May 2009 OPW News Summary from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.
Hello, and welcome to Online Personals Watch’s Monthly News Roundup. We're switching these summaries to a monthly format so I'll cover the news from the mid-month roundup through today. I’m Mark Brooks, and this is what made industry news in May 2009.
I spoke with Marc Simoncini, the Founder
and CEO of Meetic and he clarified some aspects of the strategy for
Meetic after acquiring Match Europe. Meetic is focusing on expanding
Meetic Affinity all over Europe except for the Nordics. Now, Meetic
Affinity is a higher end dating product for serious daters. It's
in the same class as eHarmony or Chemistry, really. They're also
rolling out a product for a younger audience called Peexme which is
a mobile and web application that will be launched in June. That will
be more of a flirting than a dating service. So Peexme is their flirting
service, Meetic is their dating service and Meetic Affinity is their
serious dating, or matchmaking service. As far as their acquisition
of Match Europe goes, they'll continue to run all the brands, Meetic,
Match and DatingDirect, but they'll only promote the top brands. So
that means Meetic will run Match in the Nordics, and Meetic all over
the rest of Europe, and Dating Direct in the UK. They're going
to merge the Match Europe and Meetic databases so users on the Match
and Meetic and DatingDirect sites, will all be merged into one huge
database. This is a collosal business development for the internet
dating industry in Europe of course. We'll be watching and reporting
on this further, especially on Meetic's financials, as they're released.
According to the Daily Star, a British dating site has landed itself in hot water for using the American President’s name and image without permission from the White House. ObamaSinglesDating.com is facing a federal investigation for its use of President Obama’s name along with an image gallery featuring photos of the President and First Lady. A White House insider stated that the site’s information would be passed on to the appropriate authorities if they do not stop using the President’s name and likeness on their home page. On the surface this may seem to be a great niche site for supporters of President Obama to meet like-minded individuals, but its also blatant commercial abuse of his name.
The social dating community Zoosk is making it possible for members to connect based on common tastes in music and movies. The site this week introduced the ability to integrate their users Last.fm and Netflix accounts directly onto their Zoosk Date Card, providing potential matches real time updates to their latest playlist and movie choices. Zoosk has grown to more than 30 million users, and is the only social dating community that allows users to connect across multiple social networks. I really like this feature because people really define themselves by the kinds of music and movies they like. Its just a more natural way to allow people to show off who they really are. This is a good thing. I know that most dating sites ask what kind of music and movies users like, but there's nothing like seeing the real evidence from their recent real behaviors. Do you really like romantic movies, or are you just saying that? Do you really like Duran Duran, or did you just spend last week listening to thrash heavy metal?
CNN published an article about the way virtual currencies are powering social networks. It seems that as our identities migrate further onto the Internet, currencies that exist only online are becoming a more significant part of commerce on the Web and in the real world. Some even stand-in for real-world currency. Dr. Castranova at Indiana University said people tend to underestimate the large amount of cash being converted into online currency, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion each year apparently. A majority of this currency is being used in online gaming, however social networks are currently trying to find ways to manage or capitalize on their developing online economies. Perhaps some of this money could be spent on internet dating sites. This phenomenon has some significant potential as a source of revenue for online dating. We just signed up Viximo as a sponsor of Online Personals Watch this week, I should note, and they're helping us open our eyes to the world of virtual gifting and virtual currency.
Ah, the smell of litigation is in the air, and once again it smells like Craigslist. Only this time, the online classifieds site is the plaintiff. Craigslist is suing South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, no less. They're suing him for declaratory relief as well as a getting a restraining order against him. Now, several weeks ago, Mr. McMaster presented Craigslist with an ultimatum that would require them to remove the portions of their South Carolina site that aid in the solicitation of prostitution and graphic pornographic material. When read carefully, this means the entire site for South Carolina would have to come down. So instead of waiting to be sued, Craigslist removed their “Erotic Services” category from the site and struck first with a suit. We'll bring you updates on this case as they become available.
