Internet Dating Video News Summaries

Internet Dating Video News Summary #16

OPW Weekly News Summary - Nov 5th, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Hello, and welcome to Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup. I’m Mark Brooks, and here are the latest headlines from around the industry.

Despite the poor economy, online dating has continued to thrive. This includes related white label businesses. Ross Williams, founder of White Label Dating, even told Britain’s Real Business magazine that the recession “doubled my business.”

Williams in the interview said White Label Dating’s turnover doubled to 25 million pounds in 2009 and that he is expecting an additional 100 percent growth this year.

In the past five months, White Label Dating has unveiled 186 new dating sites, including ones for Borders, Cosmo and Men's Health. With these new launches, White Label Dating now runs more than 2,571 sites worldwide -- 1,138 of which are in the U.K.

Dating Factory, a new option for white label dating solutions, has also seen success. In a statement exclusively to Online Personals Watch, Dating Factory CEO Tanya Fathers, formerly of World Dating Partners, said:

“The DatingFactory.com project was launched during the recession mainly because we identified the online dating market as the one of the most recession-proof areas on the Internet. Our revenue in October has grown. One of the recipes for success for DatingFactory.com  is to focus on high profit non-English countries as well as traditional U.K., USA, and Far East  markets. This gives our partners opportunities to diversify their efforts to create an even more stableRe income during this time of recession.”

Who else is on the upswing during the recession? The mobile dating market is doing ok. Worldwide, it has grown from $330 million in 2007 to $550 million in 2008. Juniper Research predicts revenue will double to $1.3 billion by 2013.

A new mobile plug-in for Apple products is now available from Mamba, Russia’s largest dating service. Mamba.App gives users access to all the basic Mamba services, including search, IM and profile updating. Mamba has over 11 million members, with 80,000 online at any one time.

Moving on, let's have a look at an interesting magazine study of women and online dating. According to new polls from Self Magazine, online dating is currently most popular with middle-aged women.

68% of women over 51 use dating sites, as compared to just 29% of 18-25 year old women. And around 50% of women ages 26-50 use dating sites.

When it comes to looking for sex buddies online, middle-aged women are again leading the pack. 27% of women over 51 are using the Web to initiate intimate encounters, as compared to 12% of 18-25 year olds. 18% of women 26-35, and 21% of females 36 to 50.

Also of note, more than 30% of women aged 26 to 50 have flirted with a stranger online while in a relationship, according to the survey. OnlineBootyCall, Fling and other hookup websites tend to outperform many mainstream online dating sites in terms of the amount of traffic they receive. Last May, Match.com had 5 million unique visitors, while AdultFriendFinder had nearly 24 million and Fling 18 million.

Speaking of intimate encounters, Ashley Madison, a site that helps facilitate extramarital affairs, is beginning to attract more gay and bi-curious members. Of Ashley Madison’s 4.7 million members, more than 143,000 are looking for same-sex encounters. Two-thirds are women seeking women. The remainder are men looking for men.

Finally, there’s still time to submit your nominations for the first annual iDate awards. Categories include best dating site, best software provider, best matchmaker and best affiliate program. The awards will be held on January 28 during the Internet Dating Conference in Miami. To submit your nominations, please visit www.idate2010.com. The nominations and voting, I should note, are heavily weighted towards Internet Dating Executive Alliance members. So, if you're an executive at an internet dating company, please, we're counting on you taking a minute to nominate companies, and vote.

This edition of Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup has been sponsored by Viximo. Viximo, helping the internet dating industry to get their virtual gifting and virtual currency offerings right first time, profitably.

That’s all for this week’s news roundup. Tune in again next week as we bring you the latest and greatest from the world of online dating. No ads, no fluff, just raw news and CEO interviews. I’m Mark Brooks.  Thank you.

Internet Dating Video News Summary #15

OPW Weekly News Summary - Oct 29th, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Hello, and welcome to Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup. I’m Mark Brooks, and here are the latest headlines from around the internet dating industry.

Match and Chemistry’s parent company, IAC, had a profitable third quarter, thanks to its asset sales. Yet revenue from Match and IAC’s dating sites dropped by $13 million to 81 million dollars. IAC attributed the decline to the absence of Match Europe, which was sold to French competitor Meetic last June. One bright spot for Match? Paid subscriptions grew by five percent to 1.4 million. Why is this? Match tell me it's basically because they're better at targetting users. Case in point, its interesting how they blanketed the Oodle.com classifieds site recently. Its tough for any other dating site to get a shoe-in on Oodle now that they've loaded 700,000 profiles from Match.com.

