ALLTHINGSD – Nov 18 - OkCupid has ventured from New York to San Francisco to create a freshly staffed outpost of start-up folks in order to brainstorm the site’s next act. They call it OkCupid Labs. OkCupid was bought by IAC’s Match.com for $50M in February.
Month: November 2011
New Cupid UK TV Advertising Campaign
BUSINESSWIRE – Nov 18 - Cupid plc has launched two TV advertising campaigns for its Cupid.com and BeNaughty.com brands across specific ITV regions. This is the first time Cupid has delivered its brand onto the small screen indicating the company's intention to push its brands out to a wider mainstream audience.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.
HowAboutWe Raises $15 Million Series B Round
BUSINESS INSIDER – Nov 18 - HowAboutWe has just raised a $15M Series B round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from RRE, FF Ventures and some angels. On HowAboutWe users post what they want to do on a date and then see if there are any takers. HowAboutWe launched in April 2010. They raised a $3.2M Series A round led by RRE in September 2010.
Jiayuan Announces Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results
PR NEWSWIRE – Nov 18 – Net revenues for Q3 '11 were RMB90.9M (US$14.3M), a YOY increase of 84.5%. Operating income was RMB21.5M (US$3.4M), a YOY increase of 132.4%. Jiayuan had 5,560,387 average monthly active user accounts during the quarter, compared to 4,201,952 in the corresponding period in 2010. The number of average monthly paying user accounts in the third quarter of 2011 was 1,250,439, almost double the 649,250 average monthly paying user accounts recorded in the corresponding period in 2010.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.
comScore Indian Dating Rankings
OPW – Nov 17 – We're now listing the Indian internet dating rankings on OPW, courtesy of comScore WorldMetrix. You can reference these rankings on the left bar of OPW under Rankings / International Rankings.
| India, September 2011, comScore Media Metrix Visitors Age 15+ Home/Work Location | Total Unique Visitors (000) | |
| Total Internet : Total Audience | 45,476 | |
| Community – Personals | 5,970 | |
| 1 | SHAADI.COM | 897 |
| 2 | JEEVANSATHI.COM | 629 |
| 3 | BHARATMATRIMONY.COM | 603 |
| 4 | GIRLSDATEFORFREE.COM | 502 |
| 5 | TAMILMATRIMONY.COM | 412 |
Gleeden.com Launches In The U.S.
GLOBE NEWSWIRE – Nov 16 - Gleeden.com, an extramarital site already popular in Europe, is launching in the US. The site was launched by brothers who first conceived the idea from listening to the frustrations and marital problems of the women surrounding them; friends, family and colleagues. "It is the first dating site that is completely developed by women to cater to women's needs. Other websites focus on the needs and wants for men to have physical affairs without being discovered. Gleeden.com promotes honesty and freedom within a couple", the site claims. According to Gleeden, extramarital affairs can intervene as therapy for a couple.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.
Study Reveals Racial Segregation In Online Dating
THE GRIO – Nov 16 - After analyzing 1M+ profiles on a mainstream dating site, researchers at the University of California Berkeley, concluded that whites are highly unlikely to initiate contact with black people. 80% of the communication initiated by whites was to other whites. Black members were ten times more likely to contact whites. According to a 2009 analysis, black women on OkCupid.com get the "cold shoulder" from everyone, including their black male counterparts. Ron Worthy, a spokesperson for Blackpeoplemeet.com, a subsidiary of Match.com, says that this illustrates the importance and increasing popularity of niche dating sites. AfroRomance.com is specifically geared toward interracial dating. Rob Thompson started the AfroRomance.com because it was difficult to tell who was truly interested in interracial relationships on conventional sites. He went onto meet his wife, who is from Kenya on AfroRomance.com.
by Chelsea-Lyn Rudder
The full article was originally published at The Grio, but is no longer available.
PlentyofFish.com Adds New Features To Its Advertising Program
OPW – Nov 15 – POF Ads traffic has increased from 2.5 billion page views per month in 2010 to 3.9 billion per month. You can now target people by the number of ads they have clicked on previously. This allows you to exclude a certain % of users that will never click on an ad. Frequency cap has always been minimum 3/visit. POF now has the option to serve your ads on a minimum 3/hour or 3/day frequency cap, which helps you better manage your exposure.
This post also appears on FrequentFlirters.
Service Spotlight: Interview With Neil Steinhardt, GM Of PaysafeCard
OPW INTERVIEW – Nov 15 – Facebook uses prepaid cards. Cupid.com as well. Why? Because people’s credit is shaky these days, there’s a sizable unbanked market, and some people just plain don’t want to use their credit card for a dating site. I discovered PaysafeCard at the last iDate. Here’s my interview with the GM of PaysafeCard. (PaysafeCard are a client of Courtland Brooks)
Who are your top customers?
Cupid.com and Facebook.
How do prepaid cards work?
The PaysafeCard works like a lot of pre-paid cards. We issue a card with 16 digit pin code which are sold at retail for cash and redeemed online. It works just like cash on the Internet. We don’t charge any fees, we don’t register customers.
So how does it work for Facebook for example?
If you were to buy Facebook credits you would go to the checkout screen and you would see a bunch of payment options such as Visa or Mastercard and you would also see the PaysafeCard. You would then click on the PaysafeCard and see a couple of options. If you’re new to Paysafe you can type in your zip code and it will give you a list of the closest locations where you can use the card. If you already have a PaysafeCard then you enter your 16 digit pin code.
Where do they get the cards from?
PaysafeCards are available in 28 countries – Europe, US, Mexico, Argentina. There are 350,000 points of retail such as Paypoint in the UK and 7/11 in the US. We work with top shelf distribution partners in every country we are in and we make sure our PaysafeCard vouchers are convenient and local.
What’s your commission?
Prices have come down as is always the case with market pressure. The reality is that the PaysafeCard processing is higher than credit card processing, typically between 10-15%, but we are a lot less expensive than mobile payments for example. All payments are guaranteed with no chargebacks so it’s less book keeping and accounting. Just like paying by cash on the Internet.
What are the best practices that you would recommend for the Internet dating industry? How should prepaid cards in general be applied?
You need to look at your payment mix. Lots of payment options are out there. If you’re only after credit card customers and repeat billing then you are only swimming in a small section of the pool. There a plenty people who have reservations about recurring billings or sharing personal information online. You need to have multiple payment options, not too many that you scare the customer away but an adequate amount to give the customer the ability to pay. We think having a cash option, which we are, really does attract a large segment of customer base. We have seen 10-30% increase in sales just by offering a cash option.
We have you listed in our payment processors spreadsheet that we issue. You can find that on OnlinePersonalsWatch on the left hand bar. In a nutshell how would you describe PaysafeCard as being distinguished from other prepaid card providers?
We have a couple of differentiating factors. First, we don’t charge any fees so if you want a $10 PaysafeCard then it will cost you $10 and when you redeem it you get $10 of value. Secondly, we don’t register customers. We are not an e-wallet so the customers who want to retain privacy and not share personal banking information can do so with us.
FriendFinder Networks Reports Third Quarter 2011 Results
PR NEWSWIRE – Nov 14 – Revenue for the Q3 '11 was $82.7M. Revenue was impacted by a decrease in traffic and a decline in new subscribers and renewal orders primarily in European markets. Social networking revenue was offset by an increase in live interactive video. "While we achieved certain business objectives, we are not satisfied with our overall performance in the third quarter. Europe remains a challenge where we have experienced lower user conversion rates and transaction acceptance rates", commented CEO Marc Bell.