Month: January 2007

Just Cancel the @#%$* Account!

Posted on January 9, 2007

PC WORLD — Dec 22 — It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up for a NetZero dial-up Internet account and a week trying to reverse a charge that the service levied after my cancellation request. I had a hard time canceling my $5 monthly Gold Classmates.com account, too. I couldn't find any information on how to cancel until I entered the word cancel in the site's search engine and then click through several pages reminding me of the benefits I'd lose. Sixteen days after I signed up for AOL's 90-Day Risk-Free account I cancelled. An AOL rep peppered me with questions as to why I was unsubscribing. I was still hit with a $25.90 charge. Thinking that I had properly canceled my contract with True.com within two weeks of signing up, I expected to be charged for one month of service: $50. Two months later my statement showed $153.

Mark Brooks: Trust me on this. Members should be able to cancel within 30 seconds and three clicks of logging in. Focus on building value, rather than locking members into your service and throwing away the keys.  Your comments please…

Just Cancel the @#%$* Account!

Posted on January 9, 2007

PC WORLD — Dec 22 — It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up for a NetZero dial-up Internet account and a week trying to reverse a charge that the service levied after my cancellation request. I had a hard time canceling my $5 monthly Gold Classmates.com account, too. I couldn't find any information on how to cancel until I entered the word cancel in the site's search engine and then click through several pages reminding me of the benefits I'd lose. Sixteen days after I signed up for AOL's 90-Day Risk-Free account I cancelled. An AOL rep peppered me with questions as to why I was unsubscribing. I was still hit with a $25.90 charge. Thinking that I had properly canceled my contract with True.com within two weeks of signing up, I expected to be charged for one month of service: $50. Two months later my statement showed $153.

Mark Brooks: Trust me on this. Members should be able to cancel within 30 seconds and three clicks of logging in. Focus on building value, rather than locking members into your service and throwing away the keys.  Your comments please…

Dial ‘M’ for Marketing

Posted on January 9, 2007

BRAND WEEK — Jan 8 — Marketing through cell phones is on the scene and growing. Americans are upgrading to WAP phones and cellular providers are giving their assent to advertising.  Verizon, AT&T and Sprint Nextel now permit banner ads. Diet Pepsi prompted fans watching National Football League games to vote for a "Rookie of the Week" using text messaging. Sheetz stores launched a four-month "Everydayrocks" campaign with a modest $750,000 budget with promo codes scattered across six states via radio deejay shout-outs, business cards at rock shows, graffiti on billboards and mentions during TV and cinema ads. Toyota is currently offering short commercials during "mobisodes" of Fox's Prison Break.

According to Mediamark Research 72.4% of adults in the U.S. have a cell phone. Three-quarters of cell phone users ages 10 to 18 said they do not think it's OK to be marketed to on a mobile device, according to a study of 2,000 users.  A mere 3% of respondents said they trust text ads. The Mobile Marketing Assn. has drafted a set of guidelines. According to Ovum, Boston, mobile marketing in the U.S. alone is expected to explode from $46 million last year to $1.3 billion by 2010. ~95% of the devices consumers are buying today have text or SMS functionality. The CPM rate for mobile banner ad impressions is $30 to $50 CPM, but the click-through rates are 3% to 5% due to the "novelty factor."

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

Mark Brooks: The mobile internet dating conference is on the schedule for San Francisco 25th to 26th July this year. I'll be presenting at Mobile Persuasion on 2nd February. 

Dial ‘M’ for Marketing

Posted on January 9, 2007

BRAND WEEK — Jan 8 — Marketing through cell phones is on the scene and growing. Americans are upgrading to WAP phones and cellular providers are giving their assent to advertising.  Verizon, AT&T and Sprint Nextel now permit banner ads. Diet Pepsi prompted fans watching National Football League games to vote for a "Rookie of the Week" using text messaging. Sheetz stores launched a four-month "Everydayrocks" campaign with a modest $750,000 budget with promo codes scattered across six states via radio deejay shout-outs, business cards at rock shows, graffiti on billboards and mentions during TV and cinema ads. Toyota is currently offering short commercials during "mobisodes" of Fox's Prison Break.

According to Mediamark Research 72.4% of adults in the U.S. have a cell phone. Three-quarters of cell phone users ages 10 to 18 said they do not think it's OK to be marketed to on a mobile device, according to a study of 2,000 users.  A mere 3% of respondents said they trust text ads. The Mobile Marketing Assn. has drafted a set of guidelines. According to Ovum, Boston, mobile marketing in the U.S. alone is expected to explode from $46 million last year to $1.3 billion by 2010. ~95% of the devices consumers are buying today have text or SMS functionality. The CPM rate for mobile banner ad impressions is $30 to $50 CPM, but the click-through rates are 3% to 5% due to the "novelty factor."

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

Mark Brooks: The mobile internet dating conference is on the schedule for San Francisco 25th to 26th July this year. I'll be presenting at Mobile Persuasion on 2nd February. 

Online Dating Safety Issues and Solutions

Posted on January 9, 2007

PR NEWSWIRE — Jan 8 — Legislative efforts are already under way in several states to reduce cyber crime. The Safer Online Dating Alliance (SODA) is working to require disclosure to consumers on safer online dating practices and provide safety information. Safety tips can be found at http://www.SaferOnlineDating.org.

Mark Brooks: What can the internet dating industry do to more effectively improve online dating safety?  Your comments please…

Online Dating Safety Issues and Solutions

Posted on January 9, 2007

PR NEWSWIRE — Jan 8 — Legislative efforts are already under way in several states to reduce cyber crime. The Safer Online Dating Alliance (SODA) is working to require disclosure to consumers on safer online dating practices and provide safety information. Safety tips can be found at http://www.SaferOnlineDating.org.

