Month: May 2006

Yonja? Who?

Posted on May 25, 2006

YonjaOPW — May 25 — The world of social networking extends far beyond Myspace and Friendster. Case in point, Yonja, Turkey's leading social network, and Grono the leader in Poland, Yeeyoo, hot in China, Cyworld, South Korea's titan. Check out the Handy Little Lists on the left bar of OPW for more Popular Social Networks.

…Some more info on Yonja: Offices in San Francisco and Istanbul, launched Jan 2004, 2.2 million members, #2 most trafficked Turkish Website, ~600 million page views a month, 670,000 unique logins in last 30 days, profitable.  The Turkish market is the youngest and fastest growing population in Europe with more people between the ages of 7-14 than all EU countries combined. – Mark Brooks

Feedblitz Updates

Posted on May 25, 2006

Feedblitz_logoOPW — May 25 — Feedblitz rocks! If you'd like to get daily updates of new posts added to Online Personals Watch, just sign up to the Feedblitz email list at the top of the left bar on OPW. I'm very impressed with this service. RSS is fine, but email still rules. Feedblitz will keep you on top of things. – Mark Brooks

Money-Making Woes for Chinese Dating Sites

Posted on May 25, 2006

China_1IOL — May 24 — "How to make money is the problem for every Internet dating company in China," said Zhang Kuan, president of dating site Jiaoyou. Chinese men are increasingly moving from their home towns to large cities where they have a limited social network to find a mate, according to Jason Tian, CEO Baihe.  iResearch estimates the Chinese online dating market could reach $82-million (about R543-million) in 2008. The potential will hinge partly on a migration away from a free business model. "High quality services cannot be free," said Dr Song Li, CEO of SinoFriends. The solution, according to eFriendsNet.com (Yeeyoo.com) CEO, Marine Ma, is to blend social networking and Internet dating services. eFriendsNet (5 million users, $3m irevenue in 2005) charges a subscription fee for enhanced services such as the ability to chat with a potential date by mobile phone using a secure connection that protects both parties' identity.

The full article was originally published at Iol, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Dr Li encouraged the Chinese dating industry to start charging for their services at the Asian internet dating convention. 

Cell-Only Population

Posted on May 24, 2006

PEOPLE PRESS — May 23 — Households paying a cell phone bill but not a landline bill rose from 0.4% in 2000 to 7.8% in Q1 2005 (U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey). Cell-only Americans are younger, less affluent, less likely to be married or to own their home, and more liberal on many political questions. FULL ARTICLE @ PEOPLE PRESS

Bebo Secures Funding

Posted on May 23, 2006

Bebo_2NET IMPERATIVE — May 22 — Benchmark Capital (eBay, betfair, MySQL) has taken a stake in Bebo for $15m. Bebo will use the funding to expand the US team and open a London office, maintain its market leading position, and develop the business in its other core markets. Bebo is now the largest social networking site in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand and is also growing rapidly in the U.S., Australia and Canada, with 24m members and 2.5 billion monthly page views.

AOL, Start-ups Emerge to Challenge MySpace

Posted on May 23, 2006

Myspace_19USA TODAY — May 22 — MySpace's user base quadrupled to nearly 80 million over the past year, with as many as 270,000 joining every day. CollectiveX launched this month as a network for professionals and other pre-organized groups. Famoodle started in April as a MySpace for families. Tagged and Varsity World are billing themselves as safe havens for teens. AOL's AIM Pages is building upon its IM user-base of 49 million. A Microsoft spinoff company plans to launch Wallop later this year. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY

Mark Brooks: The social networking snowball keeps on rolling. 

Let More of the World Access the Web

Posted on May 23, 2006

I'm at 38,000 feet on a Lufthansa flight  (Beijing>Munich) as I make this post.  Internet service for $27 for my 9 hour flight, at 300k+ according to testmy.net. Nice.  Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, wrote a noteworthy article in todays Financial Times…

FINANCIAL TIMES — May 22 — Today there are more than a billion people online. But that is still less than one-fifth of the world’s population, and most of those people live in developed countries. I believe, that internet access via mobile telephony will have such an important part to play in helping close the knowledge divide between rich and poor. Mobile phones are cheaper than PCs, there are three times more of them, growing at twice the speed, and they increasingly have internet access. Mobile is going to be the next big internet phenomenon. FULL ARTICLE @ FT

Mark Brooks: Case in point, I learned at iDate Asia that there are ~50 million PC's in China, and ~400 million mobile phones. I think we'll get the mobile phone internet experience right in the next three to five years. What's right? Webdate describes itself as channel agnostic. That's the best approach. Extending content seamlessly onto the mobile phone. Easier said than done, I know.   

Let More of the World Access the Web

Posted on May 23, 2006

I’m at 38,000 feet on a Lufthansa flight (Beijing>Munich) as I make this post.  Internet service for $27 for my 9 hour flight, at 300k+ according to testmy.net. Nice.  Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, wrote a noteworthy article in todays Financial Times…

FINANCIAL TIMES — May 22 — Today there are more than a billion people online. But that is still less than one-fifth of the world’s population, and most of those people live in developed countries. I believe, that internet access via mobile telephony will have such an important part to play in helping close the knowledge divide between rich and poor. Mobile phones are cheaper than PCs, there are three times more of them, growing at twice the speed, and they increasingly have internet access. Mobile is going to be the next big internet phenomenon. FULL ARTICLE @ FT

Mark Brooks: Case in point, I learned at iDate Asia that there are ~50 million PC’s in China, and ~400 million mobile phones. I think we’ll get the mobile phone internet experience right in the next three to five years. What’s right? Webdate describes itself as channel agnostic. That’s the best approach. Extending content seamlessly onto the mobile phone. Easier said than done, I know. 

China’s Online Dating Market to Hit 653m Yuan in 2008

Posted on May 23, 2006

Chineselovelinks_r12_c20XINHUA — May 20 — China’s online dating market is expected to reach 653 million yuan (about $81 million) by 2008, with an annual growth rate of 60%, according to a recent iResearch report. The report values the online dating market at 37 million yuan (~$4.5 million) for 2004 and 91 million yuan ($11.2 million) for 2005. The US market was $520 million for 2005, and the European market, $110 million. There are more men than women in China’s 1.3-billion population. Baihe claims to be China’s largest dating site and received $11 million dollars of investment after attracting more than 5 million users in 2005.

The full article was originally published at Xinhua Net, but is no longer available.

Friendster Tries For A Comeback

Posted on May 23, 2006

Friendster_logo_2YAHOO NEWS — May 19 — Friendster has new architecture and is preparing to launch an instant messaging service. With more than 27 million page views, the company nearly tripled performance and page views in about one month. The improved performance has also enabled increased advertising and revenue.