I talked with Merger Market this week about the possibility that FriendFinder Networks could sell its non-core businesses before the end of this year. It really was quite hypothetical. Sure, its unlikely but its possible. Properties that don't really fit the fold include Gradfinder and BigChurch. FriendFinder filed for an IPO last December in hopes of raising up to 460 million dollars to pay off its debts.

Noel Biderman runs Ashley Madison. He thinks FriendFinder would be wise to attempt to sell its international properties to companies focused on a particular geographic region. i.e. FriendFinder’s Latino dating site, Amigos, might have better success in the hands of a company concentrating solely on the Latino market. FriendFinder’s sites could bring in between 7x to 8x EBITDA, according to Noel.

Also in international news, statistics from September show singles in the U.K., Spain and Switzerland have had a change of heart regarding their favorite dating sites.

Here is a comparison of Nielsen’s U.K. unique audience rankings from this past August and September.

U.K., Nielsen Online/Unique Audience
August 2009

1. Friends Reunited Dating (605,000)
2. PlentyofFish (574,000)
3. Match (468,000)  

September 2009

1. PlentyofFish (576,000) 
2. DatingDirect.com (520,000)
3. Friends Reunited Dating (498,000)

As you can see, former #1 Friends Reunited Dating fell to third place after it lost 100,000 uniques visitors a month points in just a month. This drop-off allowed PlentyofFish at 576,000 uniques to move into the top spot, even though the free dating site’s unique audience ranking only improved by two points from August.

PlentyofFish also finished on top of comScore’s U.K. rankings for September. They estimated the site had 794,000 unique visitors. Why the difference between the comScore and Nielsen numbers? Well, I've run numbers with comScore and Nielson as far back as 2003 and seen as much as an order of magnitude difference between them. The differences are a lot less these days. Its really a matter of how from where they pull their numbers, and how they do their math. Ultimately, the best bet is to draw your conclusions on rankings from multiple competitive intelligence sources. Which is why I list them at Markslist.com. Just type in that domain and you'll see the latest rankings each month.

DateTheUK came in second to Plentyoffish.com in the UK with 733,000 uniques. Actually DateTheUK’s parent company, EasyDate, was honored this week by Deloitte as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the U.K. EasyDate’s revenue increased 10x from 2004 to 2008. Deloitte ranked EasyDate at #30 on their annual Technology Fast 50 list for the U.K.

As mentioned earlier, there’s also a new #1 dating site in Spain, according to Nielsen.

Spain, Nielsen Online/Unique Audience
August 2009

1. FriendScout24 (626,000)
2. Meetic (442,000)
3. TeEncontre.com (305,000)

September 2009

1. C-Date (561,000)
2. Meetic (478,000)
3. Easyflirt (466,000)

Casual dating site C-Date is now in first place after not even being ranked in the top three last month. C-Date saw 561,000 uniques in Spain for September.

FriendScout24 may have lost its #1 ranking in Spain, but the site did better over in Switzerland.

Switzerland, Nielsen Online/Unique Audience
August 2009

1. Parship (72,000)
2. FriendScout24 (67,000)
3. Swissfriends.ch (54,000)

September 2009

1. FriendScout24 (73,000)
2. Swissfriends.ch (65,000)
3. Parship (64,000) 

FriendScout24 grabbed the top spot with 73,000 uniques. Last month’s #1, Parship, fell to #3 with a 64,000 unique visitors in September.

Also of note: In Germany, eDarling and be2 replaced Loomin.de and Bildkontakte.de at #2 and #3, respectively.

Interestingly, many dating sites in Europe saw a general decline in their unique audience numbers during the month of September.

I asked comScore how many people visit dating sites worldwide and they were kind enough to share their latest worldwide number. In August 2009 there were 113 million unique visitors to dating sites around the world. Well there you have it. That's 113 million uniques. To put that number in perspective. That's more than the entire population of England, Spain and Portugal combined.

For more information, visit OnlinePersonalsWatch.com and click on the International Ranking sections, or you can just visit Markslist.com to forward into the rankings.

Over in China, there are more than 100 matchmaking Web sites. However, according to e-commerce site Alibaba.com, less than 10 Chinese matchmaking site have over a million subscribers. China's largest matchmaking site is currently Zhenai.com, which has 20 million registered users. The site’s membership plans range from free to $879 per year. iResearch predicts the overall online dating market in China in 2010 will reach 140 million users, generating approximately 176 million dollars.

Finally, you may have noticed that the Internet Dating Conference has a had a design refresh. Did you also notice the new iDate Awards. Nominations are now open. Members of the Internet Dating Executive Alliance will be nominating most of the companies over the next couple of weeks. You can also nominate companies that you feel are the best in category. There are 11 categories this year. Please go to iDateAwards.com to find out more. I'll be covering this more next week.

