Online Personals Watch

New Site Sponsor, Viximo

OPW -- May 22 -- Viximo is a new Online Personals Watch site sponsor.  They offer a virtual goods platform suitable for Internet Dating sites. Cyworld and QQ alone make hundreds of millions of dollars from virtual goods. Asia loves virtual goods, and Americans are turning on to them. Facebook and Hotornot are two success stories to reference in the U.S. market. I'm told, two of the most important factors for making virtual goods work on a site are: 1. really great virtual goods, and 2. the right pricing and handling of money and virtual money. Viximo can help. We're excited about virtual goods, and virtual currency and proud to have Viximo as a sponsor. As always, we vet our sponsors. No fluff is allowed on OPW. We recommend taking a look at Viximo.

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Internet Dating Industry Weekly News Summary - 5 Mins

Online Personals Watch News Summary #2, April 10, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

This weeks news covers the rise of philandering, virtual goods companies making $500m+, mobile dating to hit $1.4b in 2013, banner ad blindness, lock and key and events, online speed dating and a survey of fussy singles.

HOTorNOT.com Dating App For The iPhone Debuts In Top 5

PR NEWSWIRE -- Feb 9 --  The mobile dating application introduced two weeks ago for the iPhone by HOTorNOT.com ascended to the #4 ranking in the social network category at the iTunes store. Since its release, there have been nearly 7m ratings and over 3.5m yes and no votes. FULL ARTICLE @ PR NEWSWIRE

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This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

HotorNot.com Comes To The iPhone

CNET NEWS -- Jan 22 -- HotorNot.com, the social rating site has a new, and free iPhone app out. It lets you pass judgment on others by scoring them anywhere from 1 to 10. It also lets you tap into its "Meet Me" network where you can get in touch with other registered users to set up dates. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS

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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

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

HOT Or NOT Searches For Hottest Co-eds At America's Biggest Party Schools

MARKET WATCH -- Oct 7 -- HotorNot.com is on a mission to find the nation's hottest co-eds and crown a Miss and Mr. Knockout. The competition starts today in three of the best party towns including schools such as University of Texas (Austin), University of Florida (Gainesville), and San Diego State University. The contest runs through November 30th and winners in each market will take home a cool $1000. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKET WATCH

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HOT Or NOT Gets Face Lift

BUSINESS WIRE -- Sep 24 -- HOT or NOT have redesigned their website. The site now includes more robust profiles that feature the company's proprietary HOTLISTS brand affinity application, new virtual gifts, buddy lists and faster access to HOT or NOT gossip and celebrity ratings. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

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How HotOrNot Bootstrapped Its Way To Profit

VENTURE WIRE -- Aug 8 -- HotOrNot.com, launched in 2000, became an Internet sensation, providing an early example of viral marketing and online advertising revenue before Google AdSense. The company never took any funding and sold earlier this year to Avid Life Media for a rumored $20m. Many entrepreneurs bootstrap their start-ups, going without outside investment and using their own resources. Other successful bootstrapped technology companies include Craigslist, AdventNet and PlentyofFish. FULL ARTICLE @ WALL STREET JOURNAL

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HOTorNOT Launches Celebrity Gossip Site

MASHABLE -- Aug 5 -- The gossip site will be hosted by Zack Taylor, celebrity blogger and will have content on prominent pop culture happenings.  Using the sites storied voting system, readers will be able to rate items in the same way the rate someone’s photo. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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Online Dating's New Face

INTERNET NEWS -- June 26 -- Facial recognition technology could help the lovelorn find a better match. Eyealike offers facial recognition systems for enterprises customers and online dating and social network sites. The idea is, users will be able to upload an image, or even choose from a selection of celebrity faces, and click on screen levers to adjust that image to their personal tastes. Mark Brooks, a consultant to the online dating industry, said facial recognition is the latest in series of technical advances with more to follow. He notes the advent of online "speed dating" sites like WooMe and ratings sites like Hot or Not. There are also already sites like MyDouble if you want to just see what celebrities you most resemble and perhaps use that info in a dating profile. Brooks agrees, the facial recognition and editing is better-suited to would be casual daters. "A site like eHarmony is slow to let users share photographs because it's more about getting to know the other person," he said. "A lot of this is about trying to fix the real world which is broken. In the real world, you see pretty girls and hunky men on magazine covers who are largely unattainable." FULL ARTICLE @ INTERNET NEWS

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HotOrNot Acquired For $20 Million

TECH CRUNCH -- Feb 11 -- San Francisco based HotOrNot, founded by James Hong and Jim Young in October 2000, has been acquired. The buyers are investors connected with Avid Life Media, and paid somewhere around $20 million for the site.  Their annual revenue is estimated to be around $5 million, with $2 million in profit. According to Comscore, the site has around 5 million monthly unique visitors and 200 million page views. The investors are creating a new company, called HotOrNot Media, and they may be acquiring more properties as well. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

For HotOrNot, Betting on Free Is Paying Off

GIGA OM -- June 27 -- Three months ago, HotorNot dropped its subscription-based model for a free-ad supported model. In his latest blog post HotorNot founder James Hong says HotorNot's traffic has doubled to about 20 million page views per day. The revenues tanked from over $5 million per annum, but the company still remains profitable, with most of its sales coming from Google Ads. Hong claims a new sales force will replace the lost revenue. FULL ARTICLE @ GIGA OM

Mark Brooks: Here's the one month page views comparison with PlentyofFish courtesy of Alexa.

