GLOBAL NATIONAL — Oct 18 — Last year 12% of newlyweds in
the U.S. met
through the Internet. So we can assume a
similar number of Canadians did. Clearly
there are plenty of fish available out there and tonight we’re profiling one of
the biggest nets that catches them. She
was HorseLady3, a small town B.C. girl. He was HappyDaddy, a Vancouver
chef whose search for love took him on the Internet. "I needed an escape because the separation
from my marriage was kind of hard." It
wasn’t long before the two found each other. "We hit it off and we haven’t looked back since." Markus Frind is the Vancouver
web guru who just happens to be one of the world’s biggest matchmakers. His site, Plentyoffish.com brought together
HorseLady3 and HappyDaddy and thousands of other couples and he runs it all
from his tiny Vancouver
office. "I am the largest website run
by one person. I’m doing about 600
million pages a month." His website
is part of a new wave of companies making money on content generated not by them, but by users. The biggest example is YouTube, the online
video site that Google recently bought for $1.65 billion. Like YouTube, Frind’s site is free to use and is bringing in a heap of cash. [Google
Adsense] ads make him more then $10,000 a day. "The tellers always look at me real funny. They’re like are you some kind of
criminal? Why do you come in with a
$900,000 check? I suppose if I went
paid, this site could make hundreds of millions but it just wouldn’t be fun
anymore and I would have to hire people and I don’t know, I just like what I’m
doing right now." FULL VIDEO @ GLOBAL NATIONAL (via YOU TUBE)
Mark Brooks: This story gives some insight on Markus. Every American
dreams of making big bucks working on their own terms, from home.
Markus is the poster boy for the internet fringe of one-man-band
success stories. This fringe is growing but it’s a rarity to see them
pop their heads up. He’s ranked #1 in Canada on Alexa, and #6 in the
Hitwise USA rankings of internet dating sites. Markus said in this
interview, "
I am the largest website run
by one person." That’s a lot of mental ownership. He’s gunning to be
the top internet dating site in the U.S.A. Your comments please.
Please, do not think I am rude or not polite, but …
What will really happen if he become suddenly ill or suffer an accident or eventually die ?
Will PoF survive him?
Will his girlfriend be able to manage PoF in automatic pilot until crash?
These are the types of questions a serious Venture Capital Investor will ask!!!
PoF is not an online dating site, it is a cheap channel for deliver ads with only one big fully automated client, Google Adsense!
“There are one million people who have moderating powers in the Plentyoffish forum”.
Are they employees with no salaries?
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Good for Markus! I love the little guy getting one up on the “man”. That being said, in my opinion some real changes need to be made to plentyoffish for it to not be gobbled up by the new great whites starting to swim in his ocean. But numbers are numbers, and from the stats plentyoffish is a winner. Sooner or later though, something better will come along. Just being free will not be enough anymore.
Now I have mentioned Collaboradate.com getting completely re-done, well it’s taken much longer then I had hopped, as it seems it always does, but I don’t want to release a piece of crap. A lot of people are fed up with the low quality, lack of innovation that currently plagues the online dating market (free or paid). I am working hard to change all of that.
Check out a great post on Dave’s blog
http://dating.corante.com/archives/2006/10/18/a_dating_industry_insider_rant_10182006.php
which really illustrates the current frustration. Also if you get a chance read the comment I posted, as it will give you some great insight to the innovation to come with the new site. Date on!