Internet Dating Video News Summaries

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 #30

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 sponsored by the Internet Dating Executive Alliance.

Online dating giant PlentyofFish.com is continuing to grow rapidly. The site reported that they have passed 105 million monthly logins just this month, with an average of up to 380,000 emails an hour sent between users. The latest Comscore numbers show that PlentyofFish is bigger than all of Match.com and Meetic properties combined worldwide.

Speaking of Match.com, the website recently signed an agreement to acquire Singlesnet. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. However, Greg Blatt, CEO of Match.com said "while Singlesnet’s traffic is currently in decline, we believe we can reverse that trend, increase the site’s profitability, and improve the overall user experience. Adrian Ong, who joined Match.com from Soulmates Technology, after the company was acquired, will be assuming the responsibility for Singlesnet.

Singlesnet’s traffic is down from over 7 million uniques a month in January of 2009 to 4.5 million a month in January of 2010. Singlesnet has also been rogue-ish in its marketing tactics in the past, so it’s good that Match.com is taking the website under its wing. Perhaps they can polish the site up and make it less of an embarrassment to the internet dating theme.

Moving on, online dating is booming in Germany. According to Nielsen, 7.5 Million German Internet users visited at least one dating site in January of 2010. Parship, Elitepartner, and Friendscout24 accounted for 16.4% of the overall active Internet users in Germany. Friendscout24 spent 39.8M Eur in advertising last year, and acquired 1.1m unique users in January of this year, followed by ElitePartner with 893,000 uniques, and FlirtCafe with 809,000 uniques.

Hot off the press, Smartdate.com has just raised 2.2 million Euros which is the largest seed round we’ve heard of in a while. The sites uses Facebook connect to connect with user profiles, and is headed by industry veteran Fabrice le Parc who previously worked with be2. He launched be2 in France, and Benelux, and worked on a French and a US reality dating show in the past.

While business is booming in Germany, dating site scams are on the rise in Australia. Australians reported losses of ~$70M to fraud and swindling to the consumer watchdog last year. However, real losses could in fact be much higher. Scams linked to dating sites were up by 30%. More than 12,000 people lost between 1 to $10,000. Two Australians actually lost more than $10M.

A new virtual dating service known as Weopia.com just recently launched. The service is intended to over shadow the bad rap of the awkward first date. Singles won’t have to click on Weopia to find a date, they just have to send in their avatars to Weopia to partake in a virtual date, which should help determine their compatibility levels.

Now for hookups and breakups!

LavaLife is being shopped by its owner, online marketer, Vertrue. Vertrue paid $113.9M initially to acquire Lavalife in 2004. Vertrue itself was actually bought out by private equity firms, One Equity Partners, Brencourt Investors, and Rho Ventures for $855M in 2007. Lavalife’s web properties have supposedlly been on the block for about four months.

HerWay.com partnered up with Honesty Online to allow members to share authenticated identity info with other members. The partnership should make it safer for singles on HerWay.com to meet each other in person.

Herway.com isn’t alone in its attempts to protect women. Maryland’s Legislation is trying to pass a Bill that might require men of Maryland who date, or otherwise communicate with foreign women to visit their local police department. If the bill is passed, it would require online dating sites to obtain a copy of police records and fingerprints for men who are citizens of Maryland, and disclose the records to female clients. Violation of the Bill could lead to a misdemeanor. Conviction could result in a fine not exceeding $12,000, or imprisonment not exceeding 1 year, if not both.

Last but not least, Harvard Professor, Michael Norton will be speaking at the Los Angeles Internet Dating conference in June. Norton is known for works such as The Counterfeit Self and The IKEA Effect. His work has been published in a number of leading academic journals, and several media outlets including the New York Times, the Wall street Journal, and the Washington Post. Norton’s presentation at the conference will discuss the advantages of virtual dating in the world of online dating.

