Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

Women Get More Aggressive With Age

BUSINESS WIRE - June 30 - SpeedDate.com has released findings based on 100,000 speed dates over the course of two days on who is more likely to break the ice and start a conversation during a first time meeting online. Findings conclude that 78% of men initiate conversation compared to 22% of women. However, starting at age 42, the number of women initiating conversation dramatically increases to the point that by age 60 women are more likely than men to start the conversation.

The full article was originally published at BusinessWire, but is no longer available.

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Men Flock To Online Dating As World Cup Dreams Are Dashed

PRESS RELEASE - June 30 - Registrations from single men to online dating site Singles365.com have boomed since England bowed out of the World Cup on Sunday. Traffic to the site was up over 134% compared to the previous Sunday and up over 187% this week, as men seek to find their summer entertainment elsewhere. The peak registration time was just 32 minutes after the final whistle was blown. FULL ARTICLE @ SOURCE WIRE

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10 Pct Of Oz Men Meet Spouse Online

TIMES OF INDIA - June 30 - The survey, carried out by Nielsen for the Australian online dating site RSVP, found that one in four Australians have used online dating. More than half the people who have used a dating site (63%) ended up dating someone they met online, and a third of those (34%) had a short-term relationship, with 16% having a long-term one.

The full article was originally published at Times of India, but is no longer available.

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AreYouInterested.com Reveals World Cup Cramps Summer Dating

PR NEWSWIRE - June 29 - In a recent poll, AreYouInterested.com, a top dating app on Facebook Platform  discovered singles are spending less time looking for romance and more time watching the World Cup.
- 58% of participants are spending less time looking for dates because they prefer to watch the World Cup.
- 40% of participants would cancel a date to watch the World Cup Championship game.
- 78% of participants would go on a date to watch the World Cup at a social venue.
 - 44% of participants would be turned off if someone they were seeing suggested watch the World Cup for a date.

More than 200 users responded to the poll and 80% of participants were men.
FULL ARTICLE @ PR NEWSWIRE

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EasyDate Raising £10m Through AIM Flotation

TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - June 29 - EasyDate, Edinburgh-based online dating business, goes public with a £10m placing on London’s junior market. Founder Bill Dobbie and business partner Max Polyakov are floating their niche-focused dating business on AIM to fund acquisitions and international growth as they attempt to win more of a global market worth an estimated £1bn. Tomorrow’s listing will give the company, which has a turnover of £11.5M, a market cap of approximately £45M as it issues 75 million shares at 60p. EasyDate is currently adding 200,000 members a month, and projects revenues will hit £19M next year. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

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Marriage Or Cohabitation?

PRESS RELEASE - June 29 - There are an estimated 15M singles now living in Britain of which half (51% or 7.65M) are looking for a long term-relationship; 17% would prefer a casual relationship and 28% are not looking for a relationship at all. However, according to a new survey by PARSHIP, unlike their European counterparts who would choose an unformalised long-term relationship over marriage (across Europe an average of 35% favour a long-term relationship and 17% a marital commitment) – UK singles would go for wedding rings (29%) rather than simple cohabitation (24%). FULL ARTICLE @ RESPONSE SOURCE

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Millions Of Argentines Looking For Love On The Web

LAHT - June 27 - Some 5M Argentines look for a girlfriend or boyfriend through online dating services, with about 50,000 local users a day. Argentina has 22% more singles than people who are married or in a relationship, and, after Brazil, is the Latin American country with the greatest acceptance of dating over the Internet. Among its 60M Latin American subscribers, Match.com has 4M Argentines. FULL ARTICLE @ LAHT

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False Sense Of Security In Users Of Dating Sites

SF CHRONICLE - June 28 - Despite the fact that many online dating sites don't perform background checks, users feel a certain comfort level that they won't run into sexual offenders or other criminals because they have paid for the service. Online dating is big business, projected to generate $834M in revenue this year, according to IbisWorld, an independent research firm. IbisWorld predicted the industry eventually could be "subjected to stricter domestic regulation due to concerns about Internet privacy and misinformation placed on sites by some members." Already, some states have moved in that direction. New Jersey passed the Internet Dating Safety Act in 2008. The state requires dating sites that don't perform criminal background checks to prominently disclose that on their Web site. A similar bill in Texas in 2005 never made it out of a House committee. FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE

