Internet Dating Video News Summaries

Internet Dating Video News Summary #34

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 messmo Media.

According to ComScore Online Personals sites grew in popularity during the month of February, with a 5-percent increase to 24.2 million visitors. eHarmony ranked as the #1 personals site during the month, and attracted 5.0 million Americans alone. Match.com sites ranked second with 3.4 million visitors. PlentyOfFish.com attracted 2.8 million visitors, followed closely by SinglesNet with 2.6 million.

eHarmony recently invested in German dating site eDarling. eDarling was founded in the summer of 2009 and carries an estimated value of around 15-20 million EURO. eHarmony supposedly acquired 30% of the company as a result of the investment .

Match.com has officially launched an app for Android. The app gives users the opportunity to find their soul mates right from their Android handset. The best part is the app is free to download.

Australian dating site RSVP recently launched a new campaign focusing on RSVP’s dating success stories. The campaign known as ‘Everyday Moments’ features real life couples sharing their relationship experiences and success stories. The new campaign will see 15-second vignettes online and televised nationally.

According to studies by comscore, Canadians are the world’s most active online daters. Canadians supposedly spend more days a month and minutes per day on dating sites than users in the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany. PlentyofFish is one of the most popular dating sites benefiting from Canadian daters. The site recently surpassed 105M logins in one month with as many as 1.5M people visiting daily, and as many as 380,000 messages being sent between members hourly according to Markus Frind.

UK based dating site BeNaughty.com has been growing rapidly over the past couple of years. The website has officially reached 3M member profiles.

Online dating for single seniors has also seen a substantial increase lately. According to the latest DatingData poll from SeniorPeopleMeet.com. 43% of single seniors named the internet as the best transformation in regards to dating and communication.

Dating service GameCrush has launched a new service to help connect male Xbox fanatics with game-playing females. Featured dates cost 400 GameCrush credits which can only be bought in batches of 500 for $8.25 USD. The service currently boasts ~1,200 profiles and hopes to expand to other game consoles in the future.

Cinema chain company Cineworld is partnering up with Easydate to form a new online dating service called Back Row Dating. The service will offer an innovative feature to help single movie lovers meet their perfect partner through similar taste in movies.

The official iDate Awards video is now live at iDateAwards.com. You can see all the award winners there, along with some video of the event itself.

Last but not least, the International Marriage Brokers Bill could seemingly prevent online dating sites from running gender specific pricing schemes.

According to Legislative staff member, Lisa Baugher, "the term “international marriage broker” does not apply to an organization that does not charge a fee based on gender or country of origin to any party for the services provided. This would apply to temporary promotions offering different pricing schemes based on gender or country of origin as well." It wasn’t specified whether or not the regulations will have an impact on a “ladies night” event in real time.

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

Make real money with mobile dating. Talk to Brendan O’Kane of messmo Media.

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 #24

OPW Weekly News Roundup - January 1st, 2010 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.

In shocking news for the online dating industry, BeautifulPeople.com parted ways with 5,000 members. The members reportedly posted pictures of themselves with extra weight gain from the holiday seasons. Surprisingly, the move was prompted by fellow members of the website. These members patrol the site to maintain a high standard of attractiveness. However, the situation could prove to work in favor of the business. Site founder Robert Hintze is standing firmly behind his reputation and brand. he believes that, quote, “LETTING FATTIES ROAM THE SITE IS A DIRECT THREAT TO OUR BUSINESS MODEL AND THE VERY CONCEPT FOR WHICH BEAUTIFULPEOPLE.COM WAS FOUNDED.”

5,000 members seems like a big loss for BeautifulPeople.com, but as the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. eLove.com is jumping in to save the day opening up its doors to all the rejected members from BeautifulPeople.com.

Speaking of the niche dating sites, the increase in the number of specialist dating websites is expected to lure record numbers of singles online this decade. Analysts are predicting the industry will grow by almost a third! The Australian online dating industry alone grew 5 percent last year and is expected to grow another 5 to 10 percent this year. A recent survey of more than 3000 people prompted by dating website RSVP found that, 50 percent had tried online dating and 10 percent had met their current or most recent partner on the internet. This figure is likely to increase over the next few years as Australia catches up to the US and Britain.

The cold weather of January seems to be working in favor of adultery website AshleyMadison.com. It has been reported that on a typical day anywhere from eight to ten thousand people sign up to AshleyMadison.com. However, last Thursday over 25,000 new members signed up, making it AshleyMadison’s most profitable day ever.

Ashleymadison.com isn’t the only website seeing member increases from the weather however. MySingleFriend.com says visitors to it’s website soared by 55 percent on a single Tuesday. Meanwhile, rival site Singles365.com experienced a visitor increase of 27 percent across a single Tuesday and Wednesday compared to one year prior. IllicitEncounters.com also gained 2,567 members over a six day span in January of this year.

CityDate.com recently launched a new dating website, SensualityDating.com. The website caters to the needs of women seeking romantic experiences without the commitment. SensualityDating features a virtual dating app which will allow people to get to know each other in a virtual coffee shop or restaurant. This will in theory allow members to flirt and explore their chemistry.