This edition of Online Personals Watch’s Weekly News Roundup has been sponsored by the Internet Dating Executive Alliance who are helping the internet dating industry grow and prosper.

That’s all for this week’s news roundup. To check out our interview with Alex Mehr, CEO of Zoosk, head over to OPW1.com. Next up, an interview with the CEO of Weopia.com. 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 #28

Hello, and welcome to Online Personals Watch’s Weekly News Roundup, Valentine's Day Edition. 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.

Hitwise has reported that after years of holding steady, visitors to dating sites in general have started to drop. However, PlentyofFish seems to be one step ahead. The free dating website’s traffic has actually increased.

Mashable.com’s weekly face-off recently pitted PlentyofFish and Match.com against one another. PlentyofFish is the world’s largest free dating web service, and Match.com is a paid site with over 20 million users. The big question was: Who has the better model? Match’s subscription service might be more effective for helping singles find true love. However, PlentyofFish took home the win by providing the best chance of finding romance! The face-off was based on a visitor poll. The final results were PlentyofFish at 45% with 430 votes, and Match.com at 35% with 334 votes.

The battle between PlentyofFish and Match.com isn’t solely on Mashable.com. According to Hitwise’s rankings of U.S. dating site visits, PlentyofFish was on top, followed by Match, Singlesnet, Yahoo Personals, Datehookup, and eHarmony. However, Match has been established as an Industry leader for quite some time now with a leg up on mobile dating.

Experts at the 2010 Internet Dating Conference in Miami pegged mobile online dating as a $550M-annual-revenue ringer industry wide, with potential to double in the near future. Mobile dating isn’t the only feature raking in the cash though. Virtual gifts have also become a $1 billion industry in the U.S. alone, and $5 billion worldwide.

Moving on, Nicole Ellison and her colleagues measured the difference between dating profile facts and reality. They compared posted information with what was on the test subject’s drivers license. Here are a few of the stats: 53% of men lied about their height, as did 39% of women. 64% of women lied about their weight. 24% of men and 13% of women were also untruthful about their age.

On a positive note, the stigma of online dating as a whole has been completely breached, it would seem. It has become so normal that internet dating is really no different than meeting a partner at a bar, or party. PlentyofFish’s Kate Bilenki revealed that the free dating site gets 1.8M hits each month from New Jersey alone. In a 2007 study, eHarmony found that 19% of respondents met their spouse through the internet, which was a 5% increase from 2005. Internet dating in general is considerably more comfortable and arguably cheaper than hitting the bars.

Meetic has announced its revenue for 2009! The group’s total consolidated annual revenue came out to 164.5 million Euros. The revenue is up 23% from the previous financial year. Of course, the Match.com Europe acquisition played a major part in Meetic’s revenue increase with a contribution of 32.4 million Euros. The Meetic group had 920,286 subscribers at the end of Dec 2009, compared to 696,472 at the end of Dec 2008.

Now for our hooks ups and breakups!

Match.com and Meetic recently formed a new joint venture in Latin America. Match and Meetic will each own 50% of the economic interest in the entity, and Match will control the new entity’s operations. Match will pay Meetic $3 million in cash at the closing. The partnership is expected to be in play by March 15, 2010. The situation could provide Match.com with an opportunity to purchase Meetic’s stake at fair market value at the time, triggering an additional payment of $1.5 million.

Meanwhile German dating site Neu.de and Match.com joined forces to power Match.com’s European Brand. Match’s European member base will merge with Neu.de. We’re looking for more clarification on this deal.

Match.com recently rebranded with an animated TV Ad. The campaign was created by US Sydney. US Sydney scrapped the old tagline “Make Love Happen” in exchange for “Where you found me”. The goal of the ad is to appeal to different types of consumers. Check out OPW to see the Youtube video of the ad. It’s very pretty, and very evidently targeted at women. And of course we know, attract the women, and guys will flock.

