FOX BUSINESS - Feb 11 - “Valentine's Day is our Super Bowl,” said Amy Canaday, public relations director for Match.com. “It is the Christmas of the dating industry,” said Eric Resnick, of Courtland Brooks, a boutique marketing firm catering to the online dating industry. "It is one of the most emotional days for singles and couples alike,” said Julie Spira, author of The Perils of Cyber-Dating. Match.com is one of the oldest of the roughly 1,500 dating sites in the U.S/ Industry. Observers say its chief competitor is plentyoffish.com, a free dating site with a membership base comparable to Match. The CourtlandBrooks site, OnlinePersonalsWatch.com, reported on Hitwise’s ranking of U.S.-dating-site visits. As of Oct '09, PlentyofFish was tops, followed in order by Match, Singlesnet, Yahoo Personals, DateHookup and eHarmony. "Match established itself as a market leader long ago", Resnick said. "But staying on top can always be as challenging as getting there." “Mobile, mobile, mobile,” said cyber-dating expert Spira when asked about the latest trends in online dating. Experts at the iDate 2010 Internet dating conference held in Miami last month pegged mobile online dating as a $550M-annual-revenue ringer industrywide, with the potential to double. “We have found that mobile users are twice as engaged as those on laptops or desktops,” said Mandy Ginsberg, Match.com' general manager. FULL ARTICLE @ FOX BUSINESS
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