Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Modern Dating

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.

See full article at Brimbank Weekly

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Oasis Active Takes The Lead In Australia

DIGITAL MEDIA - July 9 - Online dating site Oasis Active, managed by 3H group, has overtaken Fairfax’s RSVP as the number one dating site in Australia, according to the latest figures from Hitwise. The shift seems to reflect a general move by consumers away from pay-to-play providers to those supported by advertising alone. FULL ARTICLE @ DIGITAL MEDIA

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10 Pct Of Oz Men Meet Spouse Online

TIMES OF INDIA - June 30 - The survey, carried out by Nielsen for the Australian online dating site RSVP, found that one in four Australians have used online dating. More than half the people who have used a dating site (63%) ended up dating someone they met online, and a third of those (34%) had a short-term relationship, with 16% having a long-term one. FULL ARTICLE @ TIMES OF INDIA

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Warning As Teens Join Online Dating Craze

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH - June 13 - Teenage girls are the latest singles to join the online dating craze, but experts have urged them to exercise caution when meeting people over the internet. Oasis Active, especially popular among young Australian teens, has overtaken the Fairfax-owned RSVP to become #1 site in the country, according to comScore and Hitwise. Oasis Active launched in April 2008, has ~1.6M members worldwide including ~800,000 in Australia. Up to 70% of Australian users are aged from 18 to 35 - a younger demographic than most dating sites, with 40% of that subgroup female. And while the site has a policy of only accepting members 18 or older, The Sunday Telegraph has spoken to girls as young as 15 who use the site. FULL ARTICLE @ HERALD SUN

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One In Four Adults Have Used Internet To Find A Mate

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD - Apr 17 - A Nielsen poll found one in four adults have used the internet to find a partner and another 38% are considering using online dating. Of those who had used online dating, 33.6% reported a short-term relationship, 16.2% said they had a long-term relationship, 8.9% said they had married or were in a defacto relationship, and 2.7% had children. RSVP.com.au (owned by Fairfax Media, the publisher of the Herald) commissioned Nielsen to conduct the first comprehensive survey of online dating habits. The most popular dating sites among those polled were RSVP (54%), Adult Match Maker (21%), eHarmony (20%) and Oasis Active (19%). FULL ARTICLE @ SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

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This week: news on eHarmony, Match, PlentyofFish, eDarling, RSVP, BeNaughty, SeniorPeopleMeet, GameCrush and Back Row Dating

RSVP's New Campaign

PRESS RELEASE - Mar 26 - RSVP, Australia’s largest dating site, this month launches ‘Everyday Moments’ - a new campaign focusing on RSVP’s dating success stories. Featuring real life couples sharing their relationship experiences and successes, the new campaign will see 15-second vignettes shown online and television nationally. The new advertising campaign uses couples from all over Australia who have met on RSVP.

Online Dating Industry Will Grow By Almost A Third

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD - Jan 10 - The Australian online dating industry grew by 5% last year and is expected to grow by a further 5 to 10%  this year. According to dating site RSVP survey 50% of respondents had tried online dating and 10% had met their current or most recent partner on the internet. Business analyst IBISWorld expects the industry to earn ~$100M from subscriptions and advertising this year. Cupid Media, Australia's biggest online dating company, has 33 websites that specialise in religion, ethnicity, sexual preference and physical appearance. The company started at least three new websites every year and had ~15M customers in 50 countries. IBISWorld does, however, expect the boom to slow in a few years with the increased sophistication of social networks. FULL ARTICLE @ SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

Mark Brooks: People Media was recently sold for $80 million to IAC. Cupid Media is doing well. I wonder how long it will be before they are acquired? First Beat Media, World Singles, FriendFinder's network of sites, Avid Life Media are other examples of networks of niche sites that have exceled and enjoyed the benefits of the 'network effect.' Given the choice, users will often join multiple sites within a network, which means improved ARPU. (Full Disclosure: First Beat Media and Avid Life Media are current clients of Courtland Brooks. World Singles is a former client, and I worked for FriendFinder in 2003-2004).