Easydate Ltd and Dating Factory recently partnered up. Easydate owns one of the top ten UK dating brands www.BeNaughty.com. The partnership will allow Easydate to address the German, French, Spanish, and Italian speaking markets using Dating Factory’s white label dating platform. This is an unexpected move by EasyDate. DatingFactory is a new kid on the block, headed by Tanya Fathers who was one of the brains behind the now, on the ropes, World Dating Partners. DatingFactory has a solid white label offering with some great reporting functionality. The company is focused solely on the continental European market at this stage.

IMVU has teamed up with Zoosk. The partnership will provide IMVU with Zoosk’s dating service. To join the service within IMVU, members 18 and older simply click the dating link under the community tab, and follow the step by step instructions to create an account. Nice move Zoosk.

Sex sells, but perhaps not on the open market. The internet offers niche dating sites for just about every preference. A poll by Online Dating Magazine shows eHarmony as the currently preferred site with Match close behind. However, Avid Life Media and FriendFinder are bringing in revenues through a plethora of niche dating sites that lean toward the risqué.

Both companies recently decided to shelve their IPO due to due to concerns over the current market. Avid Life Media had been planning a $57 million IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange in an effort to raise money to buy Moxy Media. FriendFinder meanwhile was planning a $220 million IPO with the intent to use some of the money to pay down debt. FriendFinder intended to sell 20 million shares for between $10 and $20 each. Watch this space, as soon as we know, you’ll know on OPW.

The online dating market is expected to reach $1.6 billion by 2013, up from $957M in 2008, according to Forrester Research. With online services reporting an increase in subscriptions, sites could raise their ARPU by adding more premium services and add-ons without losing customers.

Online dating isn’t the only industry doing well. Matchmaking is alive and well! But shouldn’t this industry be dead? Actually, matchmakers are being aided and legitimized by the Internet. People are more willing than ever to pay, for help, in the love department. Matchmakers are charging anywhere from $1,000 to $100,000, depending on the exclusiveness of the service, with $5k to $20k being the sweet spot.

Patti Stanger, star of the TV series The Millionaire Matchmaker charges men $25k+ a year and female millionaires $55k for 28 months of unlimited introductions.

Cupid’s Coach, Julie Ferman, believes that women are very attracted to the concept matchmaking because it’s private. Ferman charges $2,500 to $25,000 annually for an average of 2.2 introductions per month. Ferman accepts both men and women as clients.

I personally think that it’s worth dropping $5k to $10k on a matchmaker if you’ve got the cash and are looking for a serious relationship, but online sites that charge or have personality or compatibility questionnaires can also be a great option. That’s where I’d be, if I were single.

Finally, If you’re looking for a job in the industry, we’ve updated the idating job listings again. Head over to opw1.com and look for the post on the 12th of February.

This edition of Online Personals Watch’s Weekly News Roundup has been sponsored by iTelebill. iTelebill, the mobile payment specialists for all your online & micro billing 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 #17

OPW Weekly News Summary November 12th, 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.

Hitwise has released their online dating rankings for October. In the United States, there was no change in the order of the top 10. PlentyofFish remained #1 in total site visits. Match came in second, followed by Singlesnet, Yahoo Personals, DateHookup, eHarmony, Adam4Adam, TRUE, SeniorPeopleMeet and BlackPeopleMeet.

Yet abroad, the big mover and shaker was Indian dating site Shaadi. In just a month, Shaadi leapt from #21 to #11 in the U.K. and #16 to #9 in Canada.

Also on the rise: Canadian versions of mainstream U.S. dating sites. While Match.com stayed steady at #4, Match Canada jumped up from #14 to #8 and Yahoo Personals Canada rose from #13 to #10. 

October in Canada was not as kind to Christian Mingle and Singlesnet. Both sites plummeted five spots over the course of the month. Christian Mingle dropped from #7 to #12 and Singlesnet fell from #10 to #15.

There was more bad news for Christian Mingle. The site’s parent company, Spark Networks, reported revenue in the third quarter dropped by 21% to $11.1 million. That’s down from $14 million from the same period last year.

