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

Looking For A Job?

OPW - Apr 11 - We've updated the iDating industry job listings again. Here are some sample job listings that we thought were interesting:

WhiteLabelDating
   Customer Retention Representative / UK, Windsor office
   Customer Care Executive / UK, Windsor office
   Customer Care Team Leader / UK, Windsor office
     
DatingStartsHere
   Affiliate Manager, Dating Aggregator / USA - VA, Reston

OculusAI
   System Developer (description in Swedish) / Sweden - Stockholm

Global Personals USA (Webdate, Fling, WealthyMen)
   Internet Affiliate Sales Managers / Online Buyers 
More info: http://www.globalpersonalsmedia.com/careers.html

AreYouInterested (SNAP Interactive)
   Product Manager
More info: http://www.snap-interactive.com/jobs.htm

Be2
   Online Marketing Manager "Campaigns"
   Medical Product Manager / Germany - Berlin or Munich
   Online Product Manager / Product Owner
More info: http://corporate.be2.com/jobs, contact: jobs@be2.com

Catholic Match
    Customer Service Position
More info: http://www.goacolyte.com/company/jobs.shtml

Cupid Media  
   Online Marketing Assistant (Graduate Position)
   Web Site Translators and Localizers
   Bilingual Customer Service Representatives and Translators
More info: http://www.cupidmedia.com/Career.cfm

eDarling.de
   Customer Care Agent (French or German speaking)
More info: http://www.edarling.de/jobs

eHarmony
   Country Manager / JP - 13-Minato-Ku
   Sr. Product Manager, Mobile / USA - CA, Santa Monica
   Marketing Communications Writer / Brazil - Sao Paolo
   Marketing Manager / Brazil - Sao Paolo
   Finance/Office Manager / Brazil - Sao Paolo
   Manager, Financial Planning & Analysis / USA - CA, Santa Monica
  
FriendFinder Networks
   QA Lead / USA - CA, Sunnyvale
   Project Manager / USA - CA, Sunnyvale
   Fraud Manager / USA - CA, Los Angeles
   Senior Financial Analyst / USA - CA, Sunnyvale
     
FriendScout24 (description in German)
   User Experience Manager / Germany - Munchen
   Senior Pricing Analyst / Germany - Munchen
     
Lavalife
   Media Buyer
   Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Specialist
More info: corp.lavalife.com/web/corp/careers

Match.com, Chemistry.com, People Media
   MBA Finance Intern (Summer) / USA - TX, Dallas
   VP Marketing & Business Development / USA - CA, Los Angeles
   VP Public Relations and Communications / USA - NY, New York & TX, Dallas
   Reporting Analyst / USA - TX, Dallas
   Billing Analyst / USA - TX, Dallas
   Senior Manager, Strategy & Analysis - People Media / USA - CA, Los Angeles
   Creative Director / USA - TX, Dallas
   Accounts Payable Coordinator / USA - TX, Dallas
   Associate Manager, Online Marketing / USA - TX, Dallas
   Product Manager - People Media / USA - CA, Los Angeles
  
Online-Buddies
   Business Development Manager / USA - MA, Cambridge
   Director of Systems Operations / USA - MA, Cambridge
   Product Manager / USA - MA, Cambridge
  
Shaadi
    Customer Relations Officer / India - Mumbai
   SEO Expert / India - Mumbai
  
Smartdate
   COO / France - Paris
   Product Manager - CRM / France - Paris
More info: http://jobs.smartdate.com/

Spark Networks
   Director of Acquisition Marketing / USA - CA, Beverly Hills and UT, Provo
   Call Center Representative / USA - UT, Provo
   Online Media Buyer / USA - CA, Beverly Hills
   Account Manager / USA - CA, Beverly Hills
  
SpeedDate
   Lead Product Manager / Director of Product
   Social Marketing Manager
   Marketing Coordinator
   Sr. Manager / Director of Marketing - Display
To learn more, email: jobs@speeddate.com

WooMe       
   Site Operations Manager / USA - Los Angeles
   Community Manager
   Site Operations Analyst / USA - San Francisco
More info: http://www.woome.com/woome/jobs/#sysadmin

Zoosk
   Marketing Manager - Google Content Network Specialist / USA - CA, San Francisco
   Marketing Associate - Facebook Specialist / USA - CA, San Francisco
   Product Manager / USA - CA, San Francisco
More info: http://www.zoosk.com/jobs.php?from=footer

For the full listing, go here.

