MSN MONEY – Oct 31 – Ashley
Madison's business isn't exactly popular among the main stream, but
that isn't stopping the company from pulling in tens of millions of
dollars a year in revenue. Noel Biderman, CEO of Ashley Madison, has
grown the site to over 4.6 million users worldwide, despite often
negative media coverage from the likes of CNN, The View, Dr. Phil and
The Tyra Banks Show. Statistics show that more than 50% of
men and women admit to cheating within a relationship at least once.
Business could be bigger, but most advertising channels have been
shut off for Ashley Madison. Noel claims, “If I could trade the
ability to market freely — the way eharmony or match.com
does — we would have $100 million [in annual revenues] with 20
million members.” FULL ARTICLE @ MSN MONEY
Month: October 2009
Internet Dating Industry Weekly News Oct 29th, 2009 – 6 mins
This is the news for the week of October 23rd through October 29th, 2009. We hope you enjoy the new weekly news format. Here is the news we covered for this week:
- Match.com 3Q Quarter Earnings
- EasyDate makes Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 list in the U.K.
- FriendFinder may look to sell some of its sites
- Latest European online dating rankings from comScore and Nielsen
iDate Miami: Last Chance To Save $525
OPW – Oct 30 - There are two days left to pick up your Internet Dating Conference ticket and save $525. Register here. The
online price is $750 through Saturday, Oct 31st, then it's $1275 at the
door. Attendance is looking strong. ~1000 people are expected. The
Internet dating conference will be held at the Miami Beach Convention
Center on January 27 – 29, 2010. See the agenda.
New Dating Site Offers Membership Only To Uggos
ESARCASM – Oct 26 - If your goblin-like appearance frequently frightens
small children, AbsoluteUggos may be the dating site for you. Its
creators say all the recent coverage surrounding BeautifulPeople.com
inspired them to take action. The site will require all visitors to
upload head shots in addition to a full-body nude photos. Its automated
system will then scan the images as part of a preliminary screening
procedure. Once passing the computerized inspection, prospective
members’ photos will be posted for a BeautifulPeople.com-like member
vote. Only those scoring a 1 or 2 (out of a 10-point attractiveness
scale) will be accepted. FULL ARTICLE @ ESARCASM
WhiteLabelDating Founder Says: “Recession Doubled My Business”
REAL BUSINESS – Oct 29 – While many sectors have been cripped by the credit crisis, there is one industry that's booming off the back of the financial gloom: online dating. Ross Williams founded WhiteLabelDating in 2004 and business, he says, has never been better. Turnover this year doubled to L25m. And Williams' is expecting a further 100% growth this year.
The full article was originally published at Real Business, but is no longer available.
New Web Site For People Living Through A Divorce
WASHINGTON POST – Oct 29 - LousySpouse.com was founded this summer. The site was started to give support, resources and options to people who have just been knocked upside the head by their husband or wife. LousySpouse.com provides information on lawyers, private investigators, finances — even movie suggestions to help people laugh off their louse. The Web site also offers some horror stories. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST
Dating Sites Offering No-strings Sex
TIMES ONLINE – Oct 29 - Forget Dinner is one of three dating sites — the others are called Marital Affair and Simply Adult — that describe themselves as for broad-minded adults wanting “fun” to meet. Almost all members are married and say that they are not getting enough excitement at home and feel that time is running out. “If you go through your forties without having an affair or even getting close, that’s extraordinary,” says Susanna Abse, a clinical psychotherapist. 115,200 divorces were granted in the UK in 2008. Adulterous behaviour accounted for 29% of all cases. 24% of married men, asked if they would cheat on their partner if there were no possibility of being found out, said yes and only 9% of married women said that they would consider an affair. FULL ARTICLE @ TIMES ONLINE
Is Monogamy Realistic?
CNN – Oct 28 - In the age of hookups, friends with benefits and online dating, and as human life expectancy grows, is it reasonable to expect people to stay monogamous until death do them part? Lipton and Barash, who have been married 32 years and are the co-authors of "Strange Bedfellows" and "The Myth of Monogamy," said serial monogamy may be more realistic, a model in which people move from one committed long-term relationship to another and choose partners for different reasons at different stages of their life. More recently, polyamory, the practice of having romantic relationships with multiple people at the same time with the full knowledge and consent of all involved, has been getting a lot of attention. Researchers studying polyamory estimate there are more than half a million polyamorous families in the U.S. FULL ARTICLE @ CNN
Zhenai: Chinese Match.com
TECH CRUNCH – Oct 28 - China has a long history of matchmaking so just going online, finding someone you like and messaging them isn’t going to appeal to a lot of the population. The ones who are comfortable with doing that will just use social networks. For those who aren’t, there are already an established off-line alternative in some 200,000 very local, fragmented companies that specialize in matchmaking, charging between 2,000 and 60,000 RMB per six months.Chinese Web entrepreneur Song Li operates Digu.com, a Twitter-clone, and Zhenai.com an online dating site. Zhenai is free to join and free to search, with revenues provided by a 350-person strong call center of real-life matchmakers. Using the service costs 3,000 RMB ($430) for a six-month subscription. The site has 22M registered members (growing by 40,000 per day). Zhenai.com is profitable, generating ~$2M in revenues per month, growing at double-digit rates month-over-month. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
The Internet Is Changing The Way We’re Mating
SELF MAGAZINE – November '09 - Searching for a sex buddy online is more than
twice as popular among middle-aged women as with those 25 and younger.
According to SELF's survey, women in their 30s and older are more
likely to log on to a dating site such as Match.com than are women in
their early 20s. And women older than 50 are most likely of all the age
groups to jump into online dating. Thanks to the Internet, it's now
possible to be unfaithful without leaving your desk or even talking on
the phone. More than 30% of women ages 26 to 50 have flirted with a
stranger online while in a relationship. FULL ARTICLE @ SELF MAGAZINE