PRESS RELEASE — Aug 25 — Casual dating site forgetdinner.co.uk is reporting a 200% increase in membership over the last 3 months as the recession begins to bite. Forget Dinner was established last summer by Howard James who is not surprised by the site’s success. “Our members know that they can meet without feeling obliged to spend money but still have a great time”, he says. FULL ARTICLE @ RESPONSE SOURCE
Month: August 2009
Rise Of The 5-9 Entrepreneurs
WLD — Aug 24 – A great article was published in The Sunday Times on
the increase of individuals starting their own businesses whilst
holding down full-time jobs. According to Enterprise Nation, the
home-business website, ~5M people in the UK keep their jobs while
building their own company at night and at weekends. Most of WLD.com's
successful partners are easily generating ~£5,000 per month within 6
months by working in their spare.
The Top Online Meat Markets
FORBES — Aug 25 — Online dating is now a $950M industry and according to Nielsen dating sites snared 27.5M unique visitors in June. Forbes used Nielsen's latest unique-visitor data for June 2009 to rank the 10 most popular dating sites. #1: eHarmony.com, with 4.25M visitors, up 48% YOY. Yahoo Personals came in at #2, with 4.1M uniques, followed by Match.com, with 3.4M. Plentyoffish.com, at #6, boasting 2.2M viewers, nearly double the amount a year ago. Noteworthy is the 91 minutes that an average users spends per visit. "Unlike other dating sites, Plentyoffish relies less on a marketing blitz than on word of mouth from satisfied customers", says founder Markus Frind. In Depth: The 10 Top Online Dating Sites. FULL ARTICLE @ FORBES
See all posts on eHarmony See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on Yahoo Personals See all posts on Plentyoffish
RSVP Revenue Down
THE AUSTRALIAN — Aug 25 — Fairfax Media CEO Brian McCarthy said the 2008-09 financial year had seen the "worst environment" he had ever experienced in the media sector. Fairfax's full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 27% to $605M for the year to June compared with 2007-08. The company's online division, which includes New Zealand auction site TradeMe, accommodation site Stayz and dating site RSVP, suffered in the tough climate and recorded an 8% fall in EBITDA.
The full article was originally published at The Australian, but is no longer available.
Much Talk About Marriage, Little Talk Of Romance
GUARDIAN.CO.UK — Aug 24 – While internet dating is commonplace, Shaadi.com is a more serious proposition; one of the most successful matrimonial websites and increasingly popular with Asians looking for a life partner. Since its launch in 1997 ~15M people have signed up to Shaadi. The site has 300M page views a month; 6,000 new profiles are added every day. The site is tailored to the typical criteria of traditional matchmakers, with questions about family values (traditional, moderate or liberal), profession and even complexion. "The young people on the site want to exercise choice but not without the blessing of their parents. In practice, they are still imprisoned by the idea that finding an ideal partner is about creed and career rather than chemistry, said Shaadi CEO Anupam Mittal. FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK
Mark Brooks: We just interviewed the CEO. See the interview.
Fighting Friendly Fraud
IOVATION — Aug 21 — There are many types of security threats out there that get significant press. Identity theft, credit card theft, account takeover, romance scams and money laundering. Friendly fraud isn't often talked about. Friendly fraud occurs when an individual makes a purchase and then denies the purchase with their card company after they have received the goods/services. A shared device reputation service allows online merchants to benefit from the knowledge and experience of their peers.
The full article was originally published at iovation blog, but is no longer available.
80% Of Profile Pictures Are Fake According To CheckedProfile.com
PR NEWSWIRE — Aug 20 – According to a research by a new online photo verification site, http://www.
CheckedProfile.com works with the following 5 steps:
1. Users upload a picture they want to verify
2. CheckedProfile gives them a unique code
3. Users take another picture holding the unique code
4. One of CheckedProfile.com's experts immediately checks that both images are the same person
5. If successful, they are given a unique stamp which they can upload onto any website
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: 80%??! Your comments please.
More Video?
OPW — Aug 20 — Its time for us to commit to doing more video.
So we're thinking about doing the following kinds of videos on OPW…
1. Weekly or monthly video news roundups
2. Video CEO interviews using ooVoo
3. Video interviews with multiple people i.e. Fernando and Dr Jim 🙂
4. Quick Review videos: 3-5 minute quickie reviews of new sites/services
5. Quick Demos: quick demo's of client products and other stuff we find interesting
Your comments please. – Mark Brooks
SNAP Interactive Announces Q2 ’09 Operating Results
PRESS RELEASE — Aug 19 – SNAP Interactive, a providerof online dating apps for social networks, announced operating results
for the quarter ended June 30, 2009.
Operational Highlights:
— Q2 2009 revenue: $784,242, as compared to $533,257 in Q2 2008 — a 47% YOY increase
— Sixth consecutive profitable quarter
FULL ARTICLE @ NET DEVELOPERS JOURNAL
New Dating Site For Lawyers
PRESS RELEASE — Aug 20 – The Dolce Network, a new exclusive dating social network whose members include creative, affluent and attractive professionals, launched its first Internet dating site, Lawdate.com. Lawdate lets singles (non-legal professionals and lawyers) search for single and available lawyers. Subscriptions begin at $19.99 for the first month.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.