Do you have an idating job offer which is not included? Please, send the details (company, job title, location, link to details) to petra@courtlandbrooks.com and we will add your offer to the list.

Cupid Placings Raise £12m

STOCKMARKET WIRE - Apr 11 - Cupid has raised £12M through a placing of ordinary shares with new and existing institutional investors. Cupid said £5M was raised via a placing of ~4.5M new ordinary shares and £7M through a placing of ~6.4M existing ordinary shares held by founders Bill Dobbie and Max Polyakov (through Opalta Limited) all at 110p a piece. Following the placing, CEO Dobbie and business development director Polyakov will hold 24,7% and 23.1% respectively of the enlarged issued share capital.

See full article at Stockmarket Wire

See all posts on Cupid plc

Best Industries 2011: Online Dating And Matchmaking

INC - Apr 11 - As the social stigma about online dating vanishes, industry-wide profits are soaring. The online dating and matchmaking industry grew 2.3% between 2008 and 2011, with 2.8% more growth expected annually through 2016, according to IBISWorld. The number of people employed in the field is expected to increase from 15,606 in 2011 to~17,000 by 2016.

By the Numbers:
19.5 - Annual profit percentage for an online dating company, according to IBISWorld
14,427 - Number of online dating and matchmaking enterprises in the United States in 2011
15,621 - Number of enterprises expected to exist in 2016
18,285 - Number of people expected to be employed in the field in 2016
2.8% - Projected annual revenue increase for the online dating and matchmaking industry from 2011 through 1016

by Tim Donnelly
See full article at Inc

eHarmony Hits 40 Million Registrants

EHARMONY BLOG - Apr 9 - Congratulations to eHarmony on hitting this milestone. It took them 10 years, 7 months, 19 days. This figure of course includes the successful couples, the repeat registrants, the now-married, scammer accounts, and real actual paying members.

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

See all posts on eHarmony

Companionship Is Key To Happy Marriage

PRESS RELEASE - Apr 9 - BharatMatrimony has announced the result of their online survey on Changing Trends in Marriages which was conducted on the fall of Matrimony Day 14th April. ~55% of the nearly 5200 people who took part in the survey voted companionship as the most important ingredient for a successful marriage. Only 19% believed that economic stability was more important for a successful marriage; physical intimacy came third with 10.3%. 5% felt that it was necessary to have children for a marriage to be successful.

See full article at Business Standard

See all posts on BharatMatrimony

New Dating Site Is Indistinguishable From Prostitution

GAWKER - Apr 7 - "WhatsYourPrice.com is like eBay for dating," says the site's founder, Brandon Wade. "When you see a hot single you want to date, just make an offer and buy the first date." Wade is also the genius behind sugar daddy dating service SeekingArrangement.com. Obviously, the first question about WhatsYourPrice.com is "How is this not prostitution or escorting?" "This is all about paying for the first date. There is absolutely no sex involved, and except perhaps the chance of sex at some point in the future if you are able to successfully charm and seduce", said the site's spokesperson.

by Adrian Chen
The full article was originally published at Gawker, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: I prefer the HowAboutWe concept. Imaginative dating ideas driving connections. But WhatsYourPrice has a niche. Guys who have money, and want to cut to the chase. A date, and less tappity tap online.

See all posts on SeekingArrangement

Check Out Your Competition, For Free

CB BLOG - Apr 6 - Quantcast is a web analytics service that competes with the likes of Compete.com, Hitwise and to some extent comScore. Quantcast also allows sites to volunteer to have their data pulled directly. So sites can elect to give Quantcast the keys to their server metrics. The following dating sites are quantified:

Speeddate
OkCupid
eHarmony
Zoosk

Quantcast offers the following reports:
1. Traffic report - cookies, impressions, page views
2. Demographics report - gender, age, children per household, education status and income levels.
3. Audience Also Likes - what properties people also engage with
4. Traffic Frequency - addicts vs regulars vs passers by
5. Business Data - do people visit from home or work?

Based on those reports we can say that 57% of US eHarmony visitors are females. eHarmony attracts people 35 +, mainly Caucasian with no kids. 1% of eHarmony's audience visit the site daily and account for 35% of all visits. 37% are regulars and account for 48% of all eHarmony visits.

See full article at CourtlandBrooks Blog

Paul Larsen, Managing Partner At Paul Larsen Consulting

OPW INTERVIEW - Apr 7 - Paul Larsen of Paul Larsen Consulting helps recurring “Card Not Present “ merchants increase revenue.