Paid subscriptions are also down by 12% from the third quarter of last year. Spark’s number of paying members now stands at around 187,000.

In terms of net income, Spark raised $1 million in the third quarter of 2009. That’s 5 cents a share. In comparison, Spark in the third quarter of 2008 brought in $1.7 million in net income, or 8 cents a share.

In addition to Christian Mingle, Spark also operates several other targeted sites, like BlackSingles and most significantly, their hallmark Jewish dating site, JDate. For more information on Spark’s third quarter results, visit opw1.com.

European dating network Meetic also published an earnings report this week. During the first nine months of 2009, the company was able to consolidate activity at Match International. In turn, Meetic’s revenue grew approximately 21% to 117.2 million Euros. In the third quarter alone, Meetic earned 47.1 million Euro in revenue and acquired 25,000 subscribers. For a more detailed look at Meetic’s recent earnings report, also head over to opw1.com.

Perhaps Spark and Meetic could increase their revenue by focusing on senior singles, a group now totaling 16 million, according to Senior-Dating.org. The site predicts that number will likely double within the next 30 years.

eHarmony’s membership statistics certainly support this prediction. The Detriot Free Press reports that eHarmony saw a 20% increase in users over 60 during the first quarter of 2009, compared with the same time last year. Another interesting statistic -- 40% of seniors now have a computer at home, according to Senior-Dating.org.

Let’s move on from senior singles and talk about Gelato. No, not the dessert. The new site that combines online dating and real-time search. Gelato users create profiles by importing information from their accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Netflix and more. In an interview with Online Personals Watch, Gelato founder Steve Odom explained why he thought his dating site was unique:

“We’ve all heard problems of people fibbing on their profile. Um, and Gelato it’s what you’re actually doing. Its stuff you’re doing at Twitter or Flicker, so it’s more authentic. You get a better idea of, um, who I really am. Instead of thinking about my favorite movies, ah, I can also write about them but also show you what I’ve rented at Netflix. And that tells you more; it gives you a much more richer view of what kind of movies I like.”

Gelato plans to eventually charge for premium memberships, which will include special features like match alerts and profile analytics.

Finally, you have until November 15th to get your nominations in for the 1st ever Internet Dating Industry Awards. Let your voice be heard. Submit your picks for the best dating site, best matchmaker, best dating software provider, most innovative company and more. Awards will be handed out in a special ceremony on Jan. 28 during the 7th Annual Internet Dating Conference in Miami.

This edition of Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup has been sponsored by Talkster. Talkster, your best option for robust anonymous calling solutions.

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 News Briefing #9

June 2009 OPW News Summary from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Hello, and welcome to Online Personal Watch’s Monthly News Roundup. I’m Mark Brooks, and this is what made industry news in June 2009.

A recent survey conducted by Opinion Research for eHarmony found that 51% of single parents believe that they and their children are better off emotionally when the parent is in a committed relationship. The survey asked single parents about their motivations for dating again, and 3 of the top 5 answers were “to have a mother or father figure in their child’s life,” “to share parenting duties” and “to appease their kids”. This very point is the top reason Irena and I particularly enjoy devoting our time and career to the internet dating industry.  Internet dating services and matchmakers promise to help people make better matches.  Better matches mean happier families and kids.  Happier and emotionally healthier kids may, we hope, lead to a society that won't self destruct in future generations.  This is a good cause, and what makes the dating industry a particularly rewarding industry to work in.