Guy Kawasaki: Markus Frind, Founder of PlentyOfFish, Is my Hero

DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE -- June 25 -- Markus Frind, the founder of PlentyOfFish.com is my new hero (James Hong of Hot or Not is a close second). Marcus spends about two hours a day in his underwear managing a free dating website that gets twelve billion page views a year. He is the only employee, and he only has one server. And by the way, he makes $5-6 million/year with Google ads. The members of the five-person panel provided many good insights into starting and funding a company today.

Marcus Kazmierczak, vp of engineering, Maya's Mom
Markus Frind, Founder, PlentyofFish.com
James Hong, Co-Founder, HotorNot.com
Dave Lu, CEO, Fanpop
Karen Northup, CEO and Founder, CoreFino
FULL ARTICLE @ DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE

Hot or Not Tears Itself Apart, Reinvents

TECH CRUNCH -- May 8 -- Until last month, HotorNot was free until that last crucial stage when two people wanted to meet each other. At that point, one of the members (usually the man, Hong tells me) must have been a paid subscriber, which costs $6/month. Founder James Hong says their conversion rate was extremely high - 15% of active users eventually upgraded to premium accounts. The premium revenue, plus advertising and fees for virtual flowers topped $600,000 per month. Nearly all of that was profit for the two founders, who reportedly pocketed $20 million or so between them over the years. The company has never raised outside funding. Competitors have popped up (see yesnomayb) and free dating sites started to eat away at traffic. Hong and Young decided to remove the requirement for members to have premium accounts to talk to each other. A month ago, the requirement was turned off, and about $500k/month in revenue disappeared overnight. HotorNot is running on reserve cash of a few million dollars. Traffic jumped 60% - 10 million people visited the site in the last month, up from 6 million the month before. Advertising and virtual gift revenue spiked, and the site is now break even. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

Mark Brooks: I think the founders are gunning for PlentyofFish.

Tech's Younger Generation Leans on Web 2.0 for Love

SF GATE -- Feb 14 -- A growing trove of Web sites enable search for those who share feelings and fetishes.  Tag yourself and friends with keywords at Consumating.com. The site's motto? "A new way to find people who don't suck." Mobile group-messaging services like Twitter and Dodgeball allow people to find each other wherever they happen to be. Check out HotorNot.com or the free online dating site PlentyofFish.com. FULL ARTICLE @ SF GATE

TrueDater Adds MySpace and eHarmony

BUSINESS WIRE -- Feb. 8, 2006--TrueDater added MySpace, eHarmony, HotorNot, PlanetOut, and BlackSingles.  Last year Truedater was featured on Wired.com, Time Magazine, Newsweek and NBC's The Today Show. It's free, anonymous and is supported by ads and sign-ups for dating sites. A majority of TrueDater members are women. The site encourages members to review those who are "TrueDaters" as well as those who exaggerate or mislead. Nearly half the reviews on the site are positive endorsements.

Mark Brooks: Greatboyfriends and Greatgirlfriends are alternative spins on this idea. 

Insanity Reigns When Dating and Technology Collide

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE -- Jan 17 -- Through www.poddater.com, users of the new video iPod can download video profiles of singles. Women can get recommendations from other women about good guys at www.greatboyfriends.com, but they should probably cross-reference him first on www.dontdatehimgirl.com.  If you're superficial and shallow, there's www.dreammatches.com, a "dating service for beautiful people."  Those who want to stalk good-looking members of the opposite sex also can go to www.hotmaps.frozenbear.com, which combines the technology of Google mapping with the rating and dating site www.hotornot.com. Or try "Hot Or Not Hook-Up" at www.hotmatch.frozenbear.com. It's a really dumb thing to do, but it's totally addictive. There's a site for introverts and shy singles called www.shypassions.com.  The Toronto-based Ashley Madison Agency helps you cheat on your spouse. 

May Online Personals Rankings

OPW -- June 8 -- The new Hitwise rankings are out.  Webdate has moved up yet another spot and is now in the top 5.  Perfect Match and Black Planet have moved up one spot each, displacing True.com.  Hotornot and Mate1 have pushed up one spot displacing MSN Match and Cupid, respectively.   Mark Brooks