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PRESS RELEASE -- June 28 -- Online dating site IamFreeTonight.com announces an online dating application built on Facebook Platform. 13,000 Facebook users have added the application. Users can post when they are free to date and can select an activity to do on the date ranging from coffee to cocktails.
The full article was originally published at Marketwired, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Check out wannago.com (formerly named matchactivity) also.
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FINANCIAL MIRROR -- June 29 -- Following a number of years of cooperation, meetic and Orange are strengthening their partnership in internet, matchmaking, advertising and mobile venues. They aim to create more bridges between the Internet and Mobile segments and enrich Orange Advertising's ad offer.
The full article was originally published at Financial Mirror, but is no longer available.
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SAID AMIN BLOG -- June 28 -- Generalist sites overlap users, making their member lists less valuable than niche sites, according to Saïd Amin of WorldSingles. Most ethnic niche sites, due to less competition, enjoy a higher % of unique members. However, with many new competitors jumping into niches, newcomers will struggle to reach critical mass. Niches thrive on word of mouth. Money alone is not enough. Look at ChristianCafe.com. It is so entrenched in the community. It has the pulse of the community it serves. Ditto with Jdate.
The full article was originally published at Said Amin blog, but is no longer available.
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SOCAL TECH -- June 28 -- L.A. based online dating site MatchActivity has become wannago.com, and is now focusing on creating a social networking site focused on sharing activities and events. The angel funded startup, which raised a small round in January and is still fundraising, is planning to relaunch its site towards the end of July.
The full article was originally published at SocalTech, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Match killed Matchlive.com a couple of years ago. On the positive side, PreDating was acquired by Cupid and Hurrydate was just acquired by Spark. Some day dating sites will take more interest in events.
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BUSINESS WIRE -- June 28 -- Mobestar, a specialist provider of mobile community applications (LSE:MOBS) (GER:M6V) announces implementation of their mobile social networking application to Qsoft Consulting, owners of the dating brand Gaydar. Powered by Mobestar, GaydarMobile is will allow 1.1 million users in the UK and 4 million users world-wide access to profiles, messages and contact members with text, picture and video messaging using just their mobile phone. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE
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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.
The full article was originally published at GigaOm, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Here's the one month page views comparison with PlentyofFish courtesy of Alexa.
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SPRINGWISE NEWSLETTER -- June 27 -- Bucking the online first meeting, now you can meet in person, and then go hunting the profile. Canadian Admit an Attraction prints Attraction Tickets members can hand out to invite someone they meet to check out their profile. If they approve, they can meet again later. Hitchoo, recently launched in Singapore, works on the same principle, sending members cards with a friendly "You made my day" on the front, and access details on the back. It brings in more non-service users and saves face for those too shy to ask for the phone number.
The full article was originally published at SpringWise Newsleter, but is no longer available.
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PRESS RELEASE -- June 27 -- Now 4ppl (Boonex) users can see the location of other members on a Google Map. They can even search for singles around them with an unmatched precision. A member can keep his/her location secret, by telling 4ppl about his/her city only. But, when they feel adventurous - they just go ahead and pinpoint their very specific location, up to a house they live in.
Mark Brooks: That's handy for stalkers.
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AHN -- June 26 -- In a bid to attract only the best people, an online dating site in Arizona has decided to publish the pictures of only attractive people. The decision, says site owner Allena Brown, was prompted by pictures by a man in flannel underwear holding an axe. The Beautiful People Arizona, has about 300 vetted members who pay $9.99 a month. The us.beautifulpeople.net site used the same method to phase out inappropriate people and pictures.
The full article was originally published at AHN, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Hotenough.org has a similar model also.
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PRESS RELEASE -- June 26 -- When a professional photographer from LookBetterOnline.com, captured singles for their profiles, a report shows a rise of 235% more unsolicited contacts and email responses. And it sticks. The data shows that three months after posting their new photos, singles are still receiving over 200% more messages on average. For LookBetterOnline.com, 80% of its customers doubled their response rate and 40% received five times more messages.
The full article was originally published at PR Web, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Dating sites sell people to people. Make your product look better by helping your people look better. I've long been a fan of the LBOL service. My photo here was done by an LBOL photographer.
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SEATTLE PI.COM -- June 25 -- It could have been bad for Perfectmatch.com if NFL football player Adam Johnson -- the star of the reality TV special "Science of Love" -- decided to date his choice rather than the selected woman. After all, the Duet Total Compatibility System was placing its reputation on the line by choosing a "scientific date" for the bachelor. In the Monday night debut, Perfectmatch won when Johnson said he was going to "take a leap of faith" and "see what science has in store for me." FULL ARTICLE @ SEATTLE PI.COM
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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
The full article was originally published at Digital Media Wire, but is no longer available.
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ONLINE DATING INSIDER -- June 25 -- After only a few weeks, Facebook's new platform shows 40 dating applications. Most are enhanced ways to poke, match up or meet new people, only a few are based on actual dating sites.
fbDating
Connections
Verbdate
Kathleen's Wild and Crazy Poking Application
Poke Pro
Date Rate
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POKER LISTINGS.COM -- June 24 -- A free dating site for online poker players, Poker-Online-Dating.com has launched to "match poker players together from around the world who are looking for true love." Cupid, the online matchmaker, will help by making matches based upon the results of the Cupid compatibility form. FULL ARTICLE @ POKER LISTINGS.COM
Mark Brooks: In theory, adding games to dating sites is a great idea. It gives prospective daters something to do that is fun and can give them more insight on each others character. In fact, however, I've not seen a sizable site introduce games successfully yet. That's a shame really. Your comments please...
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OPW -- June 25 -- In case you missed Markus Frind on The Today Show from last Tuesday:
When it comes to masters of romance Spain has Don Juan, Mexico has Zorro and Vancouver Canada has a 29 year old computer programmer who has turned his knack for playing Cupid into one of the biggest sensations on the Internet. His identity is a mystery. Until now.
I’m looking for Marcus.
Markus: That would be me.. Come on in and let me show you around. This is my global headquarters.
Markus Frind is the founder of Plentyoffish.com, the number one dating website in Canada and one of the top 5 in the US and growing.
It’s a lot like a spare bedroom.
Markus: Yeah people say that but a lot happens here.
Don’t let this modest office fool you, Markus is making millions but not off you, his website is for free. He is making money off these little ads.
This is the website? Pretty basic.
Markus: Yeah, I like to keep it very simple. When I first created this site it was just a hobby, like it wasn’t meant to become anything.
But become something it did. Attracting viewers by the price and keeping them by his unusual approach to matchmaking, giving people what they don’t want.
Markus: What people say they want and what people want are actually two completely different things. On my site if someone is searching for a clean cut guy but they really are messaging all the bad boys, I’ll show them more bad boys then good guys.
So on Marcus’ website it’s much more important who you are clicking on than who you think you click with.
How much time in a given day do you spend working on a website?
Markus: An hour.
That’s it?
Markus: That’s it.
44 million visitors in an average day and you spend an hour running this site that satisfies them all day long.
Markus: I know it’s a bit long isn’t it?
And its not just his work day that is smaller then most. His staff is too.
Let me get the team down. You’re the President, so who is the head of business development?
Markus: That would be me.
And tech support?
Markus: That’s me again.
And marketing?
Markus: That’s me again.
By keeping Plentyoffish.com a company of one, Markus can spend his time as he pleases, reading on the beach, having a leisurely meal of mussels or depositing his latest million dollar check for ad space. Even website trend analysts don’t know what to make of Markus’s success.
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