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

Dating In A Modern Life

PR WEB -- Feb 13 -- A recent poll of Date.com's female members found that 58% would not wait for Mr. Right to come along in order to have children, while only 42% still believe that marriage should come first. Single women who have decided to approach motherhood without any relationship commitment has intimidated many men from getting intimate. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

Paid Dating Sites Discover Local Spam

THE PARADIGM SHIFT BLOG -- Dec 5 -- Paid dating sites have now all adopted the strategy I created 3 years ago and taken it to the extreme. Check out google searches like garrison dating. Date.com  Matchmaker.com take the top spots. Followed by match.com, AmericanSingles, Meetic and Match.com UK.  Matchdoctor and others have started retooling their entire sites to try and rank high for local queries. Its like everyone just caught on in the last couple of months.

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

DateMobile Launches in North America

PR NEWSWIRE -- June 13 -- Date.com (two million active members) launched DateMobile, a new cross-platform mobile dating service in North America. DateMobile was created via a partnership with Plutolife is available through most cell phone carriers to both members and non-members of Date.com. During the regular Date.com signup process, members are able to sign up for DateMobile. DateMobile members can browse profiles, view suggested matches, text, flirt and chat with thousands of other singles directly from their mobile phone. It's free to send a message to other DateMobile members, but costs $.50 to receive text messages.

Mark Brooks: Strong pricing model. Looks like datemobile users will only be able to access other datemobile users though, like Match.com's offering. Makes for a great flirty chat app. Webdate allows access to their entire database of online users via webdate mobile. That's the best approach that serves serious daters that want local matches...but it costs far more to build that kind of application. 

Avalanche LLC (Date.com) Acquires Matchmaker.com

PR NEWSWIRE -- Feb 27 -- Avalanche LLC, a company owned and operated by the founders of leading online dating site Date.com, has acquired Matchmaker.com which will share a technical platform with Date.com. Said Meir Strahlberg, President of Avalanche LLC and CEO of Date.com. "Through this acquisition, we are looking forward to breathing new life into the site and reinvigorating the brand."  Matchmaker will continue to operate as a separate entity, and will become a destination for the marriage-minded single. Date.com will continue to be a home for the more casual dater. 

Userplane Enhances Award-Winning Webchat and Webmessenger

BUSINESS WIRE -- Jan 18 -- Userplane Webchat Version 1.8.7 features streaming audio and video (through Flash MX), mini-profiles, a user photo, and an overall usable and flexible Flash interface.  The new version allows for full support of unlimited user video streams, integrated chat history display, advanced user and administrative block and ban functions, and site-administered room alerts.  In addition, Userplane has significantly improved security functions and will soon offer advertising revenue-sharing to clients.  Userplane's Webmessenger 1.8.11 include a much-requested skinning feature allowing full color and icon customization, advanced notification of accepted and rejected IMs, and a resizable interface. This Flash instant messaging tool provides live text and audio/video instant
messaging.  "There is a lot more to come - 2006 will be an exciting year for us," CEO Michael Jones said.  "Look for a range of new partnerships and developments that will enable us to expand our features, to drive exciting user experiences and additional revenue for our users and partners."  Recent clients include: Date.com, Friendster, Honda, and Red Bull. 

Mark Brooks: Mike knows how to look after his customers and is a pleasure to work with. 

Date.com Signs New Relationship Advisor

PR WEB -- Jan 11 -- Date.com announced today the addition of its newest relationship advisor, sexy scribe Anna David; responsible for providing advice to our more than two million members nationwide. She will write a monthly column devoted to contemporary dating and relationship issues, which will appear on Date.com's interactive webzine "Date Info." David has conducted interviews and written for Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Details, Vanity Fair, Playboy, Maxim, The New York Post, Us Weekly, Variety and penned the "Sex Files" column in Razor magazine. Date.com is adding new members at a rate of 250,000 per month.

Mark Brooks: Nice move.  Content keeps users around.  They need educating on how to find the right person and how to keep it together.

November 2005 Site Rankings

Dec 27 -- The November rankings are live (see left bar).  Nielsen has tidied social networks Myspace, Facebook, hi5 and Friendster out of their online dating rankings, leaving Yahoo Personals (1), Match (2) and TRUE (3) with the November 2005 top spots.   

Not much change with the Alexa rankings.  Plentyoffish and Friendfinder bump Date.com down two spots to #6.  For the social networking rankings Facebook bumps Friendster out of the top 3.  Myspace now leads the social networking category, followed by Hi5 and Facebook.

