Internet Dating Video News Summaries

Internet Dating Video News Summary #20

OPW Weekly News Roundup - December 3rd, 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 ads.pof.com.

Jeff Ullman, is arguably the 20th century’s most successful matchmaker and he’s on a mission to save relationships and make “happily ever after” a reality. He is doing so by teaming up with his wife and Co-Chief Cindy Ullman with the creation of HappierCouples.com.

Did you know that 50% of U.S. marriages are ending in divorce with a whopping 75% of America’s 168 million spouses claiming to be ‘unhappy’ after 10 years or less of marriage? The website seeks to stem this unfortunate rising tide of unhappy marriages in the 21st century by infusing happiness back into relationships with all-inclusive online marriage counseling.

Happiercouples.com has three levels of services that are intended to educate and empower, and most notably has 1,000 hours of custom produced relationship videos from numerous relationship experts. Pricing and membership categories consist of happy, which is free, happier for $19.95 a month, and Ecstatic for $99.95 a year.

More than 27,000 single Americans responded to People Media’s Dating Data poll. 51% of respondents indicated that their attitude toward dating has not wavered at all despite the recession. The rest were not so sure.

24% said that they would not date anyone unemployed

17% said they are less motivated to date

6% view dating as a way to network for job opportunities

eHarmony has recently announced that they’re hooking up with Donat Wald for the launch of a new TV advertising campaign.

Donat Wald has been the creative force behind eHarmony’s television commercials since 2002 and will be heading up the campaign and he plans to continue featuring real eHarmony couples.

The agency founder believes that, “The challenge is that the public today is inundated with ‘fake real’ content, with so-called Reality TV, sponsored blog posts, and publicity stunts.” With thousands of success couples expressing interest in the commercials, eHarmony intends to spruce up the campaign with a different format in hopes to debunk the overall skeptical view of online dating.

This of course, is also going to help promote the entire concept and industry that is online dating. So, thanks eHarmony.

Congrats to London based dating agency Dinner Dates, who recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. Founder Hillie Marshall has played cupid for more than 20 years and first came up with the concept in 1989 following her own divorce. Marshall has hosted thousands of singles events and played a helping hand in 150 weddings. fyi, after 20 years of success and finding love herself through Dinner Dates, Ms Marshall has decided she would be willing to sell the company to the right buyer.

Perhaps we’ll see her at the buyers and sellers session at iDate Miami in January.

The real world service VirtualDatingAssistants.com has decided to open up its doors to accommodate time-strapped women. The company has enabled men to outsource online dating since June of 2009. The company’s assistants handle everything from profile creation to online interaction, and ultimately bring online dating offline for a price of $480 a month. Now they will assist women.

Finally as a reminder, you have until January 7th to get your voting 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 ads.pof.com. Now you can place your highly targeted internet dating ads directly on Plentyoffish.com.

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

Internet Dating Video News Summary #14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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