REAL BUSINESS – Mar 3 - EasyDate, Max Polyakov’s business, boasts over 7M members across a range of websites, and it’s growing fast – 1.5M new members signed up in the second half of 2009 alone. According to Bill Dobbie, the company’s chairman, the company recorded £2.8M in profit on a £12M turnover in its last accounts, and expects turnover to ~ £20M this year. EasyDate – under its various brand names of DateTheUK.com, BeNaughty.com, Cupid.com, Canoodle.com and SpeedDater events – is now present and growing in Australia, India, Ireland, South America, and the US. “We’re also looking to move into France, Germany and Spain, and to really grow our American business significantly,” adds Polyakov. The next step is for the company to raise more capital, which will help them expand their operations.
The full article was originally published at Real Business, but is no longer available.
“now present and growing in ……. South America, ………?
Where?
Match, Meetic and Be2 had been spending millions of U.S. Dollars and until now they do not understand the South American culture.
The local culture in South America differs from other regions:
South Americans do mostly not have credit cards.
The ones who have credit cards, do mostly not use them for subscriptions.
South Americans hate Banks or do not trust in Banks, because Banks had a bad “historic records”, they had stolen the money of their clients several times.
South American users mostly pay in cash or by other electronic methods like PagoFacil, Rapipago, by Post Office wire transactions or by Western Union for International transactions.
Here in South America, it is full of free/cheap low quality online dating proposals -Search and Recommendation engines- from local newspapers (like TeBusco from Clarin and ZonaCitas from La Nacion in Argentina)
There are also many tricks to use dating sites like Match, Meetic and Be2 for free in South American countries.
South American users send more SMS and make less calls from mobile phones than USA, Canada and European citizens. The primary use of cell phones are for sending SMS (text messages).
More than 70% of people who own a cell phone, are pre-paid clients. They do not receive bills, they charge credit in their cell phones by 2 methods: Acquiring pre-paid cards at kiosks/drugstores or via virtual charge at kiosks/drugstores/supermarkets or at any place with a PosNet terminal (Banelco or Link)
South American users need broadband on PC, Macs, notebooks and netbooks because they are very fond of sharing or downloading copyrighted material, like films/movies/music/videos, etc. using sites like Kazaa or eMule to share and sites like Rapidshare, MegaUpload, or other similar sites to download for free. They make an intensive use of Internet. This intensive use includes reading newspapers, sending emails, chatting, video calls, sharing or downloading movies, music, etc.
The value they assign to that intensive use should be worth than what the fee they pay for broadband on fixed computers or mobile broadband on notebooks and netbooks.
Now are in decadence, but it used to be lots of Cybercafes where you can hire a computer with broadband for less than USD1.00 per hour.
South American users are very fond to obtain things for free, to avoid paying. They are very fond of Microsoft and Yahoo instant messaging and Skype to speak and make video calls.
They are very fond of free email accounts like Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo.
They are very fond to read newspapers for free.
If you live near any place with WiFi like hotels, bars, restaurants, drugstores, most probably you can use Internet for free to read online newspapers, check email accounts, chat or make video calls, etc, (not for secure transactions)
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
“now present and growing in ……. South America, ………?
Where?
Match, Meetic and Be2 had been spending millions of U.S. Dollars and until now they do not understand the South American culture.
The local culture in South America differs from other regions:
South Americans do mostly not have credit cards.
The ones who have credit cards, do mostly not use them for subscriptions.
South Americans hate Banks or do not trust in Banks, because Banks had a bad “historic records”, they had stolen the money of their clients several times.
South American users mostly pay in cash or by other electronic methods like PagoFacil, Rapipago, by Post Office wire transactions or by Western Union for International transactions.
Here in South America, it is full of free/cheap low quality online dating proposals -Search and Recommendation engines- from local newspapers (like TeBusco from Clarin and ZonaCitas from La Nacion in Argentina)
There are also many tricks to use dating sites like Match, Meetic and Be2 for free in South American countries.
South American users send more SMS and make less calls from mobile phones than USA, Canada and European citizens. The primary use of cell phones are for sending SMS (text messages).
More than 70% of people who own a cell phone, are pre-paid clients. They do not receive bills, they charge credit in their cell phones by 2 methods: Acquiring pre-paid cards at kiosks/drugstores or via virtual charge at kiosks/drugstores/supermarkets or at any place with a PosNet terminal (Banelco or Link)
South American users need broadband on PC, Macs, notebooks and netbooks because they are very fond of sharing or downloading copyrighted material, like films/movies/music/videos, etc. using sites like Kazaa or eMule to share and sites like Rapidshare, MegaUpload, or other similar sites to download for free. They make an intensive use of Internet. This intensive use includes reading newspapers, sending emails, chatting, video calls, sharing or downloading movies, music, etc.
The value they assign to that intensive use should be worth than what the fee they pay for broadband on fixed computers or mobile broadband on notebooks and netbooks.
Now are in decadence, but it used to be lots of Cybercafes where you can hire a computer with broadband for less than USD1.00 per hour.
South American users are very fond to obtain things for free, to avoid paying. They are very fond of Microsoft and Yahoo instant messaging and Skype to speak and make video calls.
They are very fond of free email accounts like Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo.
They are very fond to read newspapers for free.
If you live near any place with WiFi like hotels, bars, restaurants, drugstores, most probably you can use Internet for free to read online newspapers, check email accounts, chat or make video calls, etc, (not for secure transactions)
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
i think from what you have said above fernando, its typical of a company trying to capitalize on a culture who clearly have not done their research.
how would then a typical south american who does not have a credit card use a facility such as online dating then?
i think from what you have said above fernando, its typical of a company trying to capitalize on a culture who clearly have not done their research.
how would then a typical south american who does not have a credit card use a facility such as online dating then?