Times Online recently published an article
discussing the safety and ethics surrounding DNA dating. Dr Tamara Brown,
a Croatian geneticist, has been investigating what creates that initial
“spark” between two people, and she believes that the answer lies
in smell. Her company, GenePartner, charges clients $99 for a genetic
match based on a section of DNA called the human leukocyte antigen,
or HLA, but makes it clear that they are not claiming to provide the
ideal partner based purely on DNA. Another DNA testing company, ScientificMatch,
started up in December last year and offers DNA matching for a lifetime
membership fee of $1,995. Because DNA testing is as yet unregulated,
there are fears over the high risk to privacy, and DNA results being
sold to insurance companies. There are also concerns among the scientific
community because some companies, like GenePartner, refuse to release
their testing specifications for fear of other companies copying their
algorithm. This, however, means that the research has not been evaluated
by other experts and is indeed open to suspicion.
When it comes to the question, “Would you pay someone to find you a significant other?”, an increasing number of singles are answering yes. Reports continue to come in about the online dating industry flourishing under the poor current economic conditions, but an increasing number of people are turning to matchmaking as well. The number of singles turning to online dating as a way to meet a compatible mates has been steadily increasing, with some 3 million U.S. singles currently part of one or more sites. Matchmaking company The Right One prides itself on an effective approach that results in a match nationally every 17 minutes and a wedding a day. It's Just Lunch International doesn't release statistics but the company's president points to its continued expansion in and outside the USA as solid proof that its program for the last 18 years indeed works. Concerns about privacy and user safety are reasons that some online daters have turned to matchmakers instead.
Some new companies are trying to streamline
the process of searching for matches by culling profiles from different
sites into one central Web portal. Industry folks call it "online
dating aggregation," but James Nord compares the service to companies
such as CheapFlights.com or Kayak, where users log on, search for what
they're looking for, receive potential options from various providers
and then click straight through to the provider site. Nord is the founder
of Rubixx, thats' r-u-b-i-x-x. Rubixx works by feeding daters the
profiles of potential matches who fit their basic requirements from
a variety of dating sites. So far, the idea has been slow to gain traction,
and industry experts think the break is going to come in the form of
Facebook, if security and safety standards can be met to search for
singles among their 200 million members. Lycos tried launching a
version of this kind of site back in 2005. Their dating site aggregator
was fed by TRUE, LoveAccess and a few second tier sites. These
sites fed profiles to them each week via a flat file, and TRUE and LoveAccess
paid Lycos around $4 per new registrant that was delivered to them via
the Lycos dating site aggregator. The service flopped primarily
because Lycos just couldn't drive much volume of business to the partners.
Earlier this week, we brought you news of the proposed bill in the Illinois Senate that would hike the state income tax by 67% and impose $1 billion in new sales taxes. A list of 39 new services to be subject to the 6.25% sales tax was also listed, and online dating services were among them. We have since learned that the bill was not approved and died in the House. However, this news did raise a number of concerns about taxation of online dating sites. Several comments were made on Online Personals Watch about taxation on dating sites in the UK and EU. It's possible that a number of sizable dating sites in the U.S. may be hit with large VAT bills for their failure to pay the tax on UK or EU members. FriendFinder being one of them.
And finally, some of you may have
been as shocked as we were by just how far the Japanese are going to
make virtual sex a reality. On May 18th
we published a video that demonstrated some pretty far out devices that
allowed the less temperate and more horny of the Japanese to share every
peak and tremor of their arousals with others online. We found
the video to be quite the eye-opener, and subsequently lost a couple
of nights sleep over it. Viewers beware. It's not
adult, we don't publish adult videos on OPW, but the devices may make
you cringe a little. Jonathan Crutchley, the chairman and co-founder
of adult gay dating site Manhunt commented that they actually sell these
devices in their online shop. Jokes aside, this article reminded
me of an April 2005 article in Wired magazine's Sexdrive section where
they introduced the iVibe rabbit, a tamer version of what we saw in
the Japanese video. These kinds of cybersex toys could well find
themselves at home and more integrated into adult dating sites and online
communities such as Paltalk, Nerve and SuicideGirls.
That’s all for the May report of Online Personal Watch’s News Roundup. Tune in again next month as we bring you the latest and greatest from the world of online dating. No ads, no fluff, just raw news and CEO interviews served up daily. I’m Mark Brooks. Thank you.
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