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Boom In Singles Seeking Holiday Romance

DAILY TELEGRAPH - Dec 6 - Dating services RSVP and other operators are introducing specialised tours for those who don't want to travel on their own. The concept is about allowing groups of people to go away that are at a stage of life when all their friends are married or in relationships. It's not necessarily about dating. Often single women travelling will make friends with other single women. Fast Impressions' speed-dating service has introduced one-day wine tours for singles to the Hunter Valley, Victoria's Yarra Valley and the Bar- ossa region of South Australia. Grand Pacific Tours has introduced its first tour for singles, a trip to New Zealand next year. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILY TELEGRAPH

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Daters Without Borders

NY POST - Nov 29 - More and more New Yorkers are searching for love on European dating sites. Lillian, a 42-year-old Manhattan copy editor signed up for Meetic.com. She Skypes with a Parisian man from the site for an hour each day. Susan, a 22-year-old grad student, also struggled with dating locally, so she widened her eHarmony parameters. Even “Real Housewives of New York City” reality star Alex McCord and Simon van Kempen met through Matchmaker.com while living on different continents. Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com, says international romance is a growing trend, due to singles’ increasing pickiness about potential life partners. “The longer the shopping list, the further afield you should cast your net,” he advises. A single New Yorker four years ago, he flew to Prague for a European online dating conference where he met and fell for a Czech woman. They married last April and now live in Malta with two daughters.

Here are some of the most popular dating sites from around the world:
Europeans: Meetic.com
Brits and Canadians: PlentyOfFish.com
Asians: AsiaFriendFinder.com
Australians: RSVP.com.au
Indians: Shaadi.com
Russians: Mamba.ru

FULL ARTICLE @ NY POST

See all posts on Meetic                   See all posts on FriendFinder
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See all posts on Matchmaker.com   See all posts on Shaadi
See all posts on PlentyofFish          See all posts on Mamba.ru

ninemsn Strikes A Match As Fairfax Looks For MyType

DIGITAL MEDIA - Oct 20 - ninemsn and Match.com today announced a renewal to their exclusive agreement for dating services on the ninemsn network. The relationship, which began in May 2008, has been extended for three years. The announcement comes hot on the heels of Fairfax digital's latest attempt to jazz up the dating market with the soft launch of MyType, an extension of the RSVP brand. The service hopes to create more specific matches by asking users to submit to advanced personality based tests. According to Hitwise, RSVP is still the market leading dating site in Australia, with over 15% of the dating market share. FULL ARTICLE @ DIGITAL SPY

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RSVP Revenue Down

THE AUSTRALIAN -- Aug 25 -- Fairfax Media CEO Brian McCarthy said the 2008-09 financial year had seen the "worst environment" he had ever experienced in the media sector. Fairfax's full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 27% to $605M for the year to June compared with 2007-08. The company's online division, which includes New Zealand auction site TradeMe, accommodation site Stayz and dating site RSVP, suffered in the tough climate and recorded an 8% fall in EBITDA. FULL ARTICLE @ THE AUSTRALIAN

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Internet Dating Industry Weekly News - 5 Mins

Online Personals Watch News Summary #4, April 24th, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Skyecandy speed dating on Skype, Plentyoffish dumps IM, RSVP's Aussie business is up and SNAP / Are You Interested is also doing well. Chinese women turned off Caucasian guys, Ashley Madison goes mobile, iovation holds strong, and 7orbetter.com assures women aren’t disappointed.

RSVP Reports Online Dating Boom

EQUITY BUSINESS NEWS SERVICE -- Apr 16 -- RSVP.com.au, Australia's largest online dating website, reported a 31% increase in membership during the first quarter of 2009 compared with the previous quarter. RSVP customer support director Ms Lija Jarvis said she believed the global financial crisis was one of the factors contributing to the site's jump in membership and activity. FULL ARTICLE @ ISTOCK ANALYST

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This post also appears at the iDate Forums

News Digital Partner With Match.com

MEDIABIZNET -- Mar 24 -- News Digital Media partners with match.com to compete against the Fairfax owned RSVP, which currently dominates the online dating scene in Australia. The agreement will see Match.com’s Australian brand and content integrated throughout news.com.au as well as launching a co-branded website, dating.news.com.au. FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIABIZNET

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It's Raining Romantic Men Online

SMH -- Feb 14 -- Figures obtained from internet dating services show that in some age groups there are far more men than women searching for a partner online. RSVP reports that women are outnumbered by men 1.5 to 1 in their late 20s to mid 30s. On Lavalife, women remain in high demand even after they turn 50, when almost three times more men in that age group are logging on. FULL ARTICLE @ SMH

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Dating Metrosexuals Is A Thing Of The Past