Mark Brooks: What can the internet dating industry do to more effectively improve online dating safety?  Your comments please…

Meetic Founder-Chairman, Marc Simoncini – OPW Interview

Posted on January 8, 2007

MarcOPW INTERVIEW — Jan 8, 2007 — I spoke with Marc Simoncini this afternoon about his pending acquisition of Dating Direct. – Mark Brooks

When will your acquisition of Dating Direct be complete?
We're planning to close the acquisition definitely before the end of January. It's a question of days.

Can you tell me more about your plans once you acquire Dating Direct?
So the plan is to first integrate the software and the application from Dating Direct to Meetic's control and to merge the database. So we will add 4.5 million members from the UK, from Dating Direct, into my database. Then we will provide U.K. users dates with, of course, U.K. citizens but also with millions of European singles. We will launch our new version of Meetic, which is planned to be launched in February in France first and then we will move the platform from Dating Direct to Meetic to join the new version of Meetic. So that's what we're planning for the next few months.

Will you be phasing out the Meetic name in the UK?
Yes. We will keep the Dating Direct brand. We will continue to promote the Dating Direct brand and stop promoting Meetic. So no more Meetic in the UK.

How do you think Match might react to the news of this acquisition?
That's up to Match. Two years ago, I said I wanted to cross the entirety of Europe. The only country where Match was bigger than Meetic was in the UK, so I assume it's not a surprise for them to see Meetic entering the UK market. So maybe they made a mistake to leave this acquisition available for Meetic, I don't know. I'm sure it's not a surprise for them. So now Meetic has, say, two or three times more traffic than Match all over Europe, so the competition will be less intensive in Europe and that's my goal.

The acquisition is to include Chemistry.co.uk which is an events service in the U.K. What's your plans for this events service?
Maybe we will call the technology (personality profiling) dating website in the UK 'Chemistry,' we don't know. We have the domain name, the brand and the company to organize events, so it's a pity for Match that we have the domain name they need in UK to launch Chemistry, but I'm not sure they plan to launch Chemistry outside of the U.S. I don't think it's a problem for Match.

Meetic Founder-Chairman, Marc Simoncini – OPW Interview

Posted on January 8, 2007

MarcOPW INTERVIEW — Jan 8, 2007 — I spoke with Marc Simoncini this afternoon about his pending acquisition of Dating Direct. – Mark Brooks

When will your acquisition of Dating Direct be complete?
We're planning to close the acquisition definitely before the end of January. It's a question of days.

Can you tell me more about your plans once you acquire Dating Direct?
So the plan is to first integrate the software and the application from Dating Direct to Meetic's control and to merge the database. So we will add 4.5 million members from the UK, from Dating Direct, into my database. Then we will provide U.K. users dates with, of course, U.K. citizens but also with millions of European singles. We will launch our new version of Meetic, which is planned to be launched in February in France first and then we will move the platform from Dating Direct to Meetic to join the new version of Meetic. So that's what we're planning for the next few months.

Will you be phasing out the Meetic name in the UK?
Yes. We will keep the Dating Direct brand. We will continue to promote the Dating Direct brand and stop promoting Meetic. So no more Meetic in the UK.

How do you think Match might react to the news of this acquisition?
That's up to Match. Two years ago, I said I wanted to cross the entirety of Europe. The only country where Match was bigger than Meetic was in the UK, so I assume it's not a surprise for them to see Meetic entering the UK market. So maybe they made a mistake to leave this acquisition available for Meetic, I don't know. I'm sure it's not a surprise for them. So now Meetic has, say, two or three times more traffic than Match all over Europe, so the competition will be less intensive in Europe and that's my goal.

The acquisition is to include Chemistry.co.uk which is an events service in the U.K. What's your plans for this events service?
Maybe we will call the technology (personality profiling) dating website in the UK 'Chemistry,' we don't know. We have the domain name, the brand and the company to organize events, so it's a pity for Match that we have the domain name they need in UK to launch Chemistry, but I'm not sure they plan to launch Chemistry outside of the U.S. I don't think it's a problem for Match.

Meetic Intends to Acquire DatingDirect

Posted on January 8, 2007

Meetic_logo_1REUTERS — Jan 8 — Meetic signed an agreement with a view to acquiring DatingDirect, UK's leading online dating service. Founded in 1999, DatingDirect has 4.5 million members (3.5 million in the UK), 70,000 paying members, 1.6 million uniques a month and £11 million annual revenue. Meetic has also signed an agreement for the acquisition, from the same shareholders, of Chemistry.co.uk which organizes UK singles events. Dating Direct has marketing partnerships with AOL, Channel4.com, HeartFM.co.uk, iVillage.co.uk, NTL and Tiscali. The acquisition of DatingDirect and Chemistry, for £27.3 million, will be carried out entirely in cash once the operation is finalised.

Meetic Intends to Acquire DatingDirect

Posted on January 8, 2007

Meetic_logo_1REUTERS — Jan 8 — Meetic signed an agreement with a view to acquiring DatingDirect, UK's leading online dating service. Founded in 1999, DatingDirect has 4.5 million members (3.5 million in the UK), 70,000 paying members, 1.6 million uniques a month and £11 million annual revenue. Meetic has also signed an agreement for the acquisition, from the same shareholders, of Chemistry.co.uk which organizes UK singles events. Dating Direct has marketing partnerships with AOL, Channel4.com, HeartFM.co.uk, iVillage.co.uk, NTL and Tiscali. The acquisition of DatingDirect and Chemistry, for £27.3 million, will be carried out entirely in cash once the operation is finalised.