Month: May 2006

Reunion.com and Yahoo! Personals ‘Get Hitched’

Posted on May 11, 2006

Yahoo_8BUSINESS WIRE — May 10 — Yahoo! Personals and Reunion.com (nearly 25 million users) are increasing their distribution and marketing channels and offering content to users. Reunion.com members who are looking for past connections and focused on dating will be directed to Yahoo! Personals. Yahoo! Personals' users will be directed to Reunion.com to find, reconnect and stay in touch. "Yahoo! is constantly looking for strategic and creative ways to get our services in front of the right consumers," said Anna Zornosa, GM for Yahoo! Personals.

Mark Brooks: Smart move. Yahoo Personals also recently teamed up with Starbucks for a campaign over Valentines. Heck, who wouldn't want to team up with Yahoo. It's a great brand that can offer some great branding affinity (rub-off) to other top levels brands.

Handwriting Recognition Tool for Dating Sites

Posted on May 11, 2006

PRWEB — May 10 — A new twist on personality and compatibility profiling, handwriting analysis software is now available from HandwritingProfiles.com for integration into dating site offerings. FULL ARTICLE @ PRWEB

Mark Brooks: The way a person writes is indicative of certain charact er traits. I met the fellow who designed this service. This is a fun and interesting differentiator that users will talk about. I highly recommend giving it a look-in.

Match.com Launches New Starter Kit

Posted on May 11, 2006

Matchcom_18_1PR NEWSWIRE — May 10 — To help those who are new to online dating, Match.com introduces its free Starter Kit (audio and visual guide) so they can join the 200,000+ people who find the person they are seeking on Match.com each year. According to a recent Harris Interactive(R) Survey 72% of single people have never used an online dating service. FULL ARTICLE @ SYS-CON

Mark Brooks: A good proportion of online dating users value and need a little handholding. Match.com is playing very nicely to this ‘lead me by the hand’ audience, of late.

Daily Mail Makes two Acquisitions to Expand Online

Posted on May 11, 2006

Loopylove_logo234x60_2REUTERS UK — May 8– UK publisher Daily Mail & General Trust added the dating sites LoopyLove and GirlsDateForFree (Allegran) to its growing online media empire. Two acquisitions worth up to 46.5 million pounds. Its Associated Newspapers division acquired Allegran and 62.5% of Data Media and Retail (Carsource.co.uk) with a three-year earnout with its management to acquire the remaining 37.5%. Daily Mail's initial payments totalled 32.5 million pounds.Like its peers in the struggling newspaper sector, Daily Mail has been aggressively investing in online properties.

Mark Brooks: Newspapers are suffering and playing catchup, by acquisition. This is good news for online personals site valuations.

Microsoft Opens up Windows Live Messenger, Offers VoIP

Posted on May 11, 2006

Windows_liveMARKETING VOX — May 10 — Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger beta has been opened to the general public and features a free VOIP service, Windows Live Call is being provided by Verizon. Landline or cell phones calls are 2c per minute.

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

YouTube Offers Mobile Video Upload

Posted on May 11, 2006

Youtube_1MARKETING VOX — May 10 — YouTube has launched a service for uploading homemade video clips to its site via mobile phones or PDA. YouTube gets 12 million uniques and 1.2 billion pageviews a month.

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

Mark Brooks: Vids are sent via phone email rather than MMS.

Sites Strike a Match with Users

Posted on May 10, 2006

Teamdating_4CHICAGO TRIBUNE — May 8 — According to an April study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 31% of American adults (63 million) know someone who has used a dating Web site, and 30 million know someone who in a long-term relationship or married to someone they met online. Niche specialty dating sites are popping up; LawyersInLove.com, TeamDating.com, GoodGenes.com.

Mark Brooks: Niche dating sites are enjoying some great press this year. 

Loopylove Acquired

Posted on May 10, 2006

Loopylove_logo234x60_1DMGT — May 8 — Associated Newspapers, the national newspaper division of DMGT has acquired Allegran, which operates a portfolio of dating web sites, catering for different segments within the UK market. In the year to 31 January 2006, Allegran reported revenues of £7.4 million, up ~160% on 2004. Allegran´s sites include three ranked in the top seven UK dating sites.

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

Mark Brooks: The UK market is hot and prime for acquisitions. Anotherfriend is doing well in Ireland and has 10 employees. I hear conversions in the UK are very strong? Allegran runs Loopylove, GirlsDateforFree, Pocado, DreamsDiscovered and DatingforParents.

Women May not Mate for Life in the Future

Posted on May 10, 2006

 Logo_tosunfooterTORONTO SUN By Valerie Gibson — May 7 — A new report from England's Durham University (sociologist Judy Richards PhDthesis) about Internet dating, Love On The Net, has found that women, instead of looking for a sole companion for all of their life, are much more likely to choose different men for the different stages of their life. In-depth interviews with English women ages 48-62 showed that, although mid-life women still have faith in love, they are more romantically realistic than ever before. Richards research indicates there are four distinct romantic/sexual stages for women looking for a man today. The first is "looking for fun," the second is "looking for Mr. Right," the third is "looking for Mr. Right Now — especially a younger man," and the fourth and final stage is "looking to settle down with someone close to their age to share life and similar experiences with." 

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

Mark Brooks: Fascinating! Your comments please…

eBay Integrating Skype

Posted on May 10, 2006

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MARKETING VOX– May 10 — eBay plans to integrate its Skype voice over IP service into the auction marketplace to facilitate communication between buyers and sellers stated CEO Meg Whitman speaking at eBay’s Analyst Day, the theme of which was “The Power of Three”: eBay, PayPal and Skype.


Mark Brooks: Food for thought for the online personals industry. Shouldn’t we be leading the way with voice? Voice is a sorely missed feature from most online personals sites. Recording voice as part of a profile, voicemail…all rather marginal. Major sites need to hook people up via their real phones. Email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com if you’d like a copy of the Anonymous Phone Calling white paper. PhoneMatrix is the anonymous phone calling solution leader for online personals sites. They have focused completely on the online personals market and have numerous implementations under their belt now.