OPW – Sep 28 - Canadian TV show ‘Full Circle‘ invited Sam Moorcroft, co-founder of ChristianCafe.com, to talk about online dating for Christian singles. "In 2000 it was a very different world back then; people would be confused when I said I was working in online dating", he said. "People have been using online dating sites for 10 years now and have realized that it’s just normal people looking for love not a bunch of weirdo’s." ChristianCafe.com claims ~2M members. The site gives everyone a free trial up to 10 days. After the trial, they can buy a membership from just 30c a day.
Month: September 2011
AnastasiaDate Introduces Video Chat
MARKETWATCH – Sep 28 - AnastasiaDate.com has launched "CamShare", a video dating service. CamShare lets two users interact with each other in real-time within a premium, high-definition video environment.
The full article was originally published at Marketwatch, but is no longer available.
Online Dating Scams Dupe 200,000 Study Finds
GUARDIAN.CO.UK – Sep 28 - More than 200K people in Britain may have been conned by fraudsters posing as would-be romantic partners on dating sites, according a study by the universities of Leicester and Westminster, working with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). They found 2% of people surveyed personally knew someone who had experienced the crime. Victims tend to be middle-aged women. The faked romances can last for a long time – the longest the researchers heard of was five years.
Soca has compiled a list of tell-tale signs for people to look out for
– A distant location and/or a job in the military
– A fondness for Windows Messenger or similar applications
– A suspiciously attractive and/or rugged-looking photo
– A quick adoption of a pet name:
– A predisposition towards financial or other misfortunes
Lavalife.com Asks Singles “What’s Your Number?”
PR NEWSWIRE – Sep 27 - In the upcoming movie, "What's Your Number?" Ally, played by Anna Faris, is told by a group of girlfriends that women who have had more than 20 sexual partners will not find a husband. The movie begs the question, "What is an acceptable number of partners?" 79% of single men and 94% of single women agree there is still a gender bias of "stud" versus "tramp." When asked if they were comfortable dating someone who has had more sexual partners than themselves, 7% of men and 77% of women answered "yes."
The full article was originally published at Market Watch, but is no longer available.
Study: Assessing attractiveness in online dating profiles
INTERNET DATING SCIENCE – Sep 22 – Internet Dating Science, a new service by Courtland Brooks, summarizes the best academic papers so you can improve your idating site, and help users make better connections.
The primary finding of this study is that photos are the single greatest way to determine attractiveness. When it comes to the whole profile there are two significant findings: high masculinity is attractive in men, and extraversion is attractive in women.
Dr Blair-West: Based on this research, you should:
- Make sure your customers understand the importance of an accurate, quality photo.
- Help your customers to understand that certain characteristics, if they have them, should be highlighted in the profile.
- Explain to customers that the questionnaire is important, not so much for working out what they want in a partner, but what they don’t want. It is where they can identify the ‘deal breaker’ issues.
A Quarter of Canadians Venturing into Online Dating
CANOE.CA – Sep 25 - According to a Leger Marketing survey conducted on behalf of QMI Agency, one quarter of Canadians participate in online dating, including 36% of Canadians between 18 and 34. Kate Bilenki, director of love at PlentyOfFish, the free dating site with ~33M registered users worldwide, said the site’s membership has increased 40% over the last two years. Bilenki said POF is responsible for ~1M relationships per year, and 300K of those result in marriage.
by Sheena Goodyear
The full article was originally published at Canoe.ca, but is no longer available.
TheJMom: the Virtual Umbilical Cord
THE BRANDEISHOOT – Sep 23 – In Nov '10, siblings Brad and Danielle Weisberg launched a dating site aimed at Jewish mothers: TheJMom.com. This site allows Jewish mothers to create dating profiles for their children, search through dating profiles created by other Jewish mothers. The Weisbergs got the idea for TheJMom after their mother, Barbara, became frustrated with their single statuses.
by Yael Katzwer
See full article at The Brandeishoot
Mark Brooks: I just came across another Jewish dating site today, that is run by the folks who run Date.com and Matchmaker.com. Jewcier.com. They're driving about 40,000 users a month to it right now.
Interview: Bill Dobbie, CEO of Cupid.com
THE SCOTSMAN – Sep 23 – Bill Dobbie is CEO of Cupid.com, a dating site with ~12M users and 460K paying subscribers, up from 324K in Dec '10. Dobbie has never used a dating site himself. "These things just didn't exist," he laughs – thinking back to the time when he met his wife, Leonie. The company changed its name from easyDate last year, following a tense legal wrangle with easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou. Cupid's network of sites caters for all tastes – from datingforparents.com to maturedating.com and girlsdatefree.com. benaughty.com caters mainly for a more…transient…customer.
by Jane Bradley
The full article was originally published at Scotsman, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Cupid shares are doing well. Jiayuan, FriendFinder and Spark Networks shares, are not. We hope this changes. It affects the valuations of your idating companies.
CEO Interview: Ross Williams, Founder and CEO of WhiteLabelDating
OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 22 – WhiteLabelDating is celebrating it’s 8th year anniversary. Here’s our interview with the CEO/co-founder Ross Williams. (FD: WLD is a client of Courtland Brooks) – Mark Brooks
The Futures Company came out with a white paper titled; ‘Is happiness your business?” There are 21,000 books on Amazon on “happiness”. Does this relate to your business?
We have members of the sites that we want to make happy. We’ve also got partners that run the sites. A lot of them have given up their full time job to run their dating site which means they can work where and when they want. In online dating we hope we sell the dream of happiness, we sell the promise. If I asked a single man what would you pay to meet the woman of his dreams he would say ‘anything’. We aim for happiness for consumers, partners and our staff.
I understand recently you had a run rate of about £30 million in revenue a year? What proportion of that is from your partners/white labels?
Around 85-90%. It’s where we focus most of our time.
How many partners do you have at this stage?
It grows each day. There’s 1,000’s in the system. A couple of hundred partners generate decent revenue for us. It’s a long term business. We have partners who are generating tens of thousands of pounds in revenue a month, who weren’t doing anything last year.
You’ve grown considerably. Is it true that the bigger you get the more difficult it is to introduce innovations?
It is. You don’t want to innovate at the expense of existing business. We have over 6,000 sites on our book now and we have to test/check they all work well. We are about to see some exciting developments at our partner conference in October. We spend £1.5 million a year on development. Two thirds of this goes on new features.
You’re 8 years old now, right?
We turned 8 last week. In the first 4 years we grew from £0 – £3 million a year, and from 2007 to 2011 we grew to £30 million a year. Exponential growth.
Would you have guessed you would be at this stage 8 years ago, was that your goal?
Yes, we were very confident. We didn’t really come out {with our numbers} until about 4 years ago but that was our intention. You don’t want to shout too loud until you are in a position to manage the growth you’ve got. We’ve gone from UK-only to International.
In what year will you generate £100 million?
I would think by 2013 or 2014 but there are lots of things that could happen before then. There are great opportunities in mobile, social and international.
Match.com is at about £280 million revenue.
We matched Match.com in the UK about 9 months ago. We are a lot larger than them in the UK.
What would be your top 3 pieces of advice that you would give to someone new to the industry, to be successful with WhiteLabelDating?
Marketing, marketing, marketing. You just can’t start a dating site without brand marketing.