Internet Dating Video News Summaries

Internet Dating Video News Summary #35

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

This edition of the weekly news roundup is kindly sponsored by iTelebill.

Match.com is launching a new TV campaign to promote its MatchAffinity relationship service on Thursday, April first. The service will attempt to match committed registrants with other compatible singles. The compatibility is based on the results of an in-depth affinity personality test, which members take upon joining the service.

Online dating app service SNAP Interactive has announced its operating results for the full year of 2009. The full year revenue came in at $3,170,725, which was an increase of just $159k over 2008s results. Most of the revenue was generated from advertisements, premium features placed on various apps, as well as subscription fees to AreYouInterested. They lost $102k in 2009 as compared to a net income loss of $797k in 2008. That’s a nice improvement, but we would like to have seen them grow revenues more this year.

EasyDate recently acquired Allegran’s online dating business. The acquisition increased EasyDate’s current portfolio of dating sites from seven to twelve. EasyDate has also reached a milestone with its Facebook app BeNaughty. BeNaughty boasts an active user base breaching one million.

Facebook dating apps in general saw a massive user drop last month when Facebook turned off its app notifications. Upstart companies such as Zoosk and AreYouInterested took quite a hit as a result. Zoosk went from 6.9 million facebook users to 3.7 million users from March 6th to April 5th and AreYouInterested went from 2.2 million Facebook users to 1.2 million users from March 6th to April 5th according to Allfacebook app statistics.

Dating service GameCrush was forced to shut down only a week after its launch date, due to the overabundance of user requests. The site is a full-fledged social networking platform for gamers that allows visitors to set up profiles, browse profiles, and chat with each other through video and text messaging for a small fee. The service is currently trying to add more servers to meet user demands.

Owner of Executive Dating LLC, Barrie Turner has been arrested for fraud! Turner is alleged to be in connection with the operation of more than 200 websites offering “executive dating” services. Since 2005, more than 100 people have filed consumer complaints accusing Turner of fraud for failing to provide legitimate matchmaking for paid services. Investigators estimate that Executive Dating received more than $1.2M in mailed and wired payments.

Gay matchmaking site myPartner.com is officially on the auction block. The website focuses on serious long term relationships for gay dating and matchmaking. Site spokesperson Patrick Perrine has confirmed that myPartner.com is for sale. Patrick can be reached directly at [email protected] for those who are interested.

Be sure to head over to OPW1.com and check out our interview with President of MeetMoi, Alexander Harrington. We also have lovesites.com’s interview with Andrew Conru which you can find posted on the 31st of March.

This edition of Online Personals Watch’s Weekly News Roundup has been sponsored by iTelebill.

iTelebill – The mobile and voice payment specialists for all your online & micro billing payment requirements.

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 #32

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

This edition of the weekly news roundup is kindly sponsored by IDEA.

Zoosk recently made Wall Street Journal’s list of top VC backed companies. The website came in #42 out of 50 and is impressively, the only Internet Dating company to make the list. The rankings were calculated based on the track record of success for the VC investors who sit on the company’s board, the amount of capital raised in the founding executives track record of success, and the recent growth in the value of the company.

AreYouInterested.com’s iphone app has officially breached 100,000 downloads. In addition, the app’s number of user sessions is up 56% in the last two months. Visitors are supposedly spending an average of 23 minutes on the mobile app per day. The app features a complete integration of web and mobile activity, allowing users to communicate in real time with other users who are online at the same time.

The Sex.com domain name is up for auction with bidding starting at $1M! The website name was last bought in 2006 for a reported $14M backed by DOM Partners LLC.

Gotham Dating is offering to pay a full years rent or fund a wedding for any couple that is a member of the site for one year, and has gotten married as a result of the membership.

Moving on, Skyecandy is leading the charge in putting an end to the bad rap of blind dates. The service allows users to sign up for 10 five-minute online speed dates in a row over Skype. The users are matched with partners based on age, basic details, and location. So far, the service has attracted ~18,000 users. Australia and the US appear to be adopting the trend the fastest.

Investors seem to be pumping more and more money into web services that are heavily reliant on Facebook. Smartdate recently secured $2.2M from investors to build its idea of using Facebook data as the basis of a matchmaking service. Facebook in general is due to post somewhere upwards of $1bn in revenue for 2010.

