NMA.CO.UK — Sep 1 — YouTube is going up against Facebook by launching Colleges on YouTube, offering students and staff closed networks through which they can contact each other and watch videos. The service launched yesterday serving over 30 US colleges.
Mark Brooks: The student market is the largest hyper-viral ‘niche’ market around. Moms, is another great market. Minti, amongst others, serves that market well.
PR WEB — Sep 1 — YouCanGetMe.com gives members the opportunity to take a photo of themselves using their mobile camera phone, send it to a specified number via MMS and it will automatically be included in their online dating profile. Easydate is an Edinburgh-based online dating agency with a network of dating sites including DatetheUK.com which was launched in 2002 and built up a membership of almost 1 million UK singles. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB
THE VILLAGE VOICE — Aug 30 — "I prefer to cheat with other married people because they have as much to lose as me typically" says a 35-year-old executive at a large corporation in midtown Manhattan. Married for seven years, he and his wife have sex twice a week. He cheated for the first time with another married woman he met through the Ashley Madison Agency. He's one of over a million members of Ashley Madison, which—like Married Secrets, Affair Match, Discreet Adventures and International House of Wives—caters to cheaters. The company's founder, Darren Morgenstern wanted to offer a service where folks could be up-front about their marital status. Membership costs $240 for three months. Sites like Ashley Madison tap into a very profitable niche within the online personals arena by bringing honesty to the dishonest practice of cheating. Statistics show that 12% to 25% of women and 22% to 60% of men cheat.
The full article was originally published at Village Voice, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Sexsearch is into threesomes. AdultFriendFinder markets to swingers. Polymatchmaker also. In some ways Ashley Madison, and others are providing a service to the dating industry by soaking up the marrieds that would otherwise venture onto mainstream dating sites and give them a bad reputation. By their mere existence they also encourage infidelity. Do these services provide a useful public service? For or against? Your comments please.
MARKET WATCH — Aug 31 — The popularity of free social networks, with MySpace having some 103 million members, does make you wonder why online dating sites are still charging. Back in 2000 a mere quarter of a million people logged on to dating site Match.com from home. Today, there are 3.2 million visiting Match from home each month, and 4.9 million, if you include those checking out their prospects at work. Match generated $248 million last year and the run-rate is $312 million for this year. David Siminoff says Spark Networks will do ~$70 million in sales and estimates eHarmony generates $165 million and Yahoo Personals, $100 million. Just adding the big four makes $600 million. Chump change compared to the roughly $12 billion in advertising online. Love is in the niches. That's the view of Siminoff, who's restructured the operations at Spark Networks. Spark Networks has 26 different verticals. Siminoff says the median time a marriage lasts is 6 years. "Liquidity in relationships has gone up a lot." Maybe social networks draw from online dating sites, but in the end, the entire market of people dating has just gone up.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.