Match and eHarmony have both released success rates and statistics for their respective sites. Match announced that users send 56 million first emails and 132 million winks per year.  Users  go on 6 million dates each year, and 12 couples get married or engaged each day, and they bring in $1 million a day from subscription revenues.  Meanwhile, eHarmony announced that 118 couples get married or engaged each day thanks to them, and they have 12-15,000 new users every day, and a full audience turnover over every 6 ½ months. This item attracted a bit of discussion on OPW between a few of our readers. James Houran, the former Chief Psychology Officer from TRUE raised several very good points, stating that “the number of marriages or engagements is meaningless unless one also knows the divorce and break-up rates for the matching services” and that “it is more useful to know how many of those relationships turned out to be stable.” He makes a valid argument that success rates are only put into perspective when a ratio is given to failure rates.  But how many services are really able to track long term match success rates?   I don't know of any.  What's their motivation anyway.  Dating services are a victim of their own success.  They match people, then those people quit the service.  However, I think we're going to see new services evolve that help members after they've hooked up.  People do really need help.   And some are willing to pay for it.  So why don't we help dating site users through the entire relationship continuum.  If dating services could make money beyond the day they successfully matched users, they'd be motivated to stay in contact with them, and then they'd have the opportunity to collect real success metrics.  Then they would be in a better position to refine their matchmaking methodologies.

Spark Networks is losing subscribers.  Spark said it's trying to rebalance its portfolio to be less reliant on JDate, which recently received a face lift. However, its segment weighting seems to be shifting more because of the relative speed of subscriber losses. Stock is down about 9% year-to-date and about 47% over the last 52 weeks, reflecting the prolonged poor performance, and Spark Networks now has a market capitalization of $47.1 million. Revenue for Q1 dropped 20%. Meanwhile, revenue at Match.com slid just 1% and ad-supported free sites like PlentyofFish, which saw unique visitors nearly double to 2.9 million in April, are becoming an increasing threat. Spark is focusing its ad spending on a handful of its niche sites to bring them up to scale, and has all but given up on AmericanSingles.com. I do live in hope for Spark Networks, but quite consistently they have shown less than stellar results.

An interesting new site launched in the UK recently as a social hub for singles ready to get out and date. DatingTrail.co.uk is a site designed to bring dating sites, events and matchmaking together in one destination. The site features several hundred UK dating events ranging from Lock and Key parties to classy wine tasting evenings. Singles holidays from Adventura and Click Singles are also listed along with reviews of past trips. They have also put together a list of online dating sites, and rated the sites.  Nice work.

Virtual goods are back in the news, and CNET reported earlier this month that start-ups peddling virtual goods managed to raise $69 million in funding in the first quarter of 2009. Offerpal Media leads the pack with $15 million raised, followed by IMVU, ngmoco and Nurien at $10 million each. The author of the article states that what is not yet clear with virtual goods is what business models work and what segments of user populations are the best targets. I should note, Online Personals Watch is sponsored by Viximo and they provide a virtual goods platform for dating and SNS services.  Viximo maintains that everyone buys virtual goods.  One of the most interesting user behaviors is that many users buy gifts for themselves just to show that they have gifts attached to their profiles.

The Milwaukee-area office of Great Expectations is being sued by the Wisconsin Justice Department for apparently violating Wisconsin's no-call law, exaggerating the number of participants' marriages and misrepresenting its prices. The lawsuit alleges that Great Expectations sells memberships that allow access to a database containing photos, videos and profiles of other members, but actually just search nonaffiliated websites for names of Milwaukee-area singles who are then called by company telemarketers. The suit also alleges that telemarketers tell potential customers that unless they are “living in a cardboard box” they can afford the service; they try to obtain financial information to see how much a potential customer can afford to pay for their membership; and use high-pressure, oppressive tactics including holding driver’s licenses or credit cards to keep people from leaving during the interview process.  Ultimately GE's model is kinda defunct with the rise of video dating sites like Woome and Speeddate.com.  Anyone with a webcam can do a Skype call with someone they're interested in meeting from a dating site.  Yenta's have a future, but unless GE goes through a metamorphosis soon, their brand will metastasize pretty rapidly I'm afraid.  How about providing more matchmaking services? 

