BUSINESS WIRE — July 26 — "IncrediMail Personals provided by Yahoo! Personals," has launched. IncrediMail has a 10 million-strong active daily user base.
Mark Brooks: I'm surprised I haven't seen more cobranding deals of late. They make a lot of sense. Two trusted brands in combination is a potent combination for improving conversions. Far better than straight advertising deals.
MARKETING SHERPA — July 25 — With 1.1 billion people, India is second to China in terms of population, and its gross national income per capita remains low at $630 US for 2004. While Hindi is the country's national language (the government recognizes 22 languages), India has the second largest population of English speakers in the world — more than 150 million. More than 500 million Indians are under age 21. The median age is 24.6 vs 30 in China, 36 in the US and 38 in the UK. 70% live in 550,000 villages and the remainder in 200 towns and cities. The marriage business is big business, with arranged marriages still the norm. Shaadi.com is India's biggest matrimony portal. 4.5% are online, typically just three hours per month. There were 77 million mobile phone subscribers by the end of 2005 growing 60% a year. Mobile services revenues (horoscopes, cricket scores, SMS, ring tones) topped $5.6 million US in 2005. Indians like to use credit and debit cards, but not to make online purchases because they're afraid of online credit card fraud. India lacks a "safe" online payment system. Hence, airlines have formed partnerships with gas stations so travelers can go to a gas station to pay for transactions in cash or via money order. If you want to spread your message you should have less reliance on straight banner ads and more on email and SMS to propagate your message. Samples of 4 Indian Online Campaigns
Top-tier Indian portals: 123India, Google, MSN, Rediff, Yahoo.
Association sites: DMA, Internet & Mobile Association, ISP Association, Mobile Marketing Association's Int'l Journal of Mobile Marketing, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Agencies/Consultancies: BC Web Wise, The Hackett Group, Wunderman India.
PR WEB — July 26 — Enpocket, a leader in intelligent mobile marketing will produce a mobile application for the RatesYourDate on-line tool. Enpocket will develop the mobile component, which will allow people to make timely comments and get immediate feedback if they have been rated on RatesYourDate. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB
THE MIAMI HERALD — July 22 — A handful of online dating services — once the go-to places for finding that significant other — are realizing that the best way to meet is by actually — meeting. ''We use the Internet to get people off the Internet,'' says Myles Weissleder, VP, Meetup.com, (two million members). JDate and Lavalife have organized both casual and elaborate events. Kristin Kelly, Match.com's spokesperson, ''At the end of the day, you need to meet. Online dating is only efficient if you know when to meet. Hanging online is not what we want you to do,'' Kelly said. But Match.com does not organize offline events. ''We used to have a separate events business but it just wasn't profitable for us,'' Kelly said.
Mark Brooks: Events offer dating sites a double edged sword. If you run GREAT events, you'll get great word-of-mouth. People like to talk about what they've done on their evenings and weekends. However, the other side of the sword can cut deep. Run mediocre to poor events and the negative word of mouth can be crucifying. You can't run a dating events business half heartedly.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — July 17 — While YouTube dominates Web of today, about 240 sites have dreams of success — or getting gobbled up for big bucks.
You've heard of YouTube. You might have also heard of iFilm, Revver or Grouper. But have you heard of Frozen Hippo? Blennus? Eefoof? By one count, about 240 sites now dabble in online video…setting the stage for a shakeout. On any given day, people watch more than 100 million videos on YouTube. "People lump us in with YouTube, but we have the technology to be much more than that," said Dmitry Shapiro, CEO of Veoh. Veoh hopes the computer will become the future set-top box for television. Guba, meanwhile, sells movie and TV downloads from Warner Bros. and Sony. FULL ARTICLE @ SF GATE
Mark Brooks: As users warm up to watching TV on their computer, the online personals industry should warm up more to video dating. And don't forget video dating on your cell phone. That's next.
TIMES ONLINE — July 24 — According to a study by the London School of Economics, more than half of mobile-users aged 18 to 24 have sent or received an invitation to a date in a text message, while just as many have traded sexually explicit messages; and 53% agreed that sending a flirtatious message to someone while in a relationship was a form of cheating. FULL ARTICLE @ TIMES ONLINE
UN — July 25 — Young British adults have become dependent on their mobile phones. Their phones mean more to them than television reveals a social study of mobile phones from The Carphone Warehouse, advised by The London School of Economics and Political Science. This appears to be particularly true for young women of 18-24 years old. 32% named it their most important electronic possession, ahead of television (at 11%). 19% of men in this age group also name their cell phone as their most important technology product. The "Mobile Life Report" presents a survey of 16,500 people by polling organisation YouGov. Amongst its findings are that texting has overtaken talking as the most popular way to use mobile phones.
The full article was originally published at UN, but is no longer available.
last month garnered 17% of online display impressions–up more than two
points from May’s 14.6%, according to Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance. Yahoo Mail drew 35.7%, MSN Hotmail 7.2%. Financial services companies
accounted for 24%, telecoms and web media 18%. FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIA POST PUBLICATIONS
WASHINGTON POST — July 16 — The combination of young users and
a culture that encourages sharing personal details presents
opportunities for increasingly sophisticated methods to lure
information. The FBI last month warned MySpace users of a phony
bulletin post urging people to click on a link to "check out old school
pictures." A virus seeking financial information recently invaded
Orkut, Google’s social networking site. Sites spoof the MySpace log-in
page. Scammers can look at profiles and use information to better hone
their attack, then craft phony messages that appear to come from
friends to trick people into revealing credit card or cellphone
numbers.
FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST
clubs to bring performances, behind-the-scenes footage and other
content to the new humor section of MySpace. Other MySpace sections
include music and movies. The sports
and games sections will be revamped. Pepsi-Cola’s Sierra Mist
beverage is the main sponsor of MySpace Comedy and it’s Aquafina
bottled water brand sponsored the Filmmakers section.
Mark
Brooks: By and large, you don’t see much advertising on dating sites. The ROI on time for the amount of money to be earned hasn’t be there. Click thru rates are relatively low. But, the targeting capability is
A1. MySpace is doing a great job of warming up advertisers for dating
sites.