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

With Apps Dating Got Easier

IRISH TIMES - Feb 14 - Companies such as AnotherFriend, OkCupid, PlentyOfFish and Spark each boast millions of messages, chats and other measures of mobile dating success. “The dating industry is moving massively towards mobile technology, with a huge percentage of users going mobile and using apps,” according to internet dating analyst Mark Brooks. Brooks says location-based mobile technology has had to broaden its scope though, to provide the vicinity as opposed to the exact location of users. “Women didn’t want to give away their exact location and GPS technologies were able to do that, showing where a person was within three metres. Now the more successful mobile dating apps provide vicinity-based services using GPS.” Brooks believes the next step in mobile dating is for the app to ask users how the date went. AnotherFriend.com, a dating site which acquired Maybefriends.com last year, has ~90K active users in any three-month period. ~20% of the site’s users log on from their smartphones, with traffic to the dating site’s app peaking at commuting times. Brian O’Neill, founder of Irish dating site Spark, says: “Some 25%of our 15K users now access the site via their smartphone.” POF has also seen massive growth in terms of apps, with 50% of the site’s Irish users now using the iPhone and android apps on a regular basis – a 250% increase in usage of the site’s mobile apps since 2011.

by Pamela Newenham
See full article at Irish Times

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Anotherfriend.com Buys MaybeFriends.com

OPW - Feb 8 - WebDev Ltd, the Internet company behind the largest Irish dating site www.anotherfriend.com has acquired the Irish dating site, www.maybefriends.com from the Saon Group for an undisclosed sum. AnotherFriend.com currently has ~60% market share of the Irish Online Dating market, with over 12.8M page impressions and 290K unique visitors monthly.

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Time For Romance To Click

IRISH TIMES - Feb 8 - Online dating has become commonplace, and spring is the most popular time for people to give it a go. Paula Hall of Parship.ie says that spring brings by far the biggest spike in new members. In fact, up to three times as many people join in spring as at any other time of the year. Jill McGrath, MD of Maybefriends.com, sees a similar trend, with up to 6,000 new people joining the site in January alone. Gráinne Barry from Anotherfriend.com, which now has ~500K members and boasts 300 marriages, agrees. “We are seeing a growing trend with the 45+ audience. FULL ARTICLE @ IRISH TIMES

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Online Dating Surges In Ireland

INDEPENDENT - Oct 17 - Online dating is becoming the norm for young singles in Ireland. Jill McGrath, managing director of Maybefriends.com, tells me how over the last year she has seen a tremendous growth in the 28--35 age group -- and how it is now the largest age group on the site. "The site database has grown by 30% since January of this year, with the younger age group making up ~53% of this growth. While Ireland is not quite at US and UK levels yet, where it is almost mandatory for singles to be on a dating site, Jill believes we will be there within the next 18 months or so. FULL ARTICLE @ INDEPENDENT

Mark Brooks: Maybefriends competes with Anotherfriend for pole position for the top Irish paid dating site.

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Romance Is Far From Dead For Over 50s

THE INDEPENDENT - Mar 20 - The 2006 census states there were more than 150,000 single Irish people between the ages of 60 and 74. Some have turned to dating sites such as AnotherFriend.com, or MaybeFriends.com. Some opt for sites that cater specifically to older adults, such as DatingforSeniors.com or FiftyAlready.com. Dating later in life is not without its advantages. While time might not be on your side, experience certainly is. You're much more relaxed as you grow older, and you realise that if something doesn't work out, well, you can't be everything to everybody.

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

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Saon Group Acquires Maybefriends.com

ONREC -- Feb 14 -- Saongroup.com has entered the online dating business with the purchase of Maybefriends.com, an Irish online dating website, for an undisclosed sum. Saongroup.com is an online recruitment company with operations in Ireland, the UK, Europe, the USA, China, India, South Africa and the Caribbean. With a worldwide online dating market of €1billion and online dating in Europe expected to reach €650million by 2012, this diversification represents major growth prospects for Saongroup.com," said Leslie Buckley, Chairman.

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