PlentyOfFish.com and world-class rapper, Flo Rida, are teaming up to unveil his latest video, ‘Available’. While dating sites have often been featured in movies and TV shows, ‘Available’ marks the first time that the online dating industry and the world of hip-hop have partnered up to spread their messages across both platforms.

Without question, the biggest and most controversial issue that sprung up during June was the announcement of a lawsuit against Match.com. Sean McGinn of Brooklyn is suing Match for misleading members by posting profiles of prospective dates that are unable to respond to any interest in them because they do not have a paid subscription. McGinn is accusing Match of causing “humiliation and disappointment” for some members who feel rejected when their attempt to contact a prospective date gets no reply.

We spoke with Nora Hart, the attorney representing Sean McGinn. It's her assertion that “Match defrauds the consumer of their time and personal investment every time a person pays Match’s subscription fee and writes to a member who won’t have the ability to read what they wrote or see their profile.”
The one main thing that they seem to be pinning the case on is the fact that when you look at a profile, you cannot tell if a person is a subscriber or a free member. You also cannot tell how long it’s been since they’ve logged onto the site beyond three weeks. It is this practice that they want to go after Match for. Should they win, this would have a significant impact on every dating site that doesn’t list subscriber status or caps activity reporting on their members at three weeks or so.

Norah Hart contends that, “When a subscriber cancels their subscription, their profile continues to appear to be that of an active subscriber. Nothing indicates to the viewer their limited access to read e-mails or respond to them.”

The problem with this argument is that just because someone cancels their paid subscription to a site, it does not mean that they are canceling their membership. It also does not take into account winking, which is a free feature on Match for all members, regardless of paid status.

What she fails to take into account is that there could be numerous factors contributing to her client’s failure on the dating site, from his photo or profile, to what he says in his emails and even his dating strategy. It may be that he was actually rejected by women with paid subscriptions who were just not interested.

I also requested a statement from Match.com on the matter, and they replied that "Match.com’s continued success depends upon the success of our members in making online connections and turning them into meaningful relationships offline. The allegation that we would deceive our subscribers by encouraging them to connect with inactive members therefore makes no sense and is contradicted by our 14-year record and the hundreds of thousands of members who find someone special on Match.com every year. We understand that finding romance, offline or online, can at times be emotional and personal, and we wish Mr. McGinn well in his search.  But his lawsuit is without merit, and we will defend it vigorously."

Mr. McGinn’s attorney is seeking a Jury trial and it will all come down to what the people decide and how strong his claims of anguish can sway them. Of course, the argument may be diluted by the fact that he did eventually find his girlfriend on Match.com according to a recent report on Fox News.

A number of dating company mergers and partnerships have been announced in the past month, and they are as follows.
·    Christian Café and Single Christian Network have combined to form one community at ChristianCafe.com.
·    IAC completed their transaction with Meetic, meaning Meetic now owns Match Europe and Match has its arms around Meetic.
·    Meetic has signed a partnership with Microsoft’s MSN portal, which will see MSN providing Meetic’s dating and matchmaking services to customers in 12 European countries.
·    meetMoi, a leader in location based mobile dating, announced a strategic alliance with ClearSky, a provider of content and managed services to wireless carriers. meetMoi will be added to Clear Sky’s product suite.
·    Virtual Greats, a virtual goods and sales distribution system, and Viximo, a provider of virtual goods and currency solutions, announced a partnership deal providing publishers with turnkey virtual goods solutions, including an unrivalled library of branded entertainment, sports and fashion content.
·    And Attivio’s Active Intelligence Engine has been selected to power Deutsche Telekom’s FriendScout24, which is now able to create a more user-friendly site with real-time field updates.

That’s all for the June report of OPW’s Weekly 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.

Internet Dating News Briefing #8

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 18^th 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.

Internet Dating News Briefing #5

Online Personals Watch News Summary, May 1st, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Hello, and welcome to the May 1st edition of Online Personal Watch’s Weekly News Roundup. I’m Mark Brooks, we're in Lincolnshire, England this week, on our honeymoon, here's what made the industry news this week.