According to research from Packaged Facts, more than six out of ten Black Americans are unmarried. BlackPeopleMeet.com is playing a big role in a solution to the problem. The website has helped introduce tens of thousands of couples. The vast majority of its members are between ages 35-45. Every month, the site reaches 4% of the total black population in the US.

The long awaited results of the Meetic and Match joint-venture in Latina America are in! Meetic and Match have contributed their respective activities on the South American continent to Meetic’s ParPerfeito site, as well as Match.com’s activities in other Latin American countries. Following the deal, Match.com and Meetic each own 50% of the new joint venture’s equity. Match.com will control the entity’s operations.

Device reputation service, iovation, is playing a big part in keeping fraudsters off of the internet. The service has reportedly stopped Over 67,000 instances of spam, over 30,000 scams and solicitations, over 13,000 member profiles misrepresentations, and more than 5,000 cases of identity mining and phishing.

Chinese matchmaking website Zhenai.com boasts 23m registered users and has a sign up rate of 30,000 users a day. According to CEO and co-founder Dr Song Li. The website operates on two matrices: how many of its callers get at least one date with an aim of 93%, and the time is takes between establishing contact and the actual date. This is supposedly within two and a half weeks.

Last but not least, we’ve updated the job listings for the iDating industry again. Head over to OPW1.com and look for the post on March 8th if you’re interested! We also have a few interviews for you to take a look at. To hear Sam Yagan’s thoughts on great hill’s offer for Spark Networks, look for the post on March 11th. You can also find our interview with Founder of Smartdate, Fabrice Le Parc, posted on March 9th.

This edition of Online Personals Watch’s Weekly News Roundup has been sponsored by IDEA.

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 #18

OPW Weekly News Roundup - Nov 19th, 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.

This edition of the weekly news roundup is kindly sponsored by iovation.

SNAP Interactive, which creates online dating applications for social networks, has released their third quarter results. The company had their seventh consecutive quarter of operational profit. In fact, revenue rose to more than $800,000, as compared to $784,000 the quarter prior.

What’s next for SNAP? According to CNN, SNAP president and CEO Clifford Lerner said “We are aggressively pursuing non-advertising based monetization opportunities, including virtual gifts and subscriptions. We plan to roll out these features to our user base over the next several months."

Here are some fast facts on SNAP: the company currently has 3 million monthly active users. SNAP’s chief dating application, “Are You Interested,” is available at areyouinterested.com, on Facebook and through an iPhone application.

Nielsen has released their European online dating rankings for October. Results indicate C-date is continuing to grow in popularity. The casual dating site maintained its #1 position in Spain with 449,000 unique visitors. However, C-date also grabbed third place in both France and Switzerland after not making the top three in either country in September.

In the U.K., free dating site PlentyofFish stayed on top with a 543,000 unique visitors. FriendsReunitedDating jumped up a spot to #2 with 514,000 unique visitors, while the Match.com Network had 452,000 unique visitors and was able to push DatingDirect out of the top three for October.

Also in European online dating news, Gráinne Barry & Kevin Greene, the team behind popular Irish dating site AnotherFriend.com, have opened up their checkbooks to acquire the U.K. dating site MakeFriendsOnline.com for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 2001, MakeFriendsOnline at times has been ranked among the top dating sites in the U.K.

Barry and Greene already have over 60% percent of the Irish online dating market, thanks to AnotherFriend.com.

In both Europe and North America, the cougar craze is in full swing. It seems there's no shortage of younger men looking to date older women and vice versa. More than 300,000 people have signed up for dating site CougarLife.com since it launched last February. CougarLife is a part of online dating network Avid Life Media, which also runs affairs site Ashley Madison. Avid Life Media president Noel Biderman told the Ottawa Citizen that CougarLife is “poised to make millions. I don't think we've ever launched anything with this much traction this soon." 

At CougarLife, young men slightly outnumber older women 52% to 48%. British online dating service, Parship, recently conducted their own cougar dating study. Their findings showed around 20% of men in their 20s and 30s said they would date an older woman.

All you affiliates out there, this next item is for you. The Affiliate Convention will be held Dec. 3-4 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles. Registration for affiliates is complimentary. This business conference and expo will cover affiliate marketing and advertising methods. The Affiliate Convention is produced by the same company that runs the Internet Dating Conference and Social Networking Conference events.

