OPW – Mar 29 – The yin to Manhunt's yang is myPartner.com. Manhunt does casual gay dating, and myPartner.com does serious, long term focused gay dating and matchmaking. The spokesperson for the site is Patrick Perrine, and he has confirmed that myPartner.com is officially on the auction block. Interested parties should contact Patrick directly at patrick@mypartner.com.
Category: All Gay
This week: news on Plentyoffish, eHarmony, Match, iovation, SetForMarriage, Sex.com, and Spark Networks
Gay Men Meet Up Through Grindr App For iPhone
SF GATE – Mar 19 – Gays are "grinding," the latest verb in the gay lexicon, which refers to the new gay dating app for the iPhone called Grindr. It uses GPS technology to download hundreds of pictures of available men within walking distance. As of this month, Grindr has 500,000 users worldwide and 2,000 more join daily. The free version of the app is supported by ads, and the $2.99 monthly ad-free version allows users to view twice the number of men – 200 – at once. FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE
ManCrunch.com Denies Accusations Super Bowl Ad Was Just PR Stunt
FOX NEWS – Feb 4 - Last week gay dating site ManCrunch.com cried foul when CBS rejected their ad submission for this year’s Super Bowl, claiming that the creative did not meet “broadcasting standards” and that the sales department had difficulties in verifying the previously unknown site’s “credit status.” This sparked speculation that the whole commercial, which the site said cost $100,000 to make, was a PR stunt, and that ManCrunch never had the $2.5M to pay for the spot. The site is actually owned by Avid Life Media, which reportedly makes ~$30M a year in revenue.
The full article was originally published at Fox News, but is no longer available.
Dating Site For Gay Men Enters Super Bowl Ad Fray
MASHABLE – Jan 29 – ManCrunch, a dating site for gay men, submitted their ad on January 18, and when they checked in again on January 22, they were told that the ad had not yet been approved and that all the spots were sold out. According to Fox News, a CBS representative told Pop Tarts that spots were still open. Officials from the dating site say that they think the process is taking so long because CBS does not want to air the ad, yet the network doesn’t want to reject it outright for fear of backlash from gay and lesbian advocacy groups. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE
eHarmony Settles Lawsuit Over Gay Matchmaking
SF CHRONICLE – Jan 27 - As a result of a 2008 settlement with the state of New Jersey, which sued the company for discrimination, men and women seeking same-sex matches were redirected from eHarmony to an affiliate Web site, Compatiblepartners.net. A separate class-action civil rights lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles in 2007, saying that eHarmony violated California law barring businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation. The firm would establish a $2M settlement fund, with about $500,000 set aside for gay, lesbian and bisexual Californians who can show they were harmed by eHarmony's policies. The company did not admit wrongdoing. FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE
See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on Compatible Partners
myPartner.com Now Offers Professional Lesbian Matchmaking Services
MYPARTNER – Jan 5 - myPartner.com has launched their lesbian matchmaking division. Founder, Patrick H. Perrine, was hesitant to add lesbians to their matchmaking services acknowledging the dramatic differences between their gay male counterparts. Now, after six years as a boutique matchmaking service exclusively for gay men, myPartner.com has the tools and sophisticated matching methodology to provide services to single lesbians looking for long term relationships.
Mobile Dating On The Rise
LONDON EVENING STANDARD – Dec 14 - 15M people in Britain are single, and ~5M are shopping for love online. The next dating revolution is happening in your pocket and it's all about location. Soon, Apple's iPhone and other touchscreen mobile devices will replace PCs as the main way we engage with social media. In 2007 the global mobile dating market was pegged at £200M, that figure rose to £332M worldwide in 2008 and is expected to more than double over the next five years, reaching ~£784M by 2013. Grindr, which launched in March this year, is presently most popular in San Francisco, with its dense concentration of gay men and iPhone customers, but gained more than 30,000 British users. GPS-enabled dating apps aimed exclusively at the straight market have just arrived, StreetSpark, Skout and Are You Interested being some of the latest.
