Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Smooch.com: 10% of People Might Not Go on a Date if There Is No Alcohol

PRESS RELEASE - Oct 19 - Free online dating website Smooch.com has found that some daters would be less likely to go on a first date if they were not able to drink alcohol. In an online survey, it asked its members what the importance of a confidence boosting alcoholic drink was to the modern date and it revealed that for some people, having alcohol was too significant.

See full article at PR Fire

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Over Half Of UK Daters Would Cancel Valentine's Day

PR WEB - Feb 15 - Over 4,900 members of the free online dating website, Smooch.com, were asked if they would cancel Valentine's Day, to which a surprising 54% said they would if they could. In contrast, just 46% wanted to preserve the special day. The survey revealed that women (58%) were more likely than men (51%) to cancel Valentine's Day. Those who are married or widowed were the least likely to cancel Valentine's Day. Respondents with a ‘very high salary' were the most likely (60%) to cancel Valentine's Day. FULL ARTICLE @ BENZINGA

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Competitors Benefit From PlentyofFish Misfortune

OPW - Aug 17 -PlentyoffFish was down for over 8 hours on August 9th due to a hardware failure. How does that effect the competition? Dan from Freedating.co.uk had 5.3% more uniques and 19.3% more visits on August 9th compare with one week prior. Why did he see so many more visits? Because existing users of Freedating.co.uk who previously split their time between the two sites suddenly only had one option. Meanwhile, Martin from Smooch.com, another free UK dating site, saw similar increases in uniques and pageviews but more interestingly, his registrations were up 70%.

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No Sex Please, We're Women!

PRWEB -- Feb 17 -- Smooch asked its members if people who have sex on the first date are liberated or simply 'easy'. 65% of men consider such behaviour refreshingly liberated, whilst an equally emphatic 65% of women think it's unacceptable. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

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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

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See all posts on OkCupid          See all posts on BookofMatches
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Smooch.com Launches TV Campaign

SOURCE WIRE -- Sep 4 -- Smooch.com (300k members) is a free dating site based in the U.K. and has launched a TV advertising campaign. Full Smooch Ad can be viewed on YouTube. Smooch.com was founded in 2007. FULL ARTICLE @ SOURCE WIRE

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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