients, Spindel accepts applications through her website from women hoping to meet them. The women need to be well-educated, well-spoken, intellectually stimulating, grounded, and must follow a healthy lifestyle. Having things in common is also an important part of a successful match. Shannon Smith, a representative from Plenty of Fish (POF), says the site’s matching system is based on a combination of the information members enter into their profile and their user behavior. “If they have specified that they are looking for blondes, but search for brunettes, they will get matched with brunettes,” Smith says. “If a user will not date a smoker, they will not see smokers in their matches. POF has ~38M users worldwide. POF also has a mobile app. “Currently, upwards of 60% of our users under the age of 40 in the US access the site via mobile device", Smith says.

by Laura Jerpi
See full article at South University

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Online Love Comes With Hefty Price Tag

INDEPENDENT - Feb 4 - Irish singletons are spending up to €50 a month in the hope of finding love online. As Valentine's Day looms, a survey by the Consumers Association of Ireland (CAI) has found that Irish dating sites charge between €12 and €49.90 a month. There were also plenty of free internet dating sites, with PlentyofFish the most well-known. Growing numbers of people may be in need of assistance in the dating game, as there was a 10% increase in the number of Irish singletons between 2002 and 2006, while divorcees were the fastest growing dmographic. Almost one in six Irish couples met online, according to a study published last year.

by Aideen Sheehan
See full article at Independent

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Google Top Adsense Earners: #1 Markus Frind

PRESS RELEASE - Jan 20 - Here is a list of the Internet’s biggest Google AdSense publishers. The information was compiled based on an audit by US Department of Labor and The Official Bureau of Labor Statistics.

1. Markus Frind : PlentyOfFish.com : $300K per month
2. Kevin Rose: Digg.com : $250K
3. Jeremy Schoemaker : $140K
4. Jason Calacanis : Weblogs, Inc. : $120K
5. Mahmood Somani a Technology Entrepreneur from Vancouver, Canada quickly climbing to Top Adsense Earner really fast, and runs multiple classified websites sites earning him approximately $185,000.00 monthly.
6. David Miles Jr. & Kato Leonard : FreeWebLayouts.net- $100K
7. Tim Carter : AskTheBuilder.com : $30K
8. Joel Comm : e-book : $24K
9. Shawn Hogan : DigitalPoint.com : $10K

This list only comprises of people who are earning from Adsense.

See full article at Free Press Release

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Check Criminal Records Of Online Daters, Experts Say

CBC NEWS - Jan 16 - Online dating companies should be taking advantage of the RCMP criminal records system to keep convicted criminals off their sites, say experts in the identity verification business. "There is no perfect instant criminal record system on the planet," David Dinesen told CBC News. "But Canada is the best in the world. No question." Criminal backgrounds of Canadian daters could be checked without breaking privacy laws, because the daters could authorize or volunteer to provide their criminal conviction record check to the dating sites, he said. Online dating companies such as PlentyofFish, Match.com, eHarmony and others should offer options to their Canadian clients. PlentyofFish, founded by Markus Frind, makes ~$30M annually from advertising on its website. The company espouses a "buyer beware" philosophy and posts warnings and safety tips for clients on its free site. eHarmony sent CBC News an email statement emphasizing that "eHarmony's efforts are focused on empowering people to use good judgment and to be responsible for their safety on eHarmony, as they would anywhere else. Since there is not a comprehensive database of criminal convictions and many crimes go unreported by the victims, eHarmony does not want to give its members a false sense of security. We make it very clear in several places throughout the site that eHarmony does not conduct criminal background checks on our members. In an email, Match.com told CBC News: "Match is always reviewing new ways to keep the community safe and is aware of RCMP National Repository of Criminal Records. Unlike the National Sex Offender Registry, against which Match.com screens against in the United States, the RCMP repository is not public information. Therefore, utilizing this information is not currently possible."

by Jeannie Stiglio
See full article at CBC News

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Online LDS Dating Sites Grow In Popularity

UNIVERSE - Jan 10 - More and more Latter-day Saint members have found success with online dating, through numerous sites including LDSSingles.com, Match.com and Plentyoffish.com. Arielle Schechtman, director of Spark Networks, the company that owns sites such as LDSSingles and ChristianMingle, said members of the LDS Church would likely be surprised at the number of people who have met their spouse online.

by Chelsey Saatkamp
See full article at Universe

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Nothing Fishy About This Office Christmas Party

FINANCIAL POST - Dec 27 - Making new hires feel at home is the key to growing business. The founder and owner of one of the world's biggest dating sites, Plenty Of Fish, piled 40 staff members into a couple of limousine buses and drove them to Whistler for a weekend of fun and frivolity in the snow. There, the members of the Plenty Of Fish "work family" spent two days and nights cross country skiing, zip trekking, snow tubing, exchanging gifts, enjoying fancy restaurant dishes and staying in penthouse suites at the resort's top hotel. Frind says the expense, the amount of which he won't reveal, was worth it. Plenty Of Fish is growing and he needed to integrate some new hires into the family. It can be tough to find good developers in Vancouver so "when you find good ones, you want to hold on to them," Frind says. Also, happy employees create good office morale. That's why Frind, only 33 himself, joins his team in pursuits outside the office. (Full Disclosure: POF is a client of Courtland Brooks.)

