HUFFINGTON POST – Nov 8 - A Swiss company called GenePartner has developed a biological matching system using your human leukocyte antigen, or HLA, genes to find your perfect match. The company works with several dating sites around the world–Sense2love and Eventful Dating to name two–and tests interested people by mail. You get a couple of Q-tips, scrape the inside of your cheek and that of the other party or parties you'd like to have checked, and return it to the company. Later, you receive access to a closed account on the company's website, where you can read at your leisure about how well you supposedly fit together, genetically. The company's total manpower proves to be two women: the director, Joelle Apter, and the head of research, Tamara Brown.
Month: November 2011
3rd Annual iDate Awards Voting Open
WEBWIRE – Nov 7 – The finalists have been selected for the 3rd annual iDate Awards. Voting for the winner is now open to the public at www.iDateAwards.com and ends on January 4, 2012. Both industry professionals and the general public are encouraged to vote for the best candidates in each of the award categories. Finalists were selected based on the number of nominations they received.
Question Of The Week
OPW – Nov 7 – We're starting a question of the week feature on Online Personals Watch. Just let us know your questions on the business of internet dating by emailing mark@courtlandbrooks.com and we'll select and run one a week and Irena and I and the Courtland Brooks team will do our best answer.
SNAP: Mobile Dating Is A Rising Trend
SNAP BLOG – Nov 4 - No longer are singles relegated to their laptops — as demonstrated by the AreYouInterested.com mobile dating infographic
– 4 out of 5 people surveyed prefer mobile dating to online dating sites.
– ~ 600 online dating profiles are viewed each minute on AreYouInterested.com.
– 61% of AreYouInterested.com users surveyed believed they are more likely to “hook up” on a mobile dating app than an online dating site.
See all posts on SNAP Interactive
See all posts on AreYouInterested
Badoo Has 130 Million Users
MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE – Nov 4 – Badoo claims to be the 4th largest social network in the world. Russian owned and London-based, Badoo is available in 35 languages in 180 countries on the web, and also as an iPhone, Android, Facebook and Blackberry app. Badoo has 130M members, up 62% compared to the last year.
by Tim Green
The full article was originally published at Mobile Entertainment Magazine, but is no longer available.
Match.com Reports Q3 Results
PR NEWSWIRE – Nov 4 - Core revenue increased 15% to $102.5M driven by increases in subscribers. Developing revenue increased 8% to $18.7M primarily due to revenue from OkCupid. Core and Developing revenue collectively increased by 14% to $121.2M. Meetic had revenue of $11.1M which was negatively impacted by the write-off of $9.6M of deferred revenue in connection with its acquisition.
Match Core consists of Match.com in the US, Chemistry.com and People Media. Match Developing consists of OkCupid, Singlesnet, mobile-only products and non-Meetic international operations.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.
See all posts on Match.com See all posts on Singlesnet
See all posts on Chemistry.com See all posts on OkCupid
See all posts on People Media See all posts on Meetic
Zoosk Launches App For iPad
MARKETWIRE – Nov 3 - Zoosk, the social dating network, has released its new Zoosk app for iPad. The Zoosk app for iPad, which debuted last week in the iTunes App Store to coincide with Zoosk's fourth birthday, has already ranked among the top 20 apps in the U.S. Social Networking category on the iTunes App Store, above all other dating apps.
The full article was originally published at Marketwire, but is no longer available.