This edition of Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup has been sponsored by Iovation. Iovation, helping the internet dating industry to work together to beat scammers expose cybercriminals and fight fraud with device reputation.

That’s all for this week’s news roundup. Tune in again next week as we bring you the latest and greatest from the world of online dating. No ads, no fluff, just raw news and CEO interviews. I’m Mark Brooks.  Thank you.

Internet Dating Video News Summary #14

OPW Weekly News Summary - October 23rd, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Hello, and welcome to Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup. I’m Mark Brooks, and here are the latest headlines from around the industry.

Niche online dating network People Media has received recognition for its remarkable revenue growth from Deloitte LLP. Deloitte ranked People Media #359 on its annual Technology Fast 500 list. This list measures the fastest-growing technology companies in North America. 

Rankings are based on the percentage of annual fiscal revenue growth over the past five years. During this period, People Media grew 342 percent. Interest in targeted dating sites has exploded over the last several years. People Media’s 27 dating sites each cater to a particular community, from seniors to single parents and numerous religious affiliations.

Congratulations to social dating site, Zoosk, for reaching the big four-oh… that is, 40 million users on its service. Here are some quick stats about Zoosk. The site launched in 2007 and now draws around 12 million unique visitors per month. The revenue run rate at Zoosk is 30 million dollars, and the company expects revenue for 2009 to be between 18 and 20 million dollars.

Zoosk has been able to dominate the dating sector on networks like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo against a backdrop of competitors which include Hotornot, Speeddate.com, and Are You Interested.

Congratulations also go out to the newly-launched eLove.com. The service offers both online dating AND traditional matchmaking. eLove is actually running on the LoveAccess platform. The site has been revamped and soft launched and offers video profiles and both text and audio chat among other things. Those desiring more personalized attention can get help from one of eLove’s matchmakers. Users decide which mode of service they want to use: online dating, or the higher end matchmaking services.

Time now for our hook-ups and break-ups segment. Here’s a rundown of the new partnerships that were announced this week:

- Sugar daddy dating site SugarDaddyForMe now offer voice and SMS features. These services will be powered by the anonymous mobile calling platform, IcallU, by Swissmatch.

- Match renewed its distribution contract with Australia’s nine-msn network. The agreement was started in 2008 and has been renewed for 3 years, no less

- MSN Russia, meanwhile, will be partnering with Mamba, the country’s largest Internet dating company. Mamba also owns a white label system that brings together more than 20,000 partners.

- AARP, the largest organization for Americans 50 and over, has hired Dr. Pepper Schwartz to be their new Love & Relationships expert. Dr. Schwartz is also a consultant for the personality profiling site, Perfectmatch.

This hook-up really caught my attention because I think it’s about time AARP teamed up with a personality profiling dating site and ran their own co-branded site. I wonder if we will soon see an AARP and PerfectMatch co-brand?

As for this week’s break-ups, Australian dating network Cupid Media is breaking up with… it’s members? Cupid Media has been rejecting 3,000 profiles a day. The service believes these accounts have been created by fraudsters trying to dupe singles. Actually, all dating sites have a problem with this sort of thing. So the dating industry reviews profiles, uses tools like iovation and often blocks countries, wholesale.

That’s all for this week’s news roundup. Tune in again next week as we bring you the latest and greatest from the world of online dating. No ads, no fluff, just raw news and CEO interviews. I’m Mark Brooks.  Thank you.

Internet Dating Video News Summary #13

OPW Weekly News Summary October 16th, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Hello, and welcome to Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup. I’m Mark Brooks, and here are the latest headlines from around the industry.

Let’s begin by clearing up some confusion. Match.com was NOT hacked this week. What set off this false alarm? It started on Tuesday, when Match.com was down, and at the same time corp.match.com was forwarding to the homepage of GPS site Globe Track Wireless. It kinda looked like they had been hacked. The next day, Match set the record straight. The company had been in the middle of an upgrade, and a human error on their end caused the accidental redirect. The CEO of Hausertech commented on OPW and helped provide additional clarification and assurance. So, Match.com was not hacked.

We have an update on the U.S. online dating rankings from September. According to Hitwise, the top five most-trafficked sites remained, in order, PlentyofFish, Match.com, Singlesnet, Yahoo! Personals and DateHookup.com. eHarmony moved into the #6 position, bumping gay dating site Adam4Adam down a spot.

In the top 25, the biggest jumps were Mate1 and Zoosk. Mate1 moved from #15 to #12, and Zoosk rose from #20 to #17.