by Tony Wanless
See full article at Vancouver Sun

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Dating Sites Report 15%-20% Increase In Traffic As Big Night Approaches

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS - Dec 25 - “From Dec. 26 to Feb. 14 is our busiest season,” says Whitney Casey, Match.com’s relationship expert. “New Year’s Eve is such a big deal because it’s a new beginning,” she explains. “If you’ve had a bad time dating last year, there’s just so much optimism in the air for the new one.” Plentyoffish.com reports a 15% jump in signups for its free dating site this time of year, coupled with a 20% spike in activity from current users, “many of whom are looking for a date for New Year’s Eve,” says rep Shannon Smith.

by Nicole Lyn Pesce
See full article at New York Daily News

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Police Target Lonely Hearts Fraudsters

SUNDAY TIMES - Nov 28 - Romance scammers are to be targeted by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). According to Soca ~200K people have already been tricked by overseas conmen. Online dating scams have become one of the most lucrative methods. This is because online dating has itself become so successful, with 1,400 dating sites operating in Britain, including Plentyoffish, eHarmony and match.com. Mark Brooks, who runs Courtland Brooks, a consultancy specialising in the online dating industry, said: “Every site has significant problems in dealing with scammers. It is the bane of the industry.” Karl Gregory, head of match.com’s UK division, said cases of fraud were still rare. “Our advice”, he said, “is to stay within the site to build up relationships over time rather than giving out personal details, and never to give money to anyone for any reason.”

by Jonathan Leake
See full article at Sunday Times

Mark Brooks: Actually, this is far more a problem in the USA than the UK.  Most sites are fighting and winning the battle against scammers, I think.  But the isolated cases of date scamming are still very newsworthy and bad for the dating industry. 

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PlentyofFish Rebrands As POF

OPW - Nov 23 - Just in case you missed it, PlentyofFish.com now drives to POF.com, and the site has been rebranded as POF. Its easier to remember, and easier to refer to in conversation and by 'word-of-mouse'. One of the tricks to viral marketing is to make it as simple as possible for people to refer to your brand. The perfect brand name is 2 syllables and 4 letters, apparently. POF is a whole lot easier to refer to and type-in than Plenty...of....fish. (Full disclosure: POF is a long term client of Courtland Brooks)

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PlentyofFish.com Adds New Features To Its Advertising Program

OPW - Nov 15 - POF Ads traffic has increased from 2.5 billion page views per month in 2010 to 3.9 billion per month. You can now target people by the number of ads they have clicked on previously. This allows you to exclude a certain % of users that will never click on an ad. Frequency cap has always been minimum 3/visit. POF now has the option to serve your ads on a minimum 3/hour or 3/day frequency cap, which helps you better manage your exposure.

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This post also appears on FrequentFlirters.

PlentyofFish vs. PlentyMoreFish

OPW - Oct 18 - PlentyofFish were appealing for a declaration of invalidity for the UK registered trademark PlentyMoreFish. They argued that granting the trademark PlentyMoreFish in October 2007 was illegal and that it had left some consumers confused between the two services thus affecting the business of PlentyofFish in the UK.

Mr Landau, who approved the trademark, believed that on the 24^th of April 2007, when PlentyMore applied for the trademark, PlentyofFish had no ’goodwill’ in the mind of the purchasing public in the UK.  He found hits and visits to the website but no customers at that time.

PlentyofFish argued there was a proven trade connection between their website and the UK market and that visitors to the site should be viewed as customers as the site earns its money from advertising.  However, the judge contended that a reputation is not enough and reminded PlentyofFish that this was case regarding the trademark of a dating site not advertising services.  He said that since there were no paying customers in the UK before April 2007 then there was no ‘goodwill’ in the mind of the purchasing public and the case was dismissed.

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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. 

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This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

Plentyoffish.com to Grow Through Global Buys

MERGER MARTKET - Oct 6 - PlentyOfFish.com has set aside $15M to acquire companies in dating, mobile and the daily deals space. POF revenue is estimated at $20-$30M. Markus said POF is not for sell at the moment. Noel Biderman, president of Avid Life Media, parent company of Ashley Madison, said Avid would absolutely acquire POF.

Frind compared POF's valuation to Badoo, which he said is £2 Billion. Cupid also could consider buying POF. Cupid has 34M members in 39 countries, and generated revenues of $25M in the six months. An IPO is also a possibility for POF. Frind maintained that POF is focused on buys and so far has made several acquisitions and investments this year, launching offeron.com, its new daily deals business.