Company Profile – Speeddate
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| Speeddate.com was launched in 2007 and is fast becoming one of the biggest online dating sites. It claims to have over 13 million members in 235 countries. The founders of Speeddate.com grew tired of the more traditional method of online dating. They believed that the process of creating a profile, searching for people, emailing potential matches and eventually meeting up took too long. They wanted to revolutionize the way people met online and to speed up the process of getting to know if you click with someone. Members of Speeddate.com engage in unlimited 5 minute live speedates with other singles in their area. They can choose to do this on their home PC or through the Speeddate dating App. Speeddate.com is a privately owned company with Menlo Venture providing capital. | |||
| Website: | http://www.speeddate.com | ||
| Owned by: | IAC (since February 2013) | ||
| CEO: | Simon Tisminezky | ||
| Business address: | PO BOX 5545 Redwood City CA 94063 United States |
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| Phone: | 1-877-328-3006 | ||
| Email / Contact form: | support@speeddate.com | ||
| Number of employees: | 41 (LinkedIn) | ||
| Blog: | http://www.blog.speeddate.com/ | ||
| Wikipedia page: | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpeedDate.com | ||
| Twitter: | http://twitter.com/speeddate | ||
| Facebook: | http://www.facebook.com/speeddate | ||
| LinkedIn: | http://www.linkedin.com/company/speeddate | ||
| Date Started: | October 2007 | ||
| Founders: | Dan Abelon and Simon Tisminezky | ||
| Investments: | Series A, January 2007, $2.6M (Menlo Ventures, Ariel Poler) Series B, August 2008, $6M (Menlo Ventures) |
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| Countries served: | worldwide | ||
| Business model: | Freemium – free to join $39.95 1 month $29.95 3months $26.95 6months $15.95 12months |
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| Category: | general | ||
| Affiliate program: | http://affiliates.speeddate.com/ | ||
| Traffic: | 67,243 (Compete, June 2015) | ||
| See all news on Speeddate on OnlinePersonalsWatch | |||
| Courtland Brooks clients can access the top 25 company profiles. | |||
CEO Interview: Levent Gultan, CEO Of Turkey’s Top Dating Site Network, Istanbul.net
OPW INTERVIEW – Nov 4 – We’re extending our coverage on Online Personals Watch to more markets. I met Levent at iDate a few years ago. He now runs Turkey’s top dating sites. Here’s his story. – Mark Brooks
What’s your founding story?
We got into the dating scene quite late. We entered the market in 2006 and the concept was a local dating site based around city neighborhoods. It caught on quickly and within the first 3 or 4 months we had the 3 main cities in Turkey. Over the years we have expanded our network into different cities adding a new one this month.
We were lucky as there were not many Internet start-ups going after city names so we got high profile cities such as Instanbul.net easily. The city name helps with SEO rankings and marketing the site.
There’s about 35 million Internet users in Turkey at this time and about 1/3 are under 15. Have you found similar?
42% of the 35 million are under 35. Our subscribers are on average 33 years old so not that young at the moment.
What do you charge? What is the propensity for people to pay for internet dating in Turkey?
We’ve had over 5 million subscriptions to date. We don’t charge the female subscribers which helps us keep the male/female ratio balanced. On the male side we are converting about 15%.
How would you describe your dating positioning, in terms of being serious like Match.com or a little bit more casual?
There’s actually no real translation for the word ‘dating’ in Turkey. At the end of the day we are all called ‘friendship’ sites which has a lighter feel to it. You can mix being a member looking for dates with finding friends. So probably more casual.
Are you making use of Facebook?
We are but not as much as we would like to. Our users don’t want to really disclose their identity. Turkey has the highest Facebook usership in the world with over 90% of people using it. The challenge is to find ways to make Facebook users feel comfortable to load profiles to dating sites but still in an anonymous way. We are also trying to advertise with Facebook.
Overall would you say that the rise of social networking and Facebook is good or bad for your Turkish dating sites?
I think through Facebook everybody has a reason to be online. But the flip side is that people tend to be resistant to other things online.
Are there any other particular difficulties with operating in Turkey or challenges doing business as an Internet dating service?
We have similar challenges to all online dating sites. There has been a lot of abuse with mobile dating apps. We had to make sure we provide a very secure service with a money back guarantee to build user confidence in the market.
How do people usually pay? What are the modes that are most popular?
Credit card is the most popular. There are over 40 million credit cards in Turkey right now due to low interest rates with our banks. We also have a small portion of wire transfers. Paypal is on the rise.
We interviewed the CEO of Pemberpanjur recently and their main competitor is e-cift in Turkey. Do you think these more serious models have legs in Turkey?
People are still learning about online dating through the casual sites. As time goes on they will be looking for more serious sites. The good thing is that there is traction in the market but serious sites are not as popular are casual sites.
What aspects of your service will you be focusing on for the next year?
We want to introduce new features that you wouldn’t see in general dating sites. In terms of strategy there is still a lot of room for growth and we are looking into some more serious dating sites as well as wanting to explore new geographies.