Looking for a job in the dating industry? We might have a bit of valuable information you should take a look at. We’ve updated the OPW industry job listings again. If you think you might be interested, just head over to opw1.com and look for the post on the 10th of January.

Last but not least, Courtland Brooks recently did a preliminary study of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Service. The big question was whether or not it was appropriate to use this service for profile approvals. Chances are it probably isn’t. To check out our blog and see an overview study, head over to internetdating.typepad.com, and you can see the post and study from January 4th.

As a reminder, if you are genuinely interested in selling your company or ready to make a cash purchase, your chance is right around the corner. Remember to head over to iDate’s Buyers and Sellers session with prices in mind. The private session hosted by me will be held one day prior to iDate at the Miami conference center from 5:45pm to 7pm on Wednesday, January 27th.

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.

That’s all for this week’s news roundup. To check out AdExchanger.com’s interview with PlentyOfFish CEO Markus Frind, head over to opw1.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 News Briefing #4

Online Personals Watch News Summary #4, April 24th, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.

Hello, and welcome to the Friday April 24th edition of Online Personals Watch’s Weekly News Roundup. Dobry den, we’re in Prague today, I’m Mark Brooks, and this is what made industry news this week.

Skyecandy is currently in the beta testing stages of a new speed dating service for the Internet phone provider, Skype. Skyecandy is a free service that matches members for 5 minute speed dates with real people all over the world. The service allows you to choose the number of consecutive dates you would like to have, rate your dates, and add successful matches to your Skype contact list. Users are currently being asked to provide Skyecandy with feedback on their experiences using the service in order to help them improve.

Markus Frind from Plentyoffish recently announced his decision to remove the instant messaging function from his website. Though the feature was popular with many users, Markus felt it was the biggest strategic mistake he’s ever made with the site. Within 4 days of removing instant messaging, Plentyoffish’s UK visits increased by 10% and Australia was up over 15%. Reactions from readers on Markus’ blog are fairly mixed, but most users seem to agree that removing the feature was a good idea.  If you’re thinking about pulling IM, bear this in mind.  I’d expect more traffic to result, initially from removing IM for your site.  Where else are users going to go but your other messaging alternatives.  But will they be happy not using IM?  What will the growth numbers look like in a month?

RSVP, Australia’s largest online dating site, reported a membership increase of 31% for the first quarter of 2009 as compared to the previous quarter. Male membership was up by 30% and female membership by 36%. A recent survey conducted of RSVP’s membership showed that most singles believe it to be far more expensive being on your own than in a relationship. This is yet another example of the global trend of growth in the online dating sector despite the global economic slowdown.

SNAP Interactive recently released their 2008 operating results that show a dramatic 609% increase for the fourth quarter 2008 compared to the same quarter in 2007. Additionally, they closed the year with $3 million in revenues and gross profits up 526% at $2.24 million. Cost of Revenue was up over 1000%, though total operating costs only increased 2.5% to $1.27 million. Though they tried to keep costs down during 2008, it was noted that “expansion and hiring of new programmers became necessary” as the company grew. The operating results were released just two weeks after SNAP announced the launch of their application “Are You Interested” on the iPhone.

According to two nationwide surveys conducted by Chinese dating site hongniang.com, mainland women interested in finding a foreign partner plunged from 42% to 16% over the past year. The global financial downturn is being blamed for this shift in interest away from Western men, who now appear to be financially unstable to Chinese women. Mixed marriages, which reached 400,000 last year, had been on a steady rise in China until the US subprime mortgage crisis started a global financial meltdown. Even though more Chinese women may now be looking for Chinese men as partners, the one-child policy and traditional preference for male children has created a gender imbalance that will leave 32 million men without any hope of marriage, according to a study published by the British Medicine Journal.

Having an affair just became easier with the launch of Ashley Madison’s mobile dating service. Though it is only in the Beta testing phase, several thousand people signed up within the first few hours of it becoming available. The site already boasts over 3.5 million members, but believes that number could reach 20 million with the continued adoption of phones that are capable of hosting the application. With the launch of Ashley Madison Mobile, cheating has become easier and more progressive than ever, allowing users to “Have an Affair. Anywhere.”

A new Christian dating site called JCMatch.com has just been launched, and they are making sure the Christian singles community takes note of their presence. The site offers monthly membership for $6.79 a month, with $1 of that going to their charitable organization, JCMatch.org. Members will vote at the end of each month on which project the money should be donated to. They have also launched an online magazine, A Time to Love, which members will have access to with their subscription to the site.

Things are beginning to look up for iovation, following a rough 2008. The struggles of a key customer forced the company to lay off 24 employees last fall, and new orders have been slow for several months. However, tough economic times usually cause an increase in fraudulent activity, and companies need to protect their bottom line now more than ever before. In 2008, Iovation’s systems stopped 3.5 million fraudulent activities, and surpassed 100 million acceptable devices for authorized transactions. In addition to catching credit card fraud, Iovation’s technology helps catch child predators, online stalkers, and those cheating at online games.

And finally, the site 7orbetter.com claims to take the guesswork out of dating, because size does matter, if you know what I mean. The site provides a way for above average men to meet women who have a greater appreciation for certain parts of their physique. They claim to separate the men from the boys, and let a woman know she will not be disappointed when she meets her match.

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, nashledanou from Prague.