OppositesConnect.com Helps Singles Find Romance With Their Opposite

PR WEB - June 28 - Opposites Connect is an online dating service centered on the age-old concept of connecting soul mates based on opposite preferences. While the vast majority of dating sites are built upon abstract notions and compatibility calculations, the premise behind Opposites Connect and its proprietary matchmaking software is to spark thought-provoking conversation and debate between two people with unique sets of viewpoints and characteristics. Opposites Connect encourages members to start with the quiz designed to help navigate the search for their opposite. This entertaining matchmaking quiz includes two rounds of multiple-choice questions – a 'Lightning Round' of two choice answers, and a set of “Morality Play” questions that puts the test taker through a series of dilemmas. When completed, the quiz constructs a personality portrait. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

Online Dating Offers Meeting Convenience

UK NETGUIDE - June 28 - A study conducted by the Scientific Research Centre shows that, in the UK, women tend to use online dating sites more frequently than men. Their reasons for turning to the internet are to do more with expediency than anything else and back a trend seen in other western nations. In countries where online dating is popular, such as Australia, Canada and the US, figures indicate more men than women look online for love. Englishmen have an international public perception of being charming, well-spoken romantics. This appears to have spread to online dating sites as well where many are thought to not only be witty, but gifted talkers. However, this view seems to be only exclusive to women from outside the UK as females in the country have an entirely different opinion, according to the Scientific Research Centre. FULL ARTICLE @ UK NETGUIDE

Domains4Sale: AvatarCupid.com, XCupid.com, ...

OPW - June 25 - Contact John Sprague if you are interested in his portfolio of brandable/geo "cupid" and "matchmaking" domains including:

- AvatarCupid.com
- XCupid.com
- HollywoodCupid.com
- BabyBoomerCupid.com
- LasVegasCupid.com
- MandarinCupid.com

See the full list.

John is willing to sell most names individually, or all 139 names as one lot for $12,999.

Are Dating Web Sites Past Their Prime?

THE BIG MONEY - June 27 - Most subscription-based sites have been battling a downward trend for a while. And since last year, Match.com's traffic has been flat at best. As Techcrunch notes, Match.com does most of its growing these days by buying competing Web sites, rather than reinventing the world's oldest dance. Match.com is also becoming Yahoo's official personals service. In the same vein, eHarmony found itself last summer trying to explain how a 20% increase in registrations led to a 33% drop in traffic. The numbers suggest that while singles in search of a match may post a profile, they're not finding who they're looking for. The true threat is "noneconomic" competition that steals market share and has no interest in selling out. Markus Frind created Plenty of Fish as a coding exercise in 2003. Primarily supported by advertising, Frind this year introduced a paid membership level for users who are "serious," but the site still has free access. But as in any good arms race, even Frind is now promising that his site can predict whom its users will end up marrying, so he is taking the fight to paid sites' intellectual turf. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST

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PlentyofFish To Launch iPhone App

BIV BUSINESS TODAY - June 25 - Markus Frind, the founder of PlentyofFish.com, said that he will launch an iPhone app within the next few weeks. That will give the site’s 6.1M unique visitors in May another way to check their e-mails and browse for potential suitors.

The full article was originally published at BIV Business Today, but is no longer available.

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Virtual Dating With Weopia

THE 33TV - June 24 - Entrepreneur Dave Wilkie says, on average, it takes online daters 2-3 weeks to finally meet someone in person. That's why he decided to create a tool that speeds things up. It's called Weopia: a 3-D dating world where daters get to know each other by playing games and quizzes and talking to each other live. Wilkie says going on a virtual date is less intimidating and takes less time. Another added bonus: It's safe. There's no need to leave your house, and there's no awkward first encounter. "You don't have to finish a 2-hour dinner," Wilkie said. At Weopia, you just reject with one mouse click. A 1-day pass to Weopia is $4.95, or $18.95 a month.

The full article was originally published at The 33TV, but is no longer available.

See all posts on Weopia