QUEERTY — Oct 15 — PlanetOut's Gay.com spent untold sums of cash revamping its infrastructure in the past few months. Except ever since the gay hub debuted the new version of its site at the beginning of the month, Gay.com has been plagued by downtime. By our rough science, it's been offline more than it's been online. Gay.com sent an apology letter to members stating they were adjusting their hardware configurations and software code and fixing the bugs that have resulted in unplanned system outages. FULL ARTICLE @ QUEERTY
Month: October 2008
Shaadi.com Launches Shaadi Sapphire
INDIA PR WIRE — Oct 14 — Indian matrimonial service launched an assisted
matrimonial service called Shaadi.com Sapphire. Members can dial in
and receive the matchmaking service over the phone. Members can opt for
daily updates over
phone or email for relevant matches. In addition, Matchmaking
assistants help
members write effective profiles. The announcement of Shaadi.com
Sapphire comes close on the heels of
Shaadi.com now being available on mobile with a tie up with Vodafone
and a tie up with Dish TV for DTH. FULL ARTICLE @ INDIA PR WIRE
Mark Brooks: Indian and Chinese (Baihe.com and Zhenai.com) are
doing most of the innovating in the ‘matchmaking meets dating’
segment. Sheesh, can we even call it a niche. It hardly exists in the
USA. Match killed their VIP service, alas. Watch out for some
interesting developments in this area from "International Dating
Ventures." 😉 (Full Disclosure – International Dating Ventures is a
client of Courtland Brooks)
Spark Networks Introduces Facelink
MARKET WIRE — Oct 14 — Spark Networks launched Facelink, a dating site search tool. On Facelink singles search by using free text to find others with shared passions, values and beliefs more easily. Facelink's proprietary dating search presents users with previews of potential matches' profiles. Users then link to one of Spark's 20 participating dating sites to read potential matches' complete profiles and view photos.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.
Hitwise U.S.A. Internet Dating Rankings Update
OPW — Oct 14 — The Hitwise rankings are in for September. Singlesnet, PlentyofFish, YahooPersonals and Match.com maintained their #1, #2, #3 and #4 spot respectively. Free dating site DateHookup.com moved ahead of racy gay dating site Adam4Adam and eHarmony to take the 5th position. UsearchLocal ousts OKCupid from it's 12th position. Hot or Not slides off the top 15 to #19.
RSVP Launches Adventure Travel Community
ETRAVEL BLACK BOARD — Oct 13 — Australia's largest online dating site, RSVP.com.au, has launched Australia's first 'Adventure travel' community which allows likeminded singles to interact with and meet others who share a passion for travel. Within each community, a member has access to articles, features, offers, blogs, reviews, video content and can easily search for other singles via the photo gallery.
The full article was originally published at Travel Black Board, but is no longer available.
Shanghai Matchmakers Promise To Tell The Truth
SHANGHAIIST — Oct 13 — Around 30 members of the Shanghai Matchmaking Trade
Association, have signed an
agreement promising to be honest to their customers. If information
provided by these agencies turn out to be false, or if their service
isn’t satisfying, customers will get a refund. The trade association
also said they will inspect these companies once a year to make sure
they live up to their standards. FULL ARTICLE @ SHANGHAIIST
Eyealike Sets Its Image Recognition Technology On Advertising
TECH CRUNCH — Oct 12 — Eyealike, the startup that lets you use photo recognition to help find your ideal mate, is expanding to apply its image processing technology to a new market: advertising. The company says that the new system will allow businesses to place highly targeted advertising alongside photographs that appear on their site. The company is also in early stages of identifying company logos in photographs. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Internet Dating Conference Speaker Submissions
OPW — Oct 14 — Speaker submissions for iDate Miami are open. To submit yourself or your client for a speakers spot please click here. Please place a comment on this blog if there are particular people or topics you’d like to have at the conference. – Mark Brooks
Are You Up Or Down?
OPW — Oct 11 — How’s business? Its doom and gloom for the stock market, but how’s
your dating site(s) doing? Please post a comment with specifics of how
well your site is doing. If I get enough comments with interesting
specifics, I’ll send out a press release for Online Personals Watch and
the Internet Dating Executive Alliance giving the pulse of the
industry. Your comments please. – Mark Brooks
David Cliff, Internet Dating Affiliate – OPW Interview
OPW INTERVIEW — Oct 11 — David Cliff is an internet dating affiliate. Rather than just be an affiliate of traditional dating sites, he’s started up his own sites under a white labeler. Its going well for him. Here’s his story. – Mark Brooks
David, tell us how you got started in the online dating industry and how your business has been performing since then?
I joined a dating site myself as I was interested to see how the site worked. I joined Singles365.com which is run by WhiteLabelDating.com.
There was a box in the corner of the page inviting people to start their own dating site. So I thought this was a good idea because if I start my own dating site it would be cheaper for me to be a member. I started up my own site and invested about 100 pounds on some ads with Google in the UK. There was only 30 or 40 pounds return after the first month so I thought it didn’t work too well and I wasn’t going to invest any more. Then more revenue came in as people, once they joined, stayed for a second month and then a third month. So I thought it might not be so bad after all. I got some advice from WhiteLabelDating.com and started investing more money.
InstantFriends.co.uk went from strength to strength and I started setting up some more sites from other markets which WhiteLabelDating.com offered, including adult dating. InstantHotDates.co.uk was the next one I set up, then InstantGayFriends.co.uk and a few more. I also did one for military dating and one for senior dating.
When WhiteLabelDating.com got into the U.S I thought well let’s give this a go as well. So we’ve now got InstantFriends.us, Dates4Sex.us, SeniorDating4Fun.us and MilitaryDating4Fun.us. There are now 15 sites in total.
What are your thoughts on WhiteLabelDating.com? How they worked out for you personally?
After I set up the first site InstantFriends.co.uk with WhiteLabelDating.com, I looked at other providers. One of them was the FriendFinder Network. I did see some quite favorable results but the big difference I experienced with the WhiteLabelDating sites was in the retention rates. The members were staying for much longer. I was receiving a residual income each month from the WLD sites which I wasn’t receiving from any of the others.
Are you happy with the support the company provides you?
I’m very happy. I’ll be 55 in November and I was 50 before I sent my first email. So computers are all rather new to me although I have a sales and marketing background. I didn’t know anything about computers so the support that I received from WhiteLabelDating.com was excellent.
Is the online dating business a hobby or is it your primary income?
This has now become the largest part of my income. We’re looking at about $20,000 a month from InstantFriends.co.uk of which I’m receiving about $10,000. And that’s just from one site. I do also work in a local radio station in London which is very much a hobby and I love doing it. My income is coming from the dating sites.
What made you decide to enter the U.S. market?
I had seen the success of the sites I’m operating in the UK and I’ve seen a lot of the American sites trying to get subscribers in the UK. So I thought it would be interesting to see what happens with a British site in the U.S. We have to wait and see what the results are because its too early, it’s only been 14 days. In the first month of operating InstantFriends in the U.K., I thought it was a waste of time. I have to give it a couple of months, certainly 3 months before I know whether I’m going to make it in America or not.