OPW – Sep 14 – I'm seeing a multitude of dating sites take a fancy to Daily Deals services. It makes sense. Spark Networks and FriendFinder, to name two.If you want to get your head around the Daily Deals industry, you should definitely attend the Daily Deal Summit next week, Thu 22nd and Fri 23rd September in San Francisco. I talked to the conference organizer Jay Weintraub yesterday at length. He has his head screwed on, and is an Advertising.com and Oversee.net alumni. He's pulled together a great agenda with speakers from Yipit, The Washington Post, TIPPR and Daily Candy. If you're thinking about running your own offers, you should look at Yipit, TIPPR, Second Street, Adility, Group Commerce… Or even better, go to his conference and you'll meet most of them, be able to pick their brains directly, and raise your ARPU so you can raise your ad volumes. Good luck, let me know how it goes, and email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com if you're going so I can connect you with others from the idating industry that are going. Jay was nice enough to sport OPW readers a $150 break on the conference entry.
Month: September 2011
SpeedDate Launches New Dating App for iPhone
PR NEWSWIRE – Sep 14 – SpeedDate's new iPhone app, "SpeedDate: Real Dates in Real-Time," eliminates the waiting in dating by allowing singles to date anywhere, anytime. With location-based search, SpeedDaters can find nearby singles.
Zhenai.com Becomes World’s Largest Matchmaking Website with Membership Exceeding 20 Million
PR NEWSWIRE – Sep 1 - Zhenai.com, China's largest matchmaking site, announced that the number of its registered members reached 20M. With ~40K new members each day, Zhenai exceeded the membership registered on Match.com in the US (Match.com claims 15M members). Jiayuan, a Chinese dating website that closely trails Zhenai.com in the number of registered members, announced on its official website that its total registered members bypassed 17M. iResearch Consulting predicted that the number of Chinese online daters will reach 140M by 2010. Presently these two websites account for one third of the total registered members in mainland China.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
Read OPW interviews with Dr Song Li, CEO of Zhenai: June 2007, June 2008
Soul2Match Matches Singles with Similar Faces
MASHABLE – Sep 14 - Online dating startup Soul2Match promises to match singles based solely on their headshot. The site's founders cite several studies that show what we’re all really looking for in our ideal mate is ourselves. Soul2Match is an extremely simple dating site. Instead of filling out long questionnaires, users take a photo of themselves and post it to the site or the iPhone app. The site uses facial recognition software to analyze features in the photo and the photos of other users, and spits out a “compatibility score.” There’s an option to message people who are highly compatible with you.
The Business of Breaking Up
HUFFINGTON POST – Sep 14 – According to a Facebook survey conducted by AreYouInterested.com 25% of people found out their relationship was over when they noticed a change in their significant other's relationship status. 21% of people admitted they would break up with someone by changing their status to "single" on Facebook. The Breakup Notifier helps users track their crushes' changing Facebook relationship status. People log into the app through Facebook, choose the friends for whom they want to get relationship status updates, then just wait for e-mail alerts with the joyous news of a break-up. IDUMP4U.com sells courage and honesty to those who may have trouble severing ties when romance goes south. Users send information about the people they want to break up with and the problems in the relationship to Laborman — then he makes the call and does all the dirty work.
be2 Merges with c-date
OPW – Sep 13 – Exclusive at OPW. We just heard be2 has merged with c-date.com. A most unusual unison. c-date (circa 2008) does not allow photographs, and is focused on the casual and cheaters market. The company was started by a former FriendScout Director and a multitude of FriendScout employees followed. be2 was founded in April 2005 by sociologist Dr Robert Wuttke, and quickly expanded to over 30 countries. The site is focused on longer term relationships. be2 traffic slipped back in recent times. Probably in part due to a fall in reorders from people who were a tad unhappy at having to send a fax to cancel their membership.
Important Correction and Update: Dr Wuttke corrected me…"Since the beginning of this year, I am not only founder/CEO of be2, but also CEO of C-Date. be2 and C-Date continue to be two separate companies, however now managed by one team. That be2’s traffic slipped back is also not correct. be2 grows at a rate of more than 30% year on year. Also our customers do not have to send a fax to cancel their membership, but are free to cancel with a convenient prefilled PDF document sent through Email, fax or letter."
An Interview with Director of Meetic France
01AMOUR – September 6 – Pierric Duthoit is the Director of Meetic France. He co-founded and directed the Womanjournal.ru site, a Women's Web Portal in Russia.
Q: What do you think about the acquisition of Meetic by Match ?
A: It is good news for us and for the Americans, with the pooling of expertise in a market with many players.
Q: In which international markets does Meetic operate?
A: Meetic is active in 16 countries in Europe and available in 13 different languages.
Q: Can you talk about Meetic Affinity compared to the older Meetic?
A: Members of Meetic Affinity complete a questionnaire that will help them understand themselves better and to get to know other members.
Q: What about competition with SmartDate, Badoo, Facebook, Zoosk?
A: Badoo speaks of "network meeting". Facebook is not in the category of"dating". Zoosk and Smartdate tend to expand the category, which is more beneficial for us as the leader in this market.
Q: Will Meetic search to consolidate its position in other markets?
A: We always want to consolidate and improve our positions.
Q: How do you see the market of dating and matchmaking in 10 years?
A: Dating will be even more mobile.
See full article at 01Amour (in French)
‘Selling Online Memberships Summit’ in NYC – 28 Tickets Left
OPW – Sep 13 – Anne Holland (publisher of the Dating Site Benchmark Report and Editor of Subscription Site Insider) told us today there's 28 tickets left for the ‘Selling Subscriptions Summit’ in NYC Oct 24-25th. Speakers include former Match.com exec Michael McCurdy, recurring payments guru Paul Larsen, and membership site legal advisor Lisa Dubrow. Topics include launching mobile editions, getting better results from email campaigns, increasing member retention rates, and how to tweak your site’s marketing pages to sell more memberships. This is the first in a new strand of conferences she's running. It will sell-out, so reserve your seat.
FriendFinder Networks Acquires JigoCity for $65 million
PR NEWSWIRE – Sep 12 - FriendFinder Networks announced the acquisition of BDM Global Ventures, the company which owns the operations of JigoCity, for a combination of stock and warrants. The merger consideration will be ~$65M. JigoCity is a global social commerce organization committed to providing members with high quality daily deals that are relevant to their individual lifestyles.
WhatsYourPrice.com Quantifies the Cost of Dating Younger Women
PR WEB – Sep 12 - WhatsYourPrice.com, the dating site where singles can buy and sell first dates, announced the results of a five month long study to determine the ideal dating age gap between men and women, and to quantify the cost of dating younger women online. Women are most attracted to men who are six years older than they are. Older men with money can close the dating age gap disadvantage with money. Men who want to date women over 10 years younger than themselves have to pay approximately 13% more than the average to close every year of age gap. A man who is 40 years older will have to pay approximately 400% (or 4 times) more than a man who is only 10 years older to attract the interest of the same woman.