CHRON – Sep 19 – Grouper, a dating site that sets up dates between two groups of friends, is launching in Houston. Grouper was started in 2011 in New York by Michael Waxman.
by Daniela Di Napoli
See full article at Chron
Month: September 2013
Thai Dating App Noonswoon Raised $400K
TECH IN ASIA – Sep 24 – Noonswoon, the winner of a recent AIS startup contest, raised $400K from various investors. Noonswoon is not the only dating app available in Southeast Asia. There’s Paktor in Thailand, Avalable in Thailand, and SingleAroundMe in Singapore.
by Saiyai Sakawee
See full article at Tech in Asia
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
iDate Cologne Photos
120 iDating executives and product managers, marketeers and managers
were in attendance. 78% of attendees were workers from iDating
companies. It was the 35th iDate. ITV also attended and interviewed a
number of people for a one hour special on internet dating for British
TV. (We'll run it on OPW as soon as we see it go-live).
What Is Online Personals Watch?
Online Personals Watch summarizes the news every day. We look for the ‘intell’ in the news, suitable for those leading Internet dating companies. Executives, marketers and product designers are the audience we’re working for. We’ve been summarizing the news, interviewing CEOs and looking for key insights to share with you since 2004.
Please check out the research link on the right bar. We have a unique resource for you there. News by company, is especially useful if you’re trying to research a particular company.
The Top 20 Things I Learned At iDate Cologne
OPW – Sep 20 – iDate Cologne had 120 attendees and was informative and fun. Here are the top 20 things that I learned at the conference…or go here to see The Top 67 Things That I Learned at iDate Cologne.
Germany
- There are 8.4m online daters in D-A-CH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland)
- The German iDating market accounts for 20% of European Internet daters and 25% of European revenues
- 10 million German Internet daters generated 246m Euros revenue in 2012. Only the UK has similar numbers.
- 5 million German mobile daters generated 5-10m Euros in app revenues
Scandinavia
- The Scandinavian Internet dating market generates 60-80m Euros a year.
- Online dating adoption in Sweden is the highest in Europe at 50% of singles.
- There’s a high willingness to pay
- Motesplatsen is owned by a media company that is publicly traded and has 30 employees. 10m Euros revenues, and is subscription only.
Netherlands
- There’s 2.8m singles in Netherlands and 1.5m people use idating regularly.
- The Netherlands idating market is 30-35m Euros a year.
- There’s no big free dating site. No POF.
- Paiq.nl doesn’t pay for marketing. They have an interesting feature where users see blurred photos and have to text chat to unblur the photos. There’s no profiles, just a questionnaire, and no search function. ‘BattleDate’ is a fun game.
Poland
- There’s 38 million people in Poland, 25m internet users, and 10m Facebook users. 7m singles.
- Polish iDating annual revenues are ~15m Euros a year
Gamification in the Dating Industry
- The trick with gamification is to make what is boring and difficult into something fun and interesting.
European Casual Dating
- The proportion of people who have ever had sex with a stranger is rising rapidly in Germany and Switzerland.
- The more educated women are, the more sex they like to have.
Meetic
- Meetic is in 15 countries and has 4.7m uniques a month, Twoo has 5.1m monthly uniques.
- Meetic makes only 3.3% of its revenues from its mobile apps.
- Building a brand is your main priority! In the past Alistair Shrimpton ran Match and Dating Direct online advertising with exactly the same creative, in the same media, and the Match ads had 4 times the click-thru-rate of the Dating Direct ads.
Click here to see my full list, The Top 67 Things That I Learned at iDate Cologne, on the Courtland Brooks blog. – Mark Brooks
Jiayuan.com: Strong Balance Sheet But Needing To Reduce User Churn
SEEKING ALPHA – Sep 19 – Shares of Jiayuan.com are up 22% in 2013, but still down 39% from the IPO price in May 2011. Jiayuan is the largest (90M registered users) dating sites in China, and is in excellent financial shape with no long-term debt and $83M in cash and investments. #2 dating site is Zhenai.com with 58M users and Baihe.com is #3 with 40M users. 120 boys are born for every 100 girls in China. Single men often are poorer villagers who have moved to cities for work. Males greatly outnumber females in the villages. On the other hand, it is easy for rural females to find husbands due to the gender imbalance. The online dating market in China was expected to reach $328M by 2014, doubling its 2011 value. Jiayuan's primary source of revenue is subscription. Events and VIP services account for 11% of the revenue.
See full article at Seeking Alpha
See all posts on Jiayuan.com
See all posts on Zhenai
See all posts on Baihe
FriendFinder’s Letter To Affiliates Announcing Bankruptcy
OPW – Sep 19 – A letter was sent to FFN affiliates. See the full letter on InternetDatingAffiliates.com, but here's the highlights…
- A substantial amount of the sale in 2007 was in the form of debt.
- They will cut the debt in half and return the majority of the company to the founders. (Andrew Conru and 'Legendary Lars')
- Less debt means more funds for affiliate payouts.
- Right now, affiliate checks have the highest priority.
Quickie Interview: John And Marianna – 50 Plus Singles Dating In Europe
OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 19 – John Meuffels is CEO of MatchMedia.eu, and Marianna Exter is CEO of 50plus-treff.de.
I bumped into them at iDate Cologne just after they met each other. They had just discovered that they were competitors in the 50 plus
dating niche.
Quickie Interview: Phil Gripton, CEO Of Cupid.com
OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 19 – iDate Cologne was Phil’s first Internet Dating Conference.