Mingle2 had one of the biggest falls, dropping from #16 to #19. Also falling three spots was Dream-Marriage.com, from #19 to #22.

Show me the money. That’s probably what some of FriendFinder’s investors are saying. The company had around 81 million dollars in debt at the parent level as of June 30. It also had approximately 442.1 million dollars in debt in connection with its acquisition of Various.

However, FriendFinder Networks announced this week that it intends to finish its IPO process by year’s end. In a press release, the company said “The primary purpose of this offering is to repay some of our outstanding debt, including certain debt held by our affiliates.”

FriendFinder operates the AdultFriendFinder network, as well as about two dozen other dating and networking sites.

While FriendFinder needs money, virtual goods companies could soon be raking it in. A new study shows total U.S. market size for virtual goods will hit 1 billion dollars this year. That’s nearly double the amount from 2008. The report by Justin Smith, editor of InsideFacebook.com and Charles Hudson of Serious Business, also projects that virtual goods sales will reach 1.6 billion dollars in 2010.

Now for our weekly hook-ups and break-ups segment. No break-ups to report this week, only new couples. One is Match.com and Mother advertising agency. Being the good “Mother” that it is, the agency will be reviewing Match’s entire U.K. advertising plan. Match spent 6 million pounds on TV, outdoor and radio ads last year, according to Nielsen.

High-end publisher Conde Nast also had a high-profile hook-up this week. Conde Nast just launched its new dating site, TrulyMadlyDating.com. The site is now teaming up with Glamour.com and GQ.com. The goal is to bring together Glamour’s fashionistas with the clothing-conscious male readers of GQ.

Last, but not least, White Label Dating has a new feature that addresses concerns over outdated profile photos. Users can now upload a photo directly to a partner’s site using their Webcam. The photo is then stamped with a date.

That’s all for this week’s news roundup. For more headlines and to check out the latest iDate job postings, head over to OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. Then tune in again next week as we bring you the latest and greatest from the world of online dating. No ads, no fluff, just raw news and CEO interviews. I’m Mark Brooks. Thank you.

Internet Dating Video News Summary #12

Weekly News Summary 9 Oct 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Hello, and welcome to Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup. I’m Mark Brooks, and here are the latest headlines from around the industry.

Let’s start with the bad news about Userplane. The IM guru will no longer support a free, unlimited service starting November 6th.

The good news is that Userplane will instead be introducing a low-cost, all-in-one-package. This will include their Webmessenger with Presence Bar, Webchat with Minichat and Webrecorder, Desktop.

Here's an interesting little side story. Toksta, a Userplane competitor, has changed its name to Stickapps.com, in response to an alleged trademark infringement. Stickapps is for sale and will probably sell for a low six figure amount very soon.

Moving on, it’s time to bid adieu to BBW Personals Plus. The dating site for plus-sized singles has re-launched as MoretoLove.com. Despite the new name, the system and features have remained the same. MoretoLove is run by Spark Networks. Company president Greg Liberman said in a press release "MoretoLove.com isn't just about body type. Our members want to find people who want more out of life and have a lot more love to share."

Now, it’s time for our weekly hook-ups and break-ups recap. There could soon be a new power couple over in the mobile dating sector. Flirtomatic is set to announce a major deal with a U.S. carrier, according to the Daily Finance. Signs seem to suggest the carrier is AT&T, since their ex-exec Gary Cohen now works for Flirtomatic as the VP of North America. Flirtomatic has pulled in $15 million in revenue from its social network and sales of virtual goods. The company has $11 million in venture backing to date and expects to turn a profit by next year.

There's no break-ups to report this week, but there is news about one scientist who is trying to break down eHarmony’s secret matching formula. eHarmony’s mathematical algorithm pairs up members based on their responses to a 258 question personality test. The site is now trying to figure out how their algorithm correlates with physical chemistry. Singles come into the eHarmony lab in Pasadena, California. They then go on mini-dates, and their body language is monitored. The findings are then cross-referenced with the daters’ responses to the eHarmony questionnaire. Among the constants in their research, physical attraction, they say, is a poor predictor of long term relationship success.

To watch this full report from ABC News, head over to opw1.com

Watch out for our review of the eHarmony test vs The Compatible Partners test. That's coming up on the weekend. The conclusions were pretty straightforward. The two tests are indeed near identical, but we did tweeze out a few differences.

That’s all for this week’s Online Personal Watch’s News Roundup. Tune in again next week as we bring you the latest and greatest from the world of online dating. No ads, no fluff, just raw news and CEO interviews. I’m Mark Brooks.  Thank you.