Finally, is eHarmony responsible for 2% of marriages in the United States? The Advertising Standards Authority is now claiming this percentage may be inaccurate. According to U.K. magazine MarketingWeek, eHarmony said the 2% marriage rate was extrapolated from an online study that drew 7,000 participants. The study was conducted by an independent market research company. However, the Advertising Standards Authority says eHarmony’s 2% figure is misleading, because it suggests a definitive number of marriages based upon a sole online study from several years ago.

That’s all for this week’s news roundup. For more online dating headlines and to read our interview with messmo CEO Brendan O’Kane, go to OPW1.com. There, you’ll also find our newly-compiled list of Twitter accounts from various online dating companies along with an update on open jobs at internet dating companies around the world.

This edition of Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup has been sponsored by Iovation. Iovation, helping companies expose cybercriminals and fight fraud with device reputation.

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 News Briefing #6

Online Personals Watch Weekly News Summary, May 11th, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Welcome to the Monday May 11th Online Personal Watch Weekly News Roundup. I’m Mark Brooks, we're at Kings College in Cambridge, England, and this is what made industry news over the last several days.

Several dating sites have been launched this week, including eHarmony’s new site Compatible Partners. For a limited time, Compatible Partners is offering a free 6 month membership to anyone who joins. SNAP Interactive also announced the beta launch of their stand alone site for Are You Interested, which is currently available through Facebook as well as on the iPhone. MatchMakingInc.com is a new site for single entrepreneurs and business owners who want to meet like-minded singles. They also offer a number of live speed dating events hosted across the country.

Matchmaking website BharatMatrimony plans to grow by about 50% this year and will expand its online matrimony services to a couple of south Asian markets. The online matrimonial site is considering tapping countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where the institution of marriage is quite similar to that in India. Most of the company’s services and business models that have been successful in India will be replicated in these foreign markets. BharatMatrimony recently launched the religion-based matchmaking services ChristianMatrimony and SikhMatrimony in addition to personalized services for the super-rich and celebrities called EliteMatrimony and BharatMatrimony Privilege.

Rumors have come in from multiple sources now that Userplane, the world’s premier social software provider for online communities, is closing up shop. It’s too small for AOL to consider selling, and apparently not worthwhile for them to continue running. Companies like Toksta and Ekko.tv stand to benefit from the void Userplane will leave. We received a number of comments on this post, including one from Jason Grunstra who stopped by the Userplane offices in Santa Monica this week to find all the doors locked and not a person in sight. Felix from Toksta also commented and invited Userplane members to a 15 day free trial at Toksta as well as a 10% lifetime discount for current Userplane members if they sign up by May 15. All signs point to Userplane being well on its way to gone, but we will keep you informed on any further information that pops up.

In 2007, OkCupid founder Sam Yagan decided to launch a marketing campaign in the form of a website called CrazyBlindDate.com to help drive traffic back to OkCupid. It did not go well in the beginning, but after it launched in New York, Boston and San Francisco, the media began to take notice. By early 2008, OkCupid had doubled its monthly userbase to about 2 million, with just over half a million active daters. CrazyBlindDate has become a dating site in its own right, and matches up singles for short-notice blind dates the same night. Yagan says he will continue to expand the CrazyBlindDate network and has tentative plans to integrate the two sites so users can access the CrazyBlindDate platform from OkCupid.

It's certainly not unusual for people to look for romance online. But should prisoners have the right to do just that? Thousands of them, many who will spend the rest of their lives in prison, have personal ads looking for love. But some family members of victims say that is just not right. Prisoners, themselves, are not allowed access to the Web, so they pay an Internet company to post the ad for them. Women either write directly to the inmate in prison or the company forwards the message. Some sites do include the crime the inmate committed, but not "Hot Prison Pals." Founder, Sam Wagner, said anyone who may be thinking of writing to inmates should do their own homework. The courts have repeatedly ruled that inmates have the right to send and receive mail, but many of the victim’s families feel that someone is put in prison to be punished for a crime, not to make new friends.

And finally, WealthyMen.com made news recently when one of the stars of the reality show “Real Housewives of New Jersey” planned to meet a potential new boyfriend she found using the site. Her date, who goes by the screen name “Guccilove”, sadly stood her up at the restaurant. Wealthy Men is a site for women looking to meet men who make over $100 grand a year. Perhaps she will have better luck next time.

That’s all for this week’s edition of OPW’s Weekly 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 served up daily. I’m Mark Brooks, from Kings College Cambridge, good afternoon.