Anne Holland referred me to Paul and told me he was a wizard with payment processors.  So I thought I’d interview him for you. - Mark Brooks

You have quite an unusual focus with your consultancy. Tell us more. What do you do, Paul?
Primarily, we help subscription merchants meet and overcome customer churn caused by credit card problems. We help them hold onto their customers and we do a few other things along the way – reduce fraud, reduce chargebacks, help them become PCI compliant and help them lower fees.

More specifically I understand your sub specialty is working with card not present.
Yes, we work almost exclusively with what we call card not present, recurring or subscription merchants.

What is your background Paul? How did you get to be doing what you’re doing now?
We were on the merchant side ourselves for 13 years. We helped build and develop the system and the policies and procedures for what came to be the world’s largest magazine subscription company from 1994 to 2003).

That company was called Synapse and was purchased by Time Warner and today is a division of Time, Inc. But it was during that time when we incubated and developed many of the best practices that we were able to bring to bear for more effective performance in credit card processing over time.

Now I understand you’ve worked with the Internet dating industry in the past. Who have you worked with?
We’ve worked with Match.com, Spark Networks, ChristianCafe.com, Speeddate, True.com.  Those are just a few of the dating companies that we have worked with - and a number of those we continue to work with today.

What have you helped them achieve?
Primarily higher retention rates and that’s really why we exist. We want to be able to help them overcome the challenges of credit card breakage and thereby help improve their retention rate. And again, we also help them reduce fraud and chargebacks. We help them lower their fees through more incisive processing and more integral partnerships with their processors.

What are the most common problems you encounter specific to the Internet dating industry?
The problems are mostly generated by what we call environmental events. 72 million credit and debit cards were reissued last year. That’s 28% of all consumers receiving a replacement card. Banks are flipping portfolios in the United States quite a bit. Last year SunTrust flipped its entire debit portfolio of 6MM cards from Visa to MasterCard and this year Sovereign Bank is doing the same thing. Any time you hear a news headline about  cards being re-issued you know that’s not good for a subscription company.

Greater than 1 in 5 Americans are missing a credit card payment each year and with the economy being what it is, credit has been reduced and so credit limits are challenged. All credit cards around the world are reissued every 3 years or so and that’s a significant problem for subscription merchants.

Now, of course, the latest is the invasion of prepaid cards into the subscription industry. That is challenging because most of them are not reloadable and so therefore there is not much lifetime value attributable to a customer who begins a relationship with a dating merchant on a prepaid card.

Are you a fan of prepaid cards?
Personally I am. I like to receive them and use them but I would say most merchants these days are being crushed by it. They have maybe a lower priced intro offer, under $25, under $30 and the demography thereafter has lots of prepaid cards. They use it on the initial sale and then, of course, there won’t be any successful recurring charge because their prepaid card has been spent. The average value on a non-reloadable gift card is $33.

But we help merchants understand what to do in order to minimize the consequences of these events. Our goal is to move our clients, especially our dating clients to a position of strength corporately because of their credit card process and not despite it.

What would you say would be the biggest opportunity that you think the Internet dating industry is missing out on when it comes to payment processing?
So I could go blue sky here and talk about mobile payments and other trendy things. With mobile payments, especially in the United States and the UK, people are still trying to figure out what that means and how to take advantage of it. But really, the biggest opportunity is the optimized utilization of the best practices that have been made available to help subscription merchants overcome the challenges related to fraud, re-issuance, delinquency, credit limits, etc. There’s a lot of blocking and tackling involved but it’s surely worth it.

How can people work with you and what do you charge?
We work with companies in 2 different ways. There are organizations that have fully engaged staff in-house that is charged with paying attention to this and making sure credit card processing is optimized. Those companies often reach out to us and just simply ask for an audit of best practice usage. Match.com is one of those companies.

The other way is an approach that is more relationship oriented. We begin almost every relationship with an audit so we can see what they’re doing. Right then we understand what they can improve. Most companies will need some ongoing attention to implement best practices and sharpen the ones they have.

Let me pose a scenario for you. Say if I was running an Internet dating company based in the USA that had revenues of $20 million a year. What roughly would you want to charge me as an upfront and then as a retainer if we’re looking at a 2 year agreement?
We usually charge around $5,000 for the audit and then for our active involvement with customers we charge under $2,000 a month.

