Meetic Founder-Chairman, Marc Simoncini - OPW Interview

OPW INTERVIEW -- Jan 8, 2007 -- I spoke with Marc Simoncini this afternoon about his pending acquisition of Dating Direct. - Mark Brooks

When will your acquisition of Dating Direct be complete?
We're planning to close the acquisition definitely before the end of January. It's a question of days.

Can you tell me more about your plans once you acquire Dating Direct?
So the plan is to first integrate the software and the application from Dating Direct to Meetic's control and to merge the database. So we will add 4.5 million members from the UK, from Dating Direct, into my database. Then we will provide U.K. users dates with, of course, U.K. citizens but also with millions of European singles. We will launch our new version of Meetic, which is planned to be launched in February in France first and then we will move the platform from Dating Direct to Meetic to join the new version of Meetic. So that's what we're planning for the next few months.

Will you be phasing out the Meetic name in the UK?
Yes. We will keep the Dating Direct brand. We will continue to promote the Dating Direct brand and stop promoting Meetic. So no more Meetic in the UK.

How do you think Match might react to the news of this acquisition?
That's up to Match. Two years ago, I said I wanted to cross the entirety of Europe. The only country where Match was bigger than Meetic was in the UK, so I assume it's not a surprise for them to see Meetic entering the UK market. So maybe they made a mistake to leave this acquisition available for Meetic, I don't know. I'm sure it's not a surprise for them. So now Meetic has, say, two or three times more traffic than Match all over Europe, so the competition will be less intensive in Europe and that's my goal.

The acquisition is to include Chemistry.co.uk which is an events service in the U.K. What's your plans for this events service?
Maybe we will call the technology (personality profiling) dating website in the UK 'Chemistry,' we don't know. We have the domain name, the brand and the company to organize events, so it's a pity for Match that we have the domain name they need in UK to launch Chemistry, but I'm not sure they plan to launch Chemistry outside of the U.S. I don't think it's a problem for Match.

Comments

[Saïd Amin]

I like Marc. He sounds like a good guy but his efforts to be part of a dialogue that pits Match and Meetic as equal competitors is silly...Meetic is triple A, maybe at best double A...Match is in the majors (see financials).

Ultimately the numbers speak for themselves. Meetic is very cute, up and coming, but Match runs shit domestically in the US and in most places overseas...Euros and the French spirit vs the US matchmaking machine (*ahem* Match) is in for a hell of an uphill climb...good luck and may the force be with you (btw, I always root for the underdog).

Unfortunately for Meetic, their product is not revolutionary. That being said, your partnerships and dollars spent better be wiser than Match.com's. Mind you you Match.com's margin for error is greater than Meetic's, due to their wherewithal.

Life is good.

Peace.

-S

[Journel]

Intéressant à lire bien sûr. "Facile" de racheter un acteur local pour pénétrer un nouveau marché. Sans doute la meilleure façon pour toucher une population qu'on ne connaît pas : autre pays = autre culture = tout est différent.
Pour les anglais, ça joue déjà mais alors pour la Chine : comment s'y prend-on pour pénétrer le marché chinois? Nous on s'occupe de http://www.divorce.fr

[sehpferd]

To Said:

It seems you thonk about the US, and Meetic thinks about Europe - that's quite a difference. And what I can say about the figures: match.com is overestimated in Europe. Why don't you try to get clean figures before you post comments? By the way: You could have looked on Marcs European rankings before posting ...

Best wishes

Gebhard

[OneLoveNet]

Hmm... Meetic is nowhere in the US yet. How can this be possible?
But, in Europe, they are extremely well positioned. Marc, if you read this: when will you enter the Romanian market? Any plans for doing this?

[Mark Brooks]

Many dating sites block entire countries in Africa and the Eastern block because the risks and incidence of scamming outweight the financial rewards of keeping those countries open for business on their sites. It's a shame.

Why, more specifically, do you think Meetic 2.0 is poor?

Mark Brooks
Editor, OnlinePersonalsWatch.com

[TheFraudKahuna]

Rather than blocking an entire country from frequenting a site, iovation's Reputation Manager does provide a method by which you can focus on stopping the actual 1% of individuals who are engaged in fraud, while letting the other 99% of good people enjoy the benefits of online activity. Certainly, it does not take long for the advanced fraudster to figure out how to make it appear as if they are logging in from another country anyway...

[CD]

I just seen on euronews something about Meetic site and i decide to see whats going one here, trying to register i got this:"You can't register to meetic from this computer?" I thought this could be a joke but ...searching on Y answers i saw that this happ not only to me. I just found someone posted this:Hi ! Why all the people from Romania cannot register on Meetic ? This really sucks. Amazing...Sorry but i agree with that one who posted this. How could be a site managed of a team who cant do something in this way? Guys! Blocking a entire country? Not all the people are scammers. Try to do something otherwise your site will have a short life.
Regards,
CD/from Romania; and im proud that im romanian!