The OPW/iDate Industry Insider is the weekly news summary for the dating industry
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:~ MOBILE DATING INDUSTRY CONFERENCE ~:
*NEW*: PHOTOS ON iDATE Miami:
http://www.idate2012.com/eventphotos-miami-2012.php
The future of the dating business is June 20-22, 2012 in LA: Mobile Dating. Special pre-sessions include: advanced mobile marketing, developing a mobile strategy for dating and others.
Register by March 2 and save $615!
http://iDate2012.com/form-1-la.php
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:~ iDATE STARTUP BOSTON / AUSTIN ~:
Free local networking events for the dating industry.
BOSTON: February 22 @ the Boston Seaport Hotel Ballroom.
AUSTIN: March 9 in Austin during SXSW.
Register Here: http://www.idatestartup.com/register-form.php
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:~ iDATE AWARDS ~:
See the winners the 2012 iDate Awards at: http://www.idateawards.com
Photos: http://www.internetdatingconference.com/eventphotos-miami-2012.php#awardsceremony
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:~ TOP ONLINE PERSONALS WATCH NEWS ITEMS , AND WEEKLY INTERVIEW ~:
White Label Dating Providers Comparison Study
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/white-label-dating-providers-comparison-study.html
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Interview With Frances Maier, Co-founder Of Match.com
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/interview-with-frances-maier-co-founder-of-matchcom-.html
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Dating Sites Become Mainstream And Focus On More Niche Markets
MIAMI HERALD - Feb 12 - Jewcier, a new dating site for Jewish singles, is now open to the public and joins nearly 20 other general and niche dating sites owned and operated by Avalanche, co-founded by Meir Strahlberg and his business partner Kris Covino in 1997. Among Avalanche’s largest sites are Date.com, launched on Valentine’s Day in 1997; Matchmaker.com, which Avalanche bought in 2005, and Amor.com, a Latin dating site also launched in 2005, which has more than 20K members in South Florida alone. Avalanche’s domain names are words people naturally type into the Internet, so they don’t have to spend a lot in marketing, Internet dating experts say. “They’re well respected within the industry for being savvy operators,” said Mark Brooks, an online dating industry analyst and editor of onlinepersonalswatch.com. Within the last six months, Avalanche has added five gay dating sites to its portfolio, which already included GayDating.com, GayMen.com, GayMarriage.net, PinkWink.com, which is oriented toward gay women, MyPartner.com and Gay.mx, a Mexican site. Gay sites are “a growing part of our business,” Strahlberg said. Overall, the company’s sites have 10M members worldwide, and 5-10% of them are paying members, Strahlberg said. Strahlberg, who owns half the company, declined to disclose Avalanche’s revenues, but said it is “highly profitable” and has been since its inception. This year, the company may be looking for outside investors for the first time, he said.
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/dating-sites-become-mainstream-and-focus-on-more-niche-markets.html
Plentyoffish.com: Most Visited Mobile Dating App
PR NEWSWIRE - Feb 7 - Plentyoffish.com (POF.com), the world’s largest dating site with more than 39.5M registered users, surpassed 300M monthly visits to their free IPhone and Android apps in January 2012. The apps’ success is a testament to the growing popularity of mobile-based services and changing habits of daters, with mobile traffic on POF increasing at a rate of 3% a week. “40% of sign-ups in the U.S. are now via mobile device”, says Markus Frind, founder and CEO of POF.
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/plentyoffishcom-most-visited-mobile-dating-app.html
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Dating sites make millions each year from running their casually oriented dating traffic to Fling. Email greg@globalpersonalsmedia.com for special treatment.
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Love Is In The Air With KLM
CNN - Feb 10 - Launched this month as part of KLM online booking service, "Meet & Seat" allows passengers to link their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles to the seats they choose. The idea is that when picking an aisle or a window seat you can see if the person next to you has similar interests and the potential for stimulating conversation, or if you'll need extra batteries for your noise-cancelling headphones. So far KLM is only letting passengers on flights from Amsterdam to New York, San Francisco and Sao Paolo use the service. The airline says all personal profile details are deleted from the airline's systems 48-hours after the flight.
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/love-is-in-the-air-with-klm.html
Real Radio Partners With WhiteLabelDating To Create Dating Site
THE DRUM - Feb 9 - Real Radio, part of GMG Radio, has partnered with WhiteLabelDating.com to create its branded online dating site, with the tagline ‘Real Good, Feel Good’.
