Month: November 2007

Interview with Gong Haiyan, CEO of Jiayuan.com

Posted on November 30, 2007

Jiauan_logoINTERFAX CHINA — Nov 30 — The Chinese online dating industry is still in its honeymoon period, with leading Web sites such as Jiayuan.com (formerly known as Love21.cn), Baihe.com and Marry5.com proving as attractive to venture capitalists as they are to their users. In April this year, Jiayuan received venture capital of RMB 40 million ($5.42 million) and a further RMB 73.81 million ($10 million) in June. In 2005, Marry5 raised around $12.5 million in venture capital, while Baihe.com got $11 million last year. Interfax spoke with Jiayuan.com CEO, Gong Haiyan, about managing the site, and how she sees the industry developing…

Interfax: What difficulties have you faced?
Gong: In China, a lot of people, don't trust online dating, especially those born in the 1950s and 1960s.

Interfax: What are your expectations for the future of online dating in China?
Gong: People born in the 1990s have grown up with the Internet and they'll be open to this method of dating. The market is growing as people's attitudes change.

Interfax: What makes Jiayuan.com different from other Web sites?
Gong: Our Web site is for well-educated people. We ask members for education certification and copies of their ID cards.

Interfax: What's the plan to raise your profit?
Gong: We plan to offer wedding services to our members who succeed in finding partners Jiayuan.com

Mark Brooks: See Int'l Internet Dating Rankings on the right bar for official Chinese internet dating rankings from iResearch.

First Virtual iDate Conference

Posted on November 30, 2007

Idate2008_logoIDATE — Nov 30 — The very first virtual iDATE conference will be held in Dec 19th from 8am – 9pm EST. People attending the Miami event Jan 31 – Feb 1, 2008 will maximize their time and efficiency. The conference will allow delegates to see exhibitiors, learn what they do, have a chat with them and schedule appointments at their desks in their offices. The event is totally free for anyone to attend. The exhibitors can create a virtual booth with flash banners, images and videos to show their products. Click here to pre-register. SEE MORE DETAILS @ IDATE

FriendFinder Donates $200k

Posted on November 30, 2007

PRESS RELEASE — Nov 29 — FriendFinder Network is giving $200k to charity and members can suggest the charities to distribute the $200k to. Top charities picked by members so far (30k votes) include: American Red Cross, St. Jude's Children's Hospital, American Cancer Society and Make a Wish Foundation. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

A Fresh Approach – CrazyBlindDate

Posted on November 30, 2007

FOX — Nov 29 — CrazyBlindDate launches in the all the major markets early next year. Meanwhile it’s in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Austin. Sam Yagan, CEO of CrazyBlindDate.com and OKcupid.com was on Fox’s Morning Show with Mike and Juliet and says…

The idea comes from complaints that we’ve heard about traditional online dating sites. First, it’s a lot of work to set up a profile, to spend all kinds of time browsing profiles, sending messages back and forth to other users all to set up a date that may not even happen.  If you run a business that’s charging subscription fees, you just want to keep them on your site. Our site is the exact opposite. We don’t want you on our site at all. It’s true we want to get you out on the crazy blind date so that you’re actually out there interacting with other people. …The way it works is we set you up for a 20 to 30 minute blind date at a bar or coffee shop. We’re not sending you out to a 3 hour baseball game or to a $200 dinner.  It’s all about going out and spending 20 or 30 minutes out with a stranger and see if you have that connection. …We send you on dates in public places that really are well lit, well known bars or coffee shops.

Do I see a picture at least of the blind date?
No! 

Are you kidding?
It wouldn’t be a blind date. It would be a crazy non blind date. You do get to set some parameters. You get to say of course the age, gender, orientation of the person you want to me but also you can have height parameters, body type, etc.

Is TRUE Paying Affiliates?

Posted on November 29, 2007

True_1_2 FREQUENT FLIRTERS — Nov 29 — Word on the street is that TRUE is leaving affiliates awash and not paying out. Here's the word from TRUE… " We have been migrating to Link Connector for some time now in response to the amount of fraud that comes in from Commission Junction. We are eliminating Commission Junction and will be building an in-house affiliate solution in the future. We do continue to use many affiliate networks through our major partners." If you're a CJ affiliate marketing TRUE, change out those links. Right now Primary Ads is running TRUE offers and paying out $3.50 a lead, and Link Connector is paying out $2 per lead. See full post at Frequent Flirters.

Email Data Source Ranks Dating Sites

Posted on November 29, 2007
Email_data_source_logoPR WEB — Nov 29 — Email Data Source, a provider of email competitive analysis data, released its study ranking the Email Brand Equity Index™ of Online dating sites based on the quality and effectiveness of their marketing emails. The Email Brand Equity Index™ is determined by compiling historical data on email marketing messages and measuring the emails' perceived effectiveness in driving website traffic.

Email Brand Equity Rankings
1. Match.com   
2. Friendfinder
3. Spark Networks
4. eHarmony.com
5. Reunion.com
6. Cupid.com
7. True.com

8. Family Friends
9. eCube Media
10. Beliefnet 

Nominate Your Favorite Social Networking Site for the Open Web Awards

Posted on November 28, 2007

The Open Web Awards, hosted by Mashable.com, are the first ever online, open collaboration awards event to recognize the best online communities representing web 2.0. 

OnlinePersonalsWatch has been given the honor to submit nominations based on what you think. After nominations are all in, you will be given the opportunity to vote for the winners which will be announced Dec 20.

There are 13 categories for which you can nominate your favorite sites or products. Scratch that. Let's add a 14th category, Internet Dating. To nominate please leave a comment in the following format: Nominate – Category – (company you wish to nominate). You may nominate a site for more than one category.

Nominations close on Dec 5, so get your nominations in now!

The 14 nomination categories are:

  1. Mainstream and Large Scale Networks
  2. Applications and Widgets
  3. Social News and Social Bookmarking
  4. Social Search
  5. Sports and Fitness
  6. Photo Sharing
  7. Video Sharing
  8. Start Pages
  9. Places and Events
  10. Music
  11. Social Shopping
  12. Mobile
  13. Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
  14. Internet Dating

Free Anonymous SMS

Posted on November 28, 2007

PRESS RELEASE — Nov 28 — Jangl customers can talk, exchange voicemails and now send text messages without sharing their phone numbers. Text messaging can be initiated from either a PC or a phone. Sending and receiving SMS via Jangl's web interface is 100% free. Fees to mobile providers will apply if the SMS are sent via cell phones. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

Mark Brooks: Jangl provides anonymous calling on Match as MatchTalk, and will be going live with more dating sites shortly.  Recently, Jangl hooked up with Jajah. (Disclosure: Jangl is a client of Courtland Brooks)

Stay Up To Date

Posted on November 28, 2007

Opw_toolbarOPW — Nov 28 — If you'd like to stay up to speed on the social networking industry news, add your email address to the Feedblitz box on the right and we'll send you all the news once a day. Also, rather than typing OnlinePersonalsWatch.com, you can type opw1.com, for short. – Mark Brooks