Hello, and welcome to the Friday April 10th 2009 edition of Online Personals Watch’s Weekly News Roundup. Bonjo Kiffinti, we're in sunny Malta today. I’m Mark Brooks, and this is what made industry news this week.
UK newspaper, The Daily Mail recently reported that due to the economic downturn, more and more people are turning to websites offering extramarital affairs as a means of stress relief. MarriedAndLooking is one such site that has seen a 25% increase in membership in the last 6 months. Site founder David Rees stated that since his site launched 8 years ago, infidelity has gone from being a niche market to verging on mainstream. Despite the increase in the numbers of married people looking for affairs, divorce rates are also down during the recession as many people cannot afford to make it on their own, and its cheaper to keep 'em.
A report from consultancy Plus Eight Star Ltd on virtual worlds in Asia has revealed that two Korean and two Japanese companies made over $500 million in 2008 through the sale of virtual goods on their websites. These virtual goods are primarily used to customize the user’s avatar or environment in the virtual world. Meanwhile, Charles Hudson, who runs the Virtual Goods Summit, put the market for virtual goods in the USA at $200 million. That's just 1/25th of the market in Asia, according to the blog, Virtual Goods News. How much is your dating site making off virtual good today? Anyone want some nice virtual roses? Your comments please.
According to Jupiter Research, the mobile dating and mobile chatroom market is predicted to grow to as much as $1.4 billion by 2013. Match.com and SNAP Interactive recently launched applications for the iPhone, which will help users find more dates on the go. SNAP’s Facebook platform “Are You Interested” already has more than 13 million users. Keep your eyes on Zoosk, Are You Interested, HotorNot and the Match applications, and lets see what they start doing with virtual currency.
On advertising, The Center for Media Research conducted a study using 30 second TV ads, full-page 4-color magazine ads and Internet banner ads along with eye-tracking software to determine if and how Internet ads were actually seen by respondents. They found that net recall of TV ads was almost twice that of magazine ads. And the banner ads? Net recall of magazine ads was almost three times that of Internet banners and fully respondants didn't see 63% of the banner ads on the sites that they visited. Though researchers noted that their sample sizes were relatively small, this warrants some consideration as you decide the best way to market your site. No wonder eHarmony and Match are doing so much offline advertising.
Events. Lock and Key Events seem to be having continued success, despite the state of the economy. These parties, which give women necklaces with small locks and give men necklaces with small keys, provide a great ice breaker and a chance to meet dozens of singles in a short period of time. No scientific or compatibility measures are used to match up the singles. It’s more about the luck of the draw and chemistry, and being outgoing enough to find the person who has your matching lock or key. Once attendees find their match, they turn in their lock and key for a new set, and they get a raffle ticket, which can win them prizes such as spa treatments or airline tickets. Events cost between $20 and $35, and have sprung in about 60 cities across the U.S.A. Events are a double edged sword. They can really help you get people talking, but if you do anything less than a fantastic event, well, mediocre events will only end up behind detrimental to your brand and a considerable drain on your time. What I really like about real world events is that you can get free advertising your site on the countless free events calendars online and in local newspapers. Its a very granular advertising approach, but its free, which is great for smaller dating sites scratching to get to critical mass. Meanwhile, virtual events are doing well. SpeedDate.com and Woome.com are continuing to grow consistently. These sites allow users to take do first dates online by using web cams and instant messaging. Its time we saw the top tier sites offer online speeddating services, again. Match tried it back in 2004. They also offered real world events, but they pulled both soon after Jim Safka came on board and had Match focused on their core business in 2004.
A new European survey by Parship found that when it comes to love, women are 27% more choosy than men, and Irish women are the fussiest of the bunch. However, British men, were found to be the least fussy. 71% of British men valued brains, while 71% of zee French men place d a higher importance on beauty than brains. They also found that 40% of women would not date a man who is unemployed, which is bad news in this economy, and 20% of women now expect their partner to earn more money than they do.
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, il journata i-taeb, from Malta.