We’re very active in our relationships with customers. We help them either utilize and interpret reports that their processors make available or build their own reports internally that give them a clearer idea about how they are performing.

3.5 Women to Every Man Cheating Online

PR WEB - Apr 5 - New research from IllicitEncounters.com shows that, for every husband pursuing affairs online, there are more than three wives. The research also showed that women spent considerably more time than men as a member of the site, staying active for just over a year. Male members are typically active for just over 6 months. IllicitEncounters.com, who conducted the research, say the figure marks a clear shift in the demographics of British affairs. IllicitEncounters.com has been running since 2003, and now has ~570,000 members across the UK & Ireland.

See full article at PR Web

See all posts on IllicitEncounters

Next iDate Scheduled For June 22-24 In Los Angeles

NEWSWIRE TODAY - Apr 4 - The 7th annual west coast Internet Dating Conference will be in Los Angeles on June 22-24, 2011. The theme for the L.A. event is new markets which include niche markets and mobile dating applications. 
Three special pre-event sessions have been added to the event.
- OPW: Entrepreneurs and those starting a dating business receive a market overview
- eLove: Matchmaking business models, trends and strategy;
- CEO: Advanced strategies and tactics for senior dating industry executives

See full article at Newswire

Adam Sachs: The Accidental Indophile

LIVEMINT - Apr 3 - Ignighter’s been in the news recently for its almost accidental India business plan. Three New Yorkers - Adam Sachs, Kevin Owocki and Daniel Osit, set up a group dating site in 2008 to help their fellow men skip those awkward one-on-one Friday night blind dates. Unsurprisingly, it didn't find too many fans in the US. But they noticed a dramatic spike in the number of users from India. By August, Ignighter.com had crossed a million Indian users (the number has since doubled). In February, after raising $3M Sachs was ready to go to India. Earlier this week the websitedropped its average monthly $40 charge per group and decided it was time to indefinitely be a free site. “We don’t anticipate an increase in traffic but we’ve already seen dramatic increases in engagement,” says Sachs.

by Priya Ramani
See full article at LiveMint

See all posts on Ignighter

Virtual Instant Marriages Now Available On SpeedDate.com

SPEEDDATE BLOG - Apr 1 - SpeedDate.com has been approved as the first ever virtual wedding officiant with its new service SpeedMarriage. The service launched on March 15, 2011 and five to ten electronic marriages are being performed each hour, with peak usage between midnight to 2 AM. SpeedDate connects online daters in real-time on quick 5 minute chat sessions, to quickly find chemistry with potential mates. Now, extremely compatible SpeedDaters can bypass the courtship phase and get married in their next 5 minutes as an added bonus. What’s next for SpeedDate? “We’ve received user feedback that our customers would like to find faster, more efficient ways of having children” says co-founder Simon Tisminezky. “We’re thinking of calling the new feature ‘SpeedBabies’, but our engineers haven’t figured out the technology yet.” By the way, there are absolutely no plans for “SpeedDivorce”.

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

See all posts on SpeedDate

SNAP Interactive Reports Q4 And Fiscal Year 2010 Results

MARKETWIRE - Mar 31 - SNAP Interactive, a leading social app provider with ~40M installs across its social dating apps, announced its fourth quarter and fiscal year financial results for 2010. 
- Revenue increased 242% to $2,791,418 in Q4 2010 compared to $816,390 in Q4 2009
- Net loss increased to $382,048 compared to a net loss of $237,555;

SNAP is pleased to report that the quarter ending March 31, 2011 will produce SNAP's highest revenue total ever and represent their eighth consecutive quarter of revenue growth.

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

See all posts on SNAP Interactive

Naked Speed Dating With Fastlife.ca

PRESS RELEASE - Apr 1 - FastLife.ca, the world’s largest speed-dating company, is introducing the Naked Date. The innovative new concept invites FastLife.ca’s singles to bare all and speed date in the nude. “Our busy, professional members are facing ever-mounting pressures on their time and meeting that special someone is a constant challenge. So, we decided to remove that last layer of inhibition and allow them to truly get to know their next potential mate by dating in the buff. As we figure, why waste time wondering what they’ll look like naked when you can find out right away?”, said FastLife.ca CEO Justin Parfitt. The event sold out within hours of its announcement and drove so much traffic to FastLife.ca among the dating firm’s members that it crashed the website.

See all posts on FastLife