TRUE trumps American Singles on the Hitwise top 15 rankings for November and takes the #5 spot.  Singlesnet moves up one spot to #7 and wrestles Plentyoffish and adult oriented Mate1 down one place.  MSN leans on it's online dating and moves up five full places to take the #10 position.  Niche site Blackpeoplemeet impressively moves up a spot to #11 and Perfect Match gets squeezed out to #12.  Youngsters online dating site, Hotornot, moves up a spot to #13.  - Mark Brooks   

Net Gains in Love Games

THE TELEGRAPH -- Nov 7 -- Age: 25, Occupation: Service, Calcutta, Sites visited: OkCupid, LoveCompass, date.com, datingindya.com   , yahoo.com, Frequency: Several times a day, Since: High school.  So how many in Net-savvy Calcutta are ready to say "Aati kya Khandala" online? Quite a few actually, if one goes by the figures by one of the leading Indian online dating sites, Fropper.com.  Navin Mittal, head of Fropper.com, told GoodLife from Mumbai: "We have some 15,000 members in Calcutta, 60% age 18-25. There is far less response from the 35+ age bracket." Starting in 2003 with only a few thousand members, Fropper today boasts 850,000 members and over 15 million page views a month.  The name Fropper (short for "friend hopper") seems to underline a change in social attitude. The new-age partner-seeker is ready to search for compatibility. The anonymity of the Net allows one to search, fail and search again.

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

Online Dating Feeling Less Attractive

CNN MONEY -- Aug 18 -- Online dating has shrugged off its social stigma and emerged as a mainstream means for singles to find that special someone. The U.S. online dating industry is expected to climb 9% year-over-year with revenues of $516 million in 2005, said Nate Elliott, an analyst at Jupiter Research. That's slower than the 19% growth in 2004. And 77% in 2003. There are currently nearly 1,000 dating Web sites, said Bill Tancer of Hitwise, and one out of every 100 people logging on to the internet visits an online dating site. Niche sites are popular. Social networking sites have become increasingly popular among the young.  That's giving traditional online dating sites a run for their money, said John Tinker, research analyst at ThinkEquity Partners.  The Big 3 online dating sites -- Yahoo! Personals, Match.com and EHarmony.com will have to tweak their business models and create new innovative products to grow revenue. One place to look is advertising. Date.com's CEO Meir Strahlberg said that advertising revenues have doubled in the past few months to 10% of total revenue. "There are 86 million single adults who control annual spending of $1.6 trillion," Strahlberg said. "Online dating sites reach about 30 percent of that market currently." Date.com can target an advertiser's products to almost any demographic based on user profiles. Yahoo! Personals general manager Lorna Borenstein said, "today's online daters are increasingly sophisticated. You can't just increase offerings; you have to help singles figure out their relationship goals and offer tools to help them find their version of success, whatever that might be."  FULL ARTICLE @ CNN MONEY

Mark Brooks: Hot future trends; 1. targeted advertising on online dating sites.  2. personality profiling.

DatingDirect.com Signs Two-Year Deal With AOL

REVOLUTION MAG -- May 20 - AOL has signed a two-year deal with DatingDirect.com to provide its members with access to the UK's biggest online dating agency.  DatingDirect has other deals with sites including iVillage.co.uk and ITV.com, and has more than 2m members in the UK. It is ranked by Nielsen//NetRatings as the largest personals site in the UK in terms of monthly unique users, ahead of Meetic.co.uk and uDate.com.  Research compiled by Jupiter shows that the Western European dating markets will be worth €117m (£80m) by 2007. The UK online dating market is particularly showing rapid growth, currently worth £11.7m and is estimated by Jupiter to grow to £47m by 2008.  DatingDirect was founded in 1999. As well as hosting white-label dating services for other websites and its own branded website, it runs offline dating events, which it sees as a way of raising brand awareness.

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

Mark Brooks: Dating Direct is pulling ahead in the UK market it would seem.  It's tough to compete with sites that know how to do good deals.

