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

Watch The Mullet Sparks Fly

WASHINGTON POST -- Nov 7 -- MulletPassions.com is a dating site for a man with a mullet and women who wants a man with a mullet. MulletPassions is just the extreme end of the blossoming world of niche online dating sites. MulletPassions is just one of more than 100 niche sites run by Passions Network, an umbrella company with online social networks for yoga lovers, atheists, truckers and vegans. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST

Mark Brooks: WhiteLabelDating.com serves similar small niches. Case in point, maturegolfers.com and singlefifties.com. (Full Disclosure: WLD is a client of Courtland Brooks)

See all posts on PassionsNetwork

Free Niche Online Dating & Social Networking

OPEN PRESS -- July 7 -- Started a little over 4 years ago, Passions Network allows individuals to join into a network of sites, their own personal online dating and social networking sites... specific to their personal interests (or passions). When a member joins any of the 110+ individual sites within the network, they are automatically a member of the entire network. FULL ARTICLE @ THE OPEN PRESS

See all posts on Passions Network

Niche Sites Making A Match Easier

SUN TIMES -- July 3 -- Forget eHarmony, Match.com or Yahoo Personals. Singles increasingly are turning to niche online dating sites promising to match couples with similar interests, backgrounds or religions. Mark Brooks, whose blog Online Personals Watch chronicles the Internet dating industry, estimates that niche sites now occupy approximately 43% of total market share. Brooks writes that while mainstream sites are stagnating, niche sites continue to grow. People looking to meet Trekkies or truckers can turn to the Passions Network, Sugardaddie.com bills itself as the place where the "classy, attractive and affluent meet", Ave Maria Singles offers a service for hard-line Catholics interested in sacramental marriage and Positivesingles.com is for people staying positive though they've tested positive -- for sexually transmitted diseases.

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

See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on Yahoo! Personals
See all posts on PassionsNetwork
See all posts on Suggardaddie
See all posts on Positivesingles

Niche Dating Sites Help Picky Singles Find Love

CANWEST -- June 15 -- "Online dating, back when it originally was taking off, was a large one-size-fits all mentality," says Michael Carter, president of Passions Network, a New York-based company with 110 niche sites. "Every day there are new sites out there that are focused on specific niche markets - it seems to be all the buzz."  "The underlying concept is that it should be easier to break the ice with people if you share something in common," he says. About 10,000 Canadians belong to Christian Mingle, 26,000 to JDate and 12,000 to Black Singles, says Gail Laguna, VP of corporate communications for Spark Networks, which runs JDate, Asian Singles Connection, Deaf Singles Connection and Military Singles Connection, along with nearly 30 others.

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

See all posts on Spark Networks
See all posts on JDate
See all posts on BlackSingles
See all posts on Christian Mingle