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Mobile Dating Apps Show Who's Single Without the Mingle

THE JAKARTA GLOBE - Sep 29 - The phone apps, from Match.com or newcomers such as howaboutwe.com, pack in the features, from IM and video profiles to "check-ins" at hot nightlife spots. "It's all about getting people off-line", says Aaron Schildkrout, touting howaboutwe.com, the app he co-created. Users post specific date ideas such as attending a baseball game or having drinks on a rooftop bar. In the service's first month live, there were ~60K downloads; the user base was 60% female, ages 22 to 40. Andrea Martinez, 24 found her new boyfriend on plentyoffish.com's mobile app version. She preferred the app over the computer version because uploading photos from her phone was easier. Grindr founder and CEO Joel Simkhai says company surveys show that 85% of members used the app for making new friends, especially when they were new to town. That's why Simkhai believes the next evolution of apps won't be about dating but will focus on friendships.

by Sheba R. Wheeler
See full article at The Jakarta Globe

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A Quarter of Canadians Venturing into Online Dating

CANOE.CA - Sep 25 - According to a Leger Marketing survey conducted on behalf of QMI Agency, one quarter of Canadians participate in online dating, including 36% of Canadians between 18 and 34. Kate Bilenki, director of love at PlentyOfFish, the free dating site with ~33M registered users worldwide, said the site’s membership has increased 40% over the last two years. Bilenki said POF is responsible for ~1M relationships per year, and 300K of those result in marriage.

by Sheena Goodyear
See full article at Canoe.ca

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Courtland Brooks Signs Plentyoffish and 51Taonan

OPW - Aug 10 - Its time we tooted our horn. We're very proud to announce that the Courtland Brooks team is now working for both Plentyoffish and 51Taonan. We worked with POF from September 2006 to March 2010. Now we're back. 51Taonan is China's no. 4 dating site and top free dating site, and showing tremendous promise in this burgeoning, huge growth market. The Courtland Brooks team comprises 15 specialists and is a distributed workforce spread from Malta and Prague to Orlando and San Diego. Our business is horribly limited, but wonderfully efficient because we only work for idating companies, and companies with best-in-class products suitable for the industry's consideration. You can see all our free services on the right bar >>>>

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Patti Stanger Hearts PlentyofFish

OPW - Sep 7 - Turns out, the worlds most famous matchmaker is sweet for PlentyofFish.  She just tweeted...

Online update: "Plenty of Fish" has hotter guys than "Match"...& no nerdy dockers there!

Hot onliners tend to think they don't need to pay for it. I suggest joining POF & affordable sites like psxoxo.com.

The best thing is, this wasn't primed by Markus or I, or anyone on the POF team. psxoxo.com is Spark Networks co-brand with Patti.  

(Full Disclosure, POF is a client of Courtland Brooks)

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PlentyOfFish.com Is the Most Visited Dating Site in the UK & USA

PR WEB - Sep 6 - According to ComScore and Experian Hitwise, PlentyOfFish.com was consistently ranked as the most popular dating site by visits in the UK and USA every month, for the first half of 2011. In the UK POF had ~16M total visits each month and 54M in the USA. Their closest competitors averaged ~4M total visits per month in the UK and 27M in the USA. Overall, PlentyOfFish.com’s traffic accounted for 40.10% of all UK-based Internet dating traffic and 28.87% for USA.

See full article at PR Web

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Many Using Dating Services to Find True Love Online

RICHMOND TIMES - Sep 4 - According to a 2009-10 study by Match.com and the research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, 17% of couples that married in the previous three years met their mates through a dating site. The divorce rate for first marriages in the US is 50% so it's no wonder there are so many fish in the sea. ~120M people worldwide use Internet dating services, says Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch. Although sites such as PlentyofFish are free, many are fee-based and accounted for gross annual revenue worldwide in 2010 of $4 billion, according to Brooks. "With online dating, you have the opportunity to ask the tough questions first," he said. "You do your research, and you can communicate safely online." Not only is this an improvement over the personals, he said, it is also efficient and easy on the heart: Online dating sites "promise to help you not fall in love with the wrong person." Sites such as AreWeGoodTogether.com was designed to find out whether couples who are matched, or thinking about becoming so, are a good pairing.

by Marci Rich
See full article at Richmond Times

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PlentyofFish.com Improves Its Dating App

WEB WIRE - Sep 2 - PlentyOfFish, the world’s largest dating site with ~33M registered members, has just released updated versions of its online dating apps for iPhone and Android. The most important enhancement for users is speed. With caching added to increase speed and reduce data usage, PlentyOfFish now has the fastest mobile dating apps on the web. The new app displays the members who is currently using the app, and lists them according to their distance from the user. The PlentyOfFish mobile dating apps currently get ~100M visits and 1 billion page views per month.

See full article at Webwire

(Full Disclosure: Plentyoffish is a long term client of Courtland Brooks)

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