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/real-radio-partners-with-whitelabeldating-to-create-dating-site.html
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Get targeted traffic directly from PlentyofFish. For more information visit ads.pof.com.
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Anotherfriend.com Buys MaybeFriends.com
OPW - Feb 8 - WebDev Ltd, the Internet company behind the largest Irish dating site www.anotherfriend.com has acquired the Irish dating site, www.maybefriends.com from the Saon Group for an undisclosed sum. AnotherFriend.com currently has ~60% market share of the Irish Online Dating market, with over 12.8M page impressions and 290K unique visitors monthly.
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/anotherfriendcom-buys-maybefriendscom.html
Online Dating: The Secret Science Of Love At First Byte
MSNBC TODAY NEWS - Feb 8 - Punch cards and personal ads gave way to the first online dating sites, launched in the mid-90s. By 2001, industry revenues were just $40M. Today, they’re approaching $2 billion. eHarmony owns 15% of the market. The company says the goal is to help you find someone - like you. Similarity allows couples to understand each other better, said Gian Gonzaga, the company’s chief research scientist. “We like to say that opposites attract and then later on they attack.” Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, questions whether algorithms used by online dating sites actually work. He studied thousands of online interactions, examining market value — what makes us attractive online. In men, the research shows, height and salary are key. Education also counts - for some online daters. “More educated men are more desirable,” said Ariely. “For women, there's no value for education.”
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/page/2/
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Twoo.com: Brits Are Cheapskates On Dates
BUZZIBUZZ - Feb 7 - 39% of single Brits spent less than L100 on dating in 2011, new research from Twoo.com has revealed. This figure includes the cost of taking someone out on a date, buying new clothes for a date and any online dating subscriptions. The survey of 1,000 people was commissioned by Twoo.com and conducted by research company Toluna. The “big spenders,” or those who reported spending over L1K, live in Scotland (17%), East Midlands (14%) and London (9%). Surprisingly, women are thriftier than men when it comes to dating, with 52% stating they spent less than L100 in 2011, although men aren’t exactly pushing the boat out either, with 30% believing that L100 for the year is the right amount to spend.
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/twoocom-brits-are-cheapskates-on-dates.html
A Lawyer Finds His Perfect Match
FT - Feb 5 - Greg Blatt is talking fast and loud. So loud that, after a while, your ears begin to hurt. But as the CEO of IAC – the company behind Match.com - enthuses about his business, his big voice ricochets around his glass-walled office with a view of the Statue of Liberty. “It’s been a great year,” he booms. Mr Blatt is excited because it has indeed been a good first year on the job. Full-year results, released last week, showed annual revenues up 26% to $2.1bn, with profits up 75% to $174m. He is unmarried – and has even cancelled his subscription to Match.com. “I’m a single guy,” he says. “I have a bunch of friends in the city. I date ladies from time to time.” Blatt helped Diller spin off the companies that didn’t fit, starting with Expedia in 2005, and continuing with Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster and others in 2008. “We disaggregated to a group of businesses that have far more commonality among them,” he says. After six years as general counsel, Mr Blatt was tapped to run Match.com, and in 2010 he took over as CEO. Likewise, he does not see Facebook as a direct competitor. Yet the skyrocketing valuations of internet start-ups, led by that company’s pending IPO, has made it harder for IAC to find acquisition targets to fuel its growth. “I went to law school because I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he says. “If someone had asked me if I would be working in the internet after law school I would have said: ‘What’s the internet?’”
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/a-lawyer-finds-his-perfect-match.html
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:~ TWITTER ~:
Online Personals Watch newsfeed: http://twitter.com/internet_dating
iDate events and updates: http://twitter.com/idateconference
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:~ INTERNET DATING SCIENCE ~:
"Out Of My League: A Real-World Test Of The Matching Hypothesis"
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/out-of-my-league-a-real-world-test-of-the-matching-hypothesis.html
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The business conference for the dating industry @ InternetDatingConference.com
Industry Message Boards @ mb.InternetDatingConference.com
Conference Organiser, Marc Lesnick, info@idate2010.com, 212-722-1744
Online Personals Watch, www.onlinepersonalswatch.com or opw1.com
Editor: Mark Brooks, mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com, 212-444-1636