Online Dating is Split Over the Bill

MIAMI HERALD -- Apr 27 -- Love is supposed to steal your heart not your car. The background checks bill passed the Florida Senate Criminal Justice Committee Tuesday but still must be scheduled for a floor vote in the waning days of the session. Although True.com has pushed similar legislation in six other states, no other bill has made it this far.  ''I've got complete confidence that True is going to run this thing through,'' said Mark Brooks, the editor of Online Personal Watch, who has been monitoring the bill's progress.  "But the industry certainly doesn't like the idea that it's being rammed down their throats."  While True.com says it's simply trying to make online dating safer, critics accuse the newcomer, which has 3 million members, of using the legislation to stake out more turf in a crowded and lucrative industry.  Said Kristin Kelly, senior director of PR at Match.com.  "It's bad for the industry because it continues to promote a stigma that's not accurate.''  True's CEO Herb Vest said, "we don't want criminals and married people preying on our members.  There are close to 70 million singles out there that are not using online dating sites right now. If we can let them know that, as an industry, we care about their safety then we're all going to grow at a prodigious rate.''  The Florida DOC database hasn't been updated since August of last year and Rapsheets only searches 15 of the state's 67 counties.  Two Miami online dating sites -- Webdate and Date.com -- said they will be offering their clients background checks, regardless of the bill's outcome.  ''I think background checks are a relatively good idea, if done properly,'' said Webdate COO Abe Smilowitz.

Mark Brooks: True is leaning on the Florida bill with all it's might, connections and savvy.  The session ends Friday 6th May.  Watch this space!  I'll keep you posted.

Userplane Chat and Instant Messaging Launched on Date.com

BUSINESS WIRE -- Apr 6 -- Userplane, social software pioneer, today announced a partnership with Date.com to provide Userplane Webmessenger and Webchat. "By partnering with Userplane, we are providing them with the best chat and IM capabilities currently on the market," said Date.com CEO, Meir Strahlberg.

IDEA OASIS Announces Opposition to State Legislation Aimed at Regulating Online Dating

BUSINESS WIRE -- Mar 21 -- IDEA-OASIS, the Internet Dating Executive Alliance/Online Association for Social Industry Standards www.ideaoasis.org, today announced its formal opposition to state legislative efforts regarding personals companies conducting background checks on all users of Internet dating and online matchmaking services. It's "legislative overkill vs self-regulation through better business models and policies," said Michael Jones, president of IDEA OASIS. "In addition to damaging individual privacy, this kind of misguided effort may ultimately undermine e-commerce -- from giants such as eBay and Amazon down to the small business and start-ups. In the end, the supposed cure is worse than the disease, which is why we believe this will simply force the hand of online businesses and impair the rights of free speech and free communication online."  Meir Strahlberg, CEO, Date.com, said "rather than risk giving consumers a false sense of security with criminal checks that are not 100% accurate, responsible companies in the industry should continue to promote safety guidelines to those in the online dating community." 

Video Clips Aim to Steer Cupid's Arrows

ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Feb 12 -- After exchanging instant messages and digital photos through an online dating site, he flew to Houston to meet what he hoped would be a beautiful soul mate. What he found was a flabby misanthrope with an apparent drinking problem. "I decided right then that I needed more information before I'd go on another date with someone I met online."  New policy: He'll only date women who post videos or use Web cameras in virtual chat rooms.  Videos are gaining popularity among the estimated 20 million Americans who visit online dating sites each month. Nearly one in four U.S. singles have used online dating services, according to Date.com.  Only 10% of 2.8 million active users at True.com post videos, but the percentage is rising quickly and online profiles with video get more hits than those without.  "Online daters go on a lot of first dates but not many seconds," Compagno said. "More information almost always is better."  PerfectMatch.com (1.5 million-members) doesn't allow videos. Nor does eHarmony.com. It didn't accept photos until 2001 and will probably never accept videos, said senior VP Marylyn Warren. "Chemistry fogs your brain a little bit," Warren said. "If you see someone who is drop-dead handsome or beautiful, you might forget that she cheated her way through school or he tells lies or does the kind of things that break up a marriage. We need to get at the true character of a person without emphasis on photos and videos."

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

Mark Brooks: Great chemistry is hugely multifaceted, at the core of great relationships, and nigh impossible to predict.  Personality profiling distinguishes someone as a great potential friend.  The rest is up to chemistry.  Your comments please...

Date.com Poll: Women More Likely to Snoop than Men

NEW YORK, NY, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ - In the new film, Little Black Book, Brittany Murphy's character engages in some high-tech snooping on her new boyfriend. Based on this scenario Date.com asked its members: Have you ever snooped on your partner? 22% of women answered: "I have snooped, and found out information that ended the relationship." Only 14 percent of men chose the same answer.