WESTENDER -- Dec 8 -- The survey of over 700 female members of RSVP.com.au, Australia's largest online dating site, saw 93% of respondents saying they would like to date a "tradie". Almost half the women surveyed (49%) believe tradesmen are "more relaxed and fun than men in stuffy suits". "Sexy and strong" was the most popular reason (28%), followed by "not afraid to get their hands dirty" (20%) as well as "handy around the house and garden" (15%). FULL ARTICLE @ WESTENDER

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Farmer Wants An Online Date

FARM ONLINE -- Dec 2 -- RSVP, Australia's leading dating site, launched 'Farmer wants a date' community due to demand from not only rural and regional members to meet someone, but also from city girls who were interested in meeting a farming man and moving out of the city. More than 25% of current profiles on RSVP (1.3m in total) are registered as living in regional areas, an increase of more than 60% in only two years. FULL ARTICLE @ FARM ONLINE

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Hannah Schwartz, RSVP CEO Interview

OPW INTERVIEW -- Nov 22 -- RSVP is Australia’s favorite internet dating company. Here’s my interview with their CEO. - Mark Brooks

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Do you think the Australian people are more accepting of internet dating these days? How does that compare with the USA?
There is still a lower penetration or uptake of singles who are online in Australia. We estimate that around 14% of our target audience is online and using dating sites comparing to 25+% in US.

The other thing we’re seeing now is that our members are much more comfortable talking about their experiences and saying they’re on RSVP. However we still have work to do to convince advertisers that a dating site is the right environment for their brand. About 10 to 15% of our revenue comes from advertisers. We are seeing more and more success with lead generation advertisers, those that get the fact that people come to our site and want to transact.

What kind of companies are advertising at RSVP?
The financial brands, those that are looking to get credit cards and mortgage type submissions. We’re also seeing cosmetics brands. Our biggest opportunity is around the fact that we are a very data rich site. We know a lot about our members. Of course, we don’t reveal their identity but we know their age, location, income level and we know, for example, if they’re a smoker or non-smoker or if they’re a single parent or not.

One of the best examples I can share with you is a campaign we ran for Nicabate which is a “stop smoking” product. We built a unique community for them that reached over 250 of our members who said yes they are smokers but they want to stop smoking. So that’s a perfect example of how we can take this data rich information and tailor it to an advertisers unique needs.

I think our ad opportunity is the same that the larger social networks are working towards, which is how do we utilize the information to create and target ads in a way that is appropriate? I think that we all are in this place of experimentation.

You’ve launched a number of RSVP Communities recently. Which have been the most popular?
We’ve launched over 25 communities. We just did this initiative within the last 2 months and to date 85,000 of our members have joined one of these 25 communities. Our most popular ones for example are food and wine lovers. We’re also seeing tremendous traction in adventure travelers and the dating life. Our first and foremost goal was to help our members, enable them to find like minded people. Now we are starting to get advertisers coming forward, some deals are just about finalized.

Congratulations on launching your anonymous calling product. How’s that working out for you?
We’ve worked with a 3rd party provider. It’s a way for 2 people to connect anonymously either through a land line or a mobile phone. Our members are telling us that they’re finding it very useful. It’s fair to say that predominantly those people, who are very active on the site, are using it. People who are new to the site probably are a little more cautious about it. And I think as awareness and understanding grows, its usage will continue to grow.

Who do you regard as your top competitors in Australia at this stage?
I’ve been in my role for the last 15 months and I would say the competitive landscape has changed in the last year. There is the growth of the social networks which are very popular but not necessarily a place people go to find dates.

We also see a growth of free dating sites. We’re actually benefiting from this. There is a lot of confidence around the fact that people on our site are serious about relationships. And if they’ve contacted you they’ve spent money to contact you and that gives you more trust as well.

So our membership is growing and we still remain the largest player. We’ve got 1.3 million members with 1,000 to 1,500 new members joining each day.

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RSVP Launches Adventure Travel Community

ETRAVEL BLACK BOARD -- Oct 13 -- Australia's largest online dating site, RSVP.com.au, has launched Australia's first 'Adventure travel' community which allows likeminded singles to interact with and meet others who share a passion for travel. Within each community, a member has access to articles, features, offers, blogs, reviews, video content and can easily search for other singles via the photo gallery. FULL ARTICLE @ ETRAVEL BLACK BOARD

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