Since the onset of the recession in September 2008, online dating sites have been attracting new users like they were going out of style. In the UK, traffic to online dating sites grew 13% between September 2008 and February 2009, to attract just shy of 5 million visitors with a reach of 13% of the total UK online population. The appetite for love apparently has been re-ignited from the ashes of consumer-capitalism, and continued site growth is expected into 2009. The most popular online dating property in the UK is currently Meetic, which attracted 1.4 million visitors in February in combination with newly acquired Match.com. Trends are similar throughout the world as more and more people are seeking the help of online dating and matchmaking sites to bring them comfort during this economic downtime.

Some fear that online chat rooms and dating sites are becoming today's virtual bathhouses, where HIV and AIDS first percolated among gay men in the 1980s. More new infections occur among young people ages 13 to 29 than any other age group -- precisely the demographic that uses the Internet for social networking. Public health professionals are now turning to social networks as a tool to combat the high numbers of HIV and AIDS infections and raise awareness of this continuing problem. ManhuntCares.com has been an industry leader in this area, providing partner notification, outreach, and research services to their members since 2002. Health professionals are hoping that other social networks will establish similar programs.

According to a New Media Age report, White Label Dating is now the second largest paid dating site in the UK. With the merger of Meetic and Match.com, White Label moves up the charts to become the number two paid dating service, and the number three overall site in the UK, with Plentyoffish in the number two spot. The site is experiencing greater growth than all of their competitors over the past year, with visitors up 205%.

Viximo, a leading provider of virtual goods services to social networks, online dating and casual gaming sites, introduced its new modular virtual goods platform for the web and iPhone. For the first time, this “a la carte” offering will allow publishers to selectively choose from Viximo’s core services including access to its premium content library, an interactive digital storefront, merchandise payment systems and detailed analytics. The company also announced new partnerships with social networking sites Wadja, Booksie, and I Beat You. Viximo currently reaches more than 20 million unique monthly visitors through its network of more than a dozen web publishers. The company is committed to getting publishers started from scratch with a complete virtual goods platform.

iovation, The Device Reputation Authority™ for the Internet, announced recently that it is now offering iovation Risk Module, an add-on service to iovation ReputationManager that scores new and unknown devices on the Internet. iovation has been helping their customers combat online fraud and abuse since 2004 by using device fingerprints to create device reputations that can be provided to iovation customers in real time. Now customers can not only act on the reputations for devices known by the iovation network, they can also receive risk scores for new devices, that aren't even on the network.  This new service is intended to help predict and stop fraudulent activities before they even happen. 

Barry Diller is looking to expand his internet dating empire. Mr. Diller, Chairman and CEO of IAC, which owns Match.com, stated that he was “very interested” in Yahoo’s personals operation. Yahoo would not comment, but analysts say it may outsource Yahoo Personals as its new chief executive focuses on more core businesses.

IAC, the parent company of Match.com, released its first quarter financials this week. Worldwide subscribers to Match increased by 6% from 1.35 million to 1.44 million from Q1, 2008. This increase was driven by gains in the US, the UK and Japan. Revenue declined slightly, showing a 15% decrease in revenue per subscriber in international markets, due primarily to the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange rates. Excluding that impact, international revenue grew. Overall revenue was down 1% and operating income was also down 2% at $9.9 million. The merger between Match Europe and Meetic is currently valued at approximately $140 million, including the promissory note and the 27% stake that IAC will hold in Meetic.

Love is certainly in the air this time of year, and dating sites are reaping the benefits! The UK dating industry is estimated to be worth about £600 million a year, and there are more than 1,300 dating sites in operation. The recent merger of Meetic and IAC in Europe has left many in the industry believing that it is just the first in a number of unions in a sector that has hundreds of competitors. Others see the merge as a strategic move on the part of IAC, who reportedly has a little known option to purchase all of Meetic in 3 years’ 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.