The full article was originally published at London Evening Standard, but is no longer available.
See all posts on Grindr
See all posts on Skout
See all posts on AreYouInterested
Jonathan Crutchley And Adam Segel, Founder Of Manhunt And CEO Of Online Buddies
OPW INTERVIEW – Dec 14 – Online Buddies runs Manhunt.net, one of the most prominent gay dating sites. Manhunt recently acquired DList.com, a social networking site for the gay community. We have interviewed the founder of Manhunt, Jonathan Crutchley, and Online Buddies CEO Adam Segel about the merge and their marketing plans for DList.
For those not familiar with DList, can you describe the site?
Jonathan: DList is a social networking site for younger gay men. Users post videos and music clips and hang out chatting with friends, who could be anywhere, unlike with Manhunt, which was intended for guys to meet each other locally. DList was founded in 2006, and Online Buddies recently acquired it.
How did the idea to acquire DList come about?
Adam: We had been friends with the owners of DList for quite some time, and we were watching the development of the social networking space. Manhunt is more a dating and connections website, while DList is a place for people to meet friends, explore art, music, etc. It was a different offering, and we wanted to make that available to men.
Our ultimate goal is to be the largest and best place for men to meet men on the Internet. If they want to meet each other through a site like Manhunt, then that’s terrific. If they want to meet each other by sharing art, photos and things like that on DList, then that’s fantastic as well. We want to give all the mediums possible for men to be able to interact and meet each other.
How many members does Manhunt and DList have right now, respectively?
Jonathan: Manhunt has at least 2 million member subscriptions. Just under half of those are in the United States, and the rest are international. DList has about 180,000 subscribers at the start, and the idea is to grow it beyond that.
Adam: We have already started marketing DList just this week, and we’ve already quintupled the number of people joining each day.
Jonathan: We’re doing more marketing under the new ownership than the previous owners of DList were able to do.
How are you marketing DList?
Jonathan: It was a couple of years ago, but we advertised Manhunt on MySpace one weekend. On the Friday night the ad appeared, the responses crashed our website. The place to advertise an Internet product is on the Internet.
Adam: We started off by marketing DList through the Manhunt website and to the younger Manhunt members. We’re also marketing DList through events and promotions and through Facebook, MySpace and Google. We also advertise on some adult interest websites. The adult ’tube sites seem to do well for us.
Tell me more about these DList promotional events.
Adam: We work with the gay and lesbian organizations at a lot of different colleges. We’re coming up with some different contests and promotions, like traveling DList parties. We just did our first party at Harvard. It was a joint with MIT, and we had tons of guys come. We want to continue to host these parties at other campuses across the country.
What is the advertising budget for DList?
Adam: Marketing for DList is part of the overall marketing budget for Online Buddies, which is between $3 and $4 million per year.
Who would you consider DList’s competition to be?
Adam: One of them is called Connexion. Another one is called JustGuys.net. But they’re much smaller. Plus, they don’t seem to have the traction that DList has, especially now with the power of Online Buddies behind it and the marketing might we’re able to give it.
How does DList currently make money?
Adam: There are a few people who pay for some premium features. But the vast majority of the site is free, and the revenue is generated through advertising.
Do you plan to make any changes to the revenue model?
Adam: We aim to keep the website free so that more and more guys will use it, and thus we will be able to fund the website with advertising dollars.
We have a steady stream of advertisers now. We actually have advertisers waiting for us to make even more inventory available.
Any changes to current DList content offerings?
Jonathan: I don’t know if we plan any immediate changes in content. I think the first problem will be marketing and increasing the number of subscribers.
Who are some of your advertisers?
Adam: Most of them are through ad networks. In the past, we have worked with American Express, BMW, some of the clothing companies, some movies, etc. Lady GaGa is someone who advertises on our site.
Does Online Buddies offer any packaged advertising deal across all its sites?
Adam: Not yet, but it’s something we’re planning.
Internet Dating Industry Weekly News Nov 5th, 2009 – 4.5 mins
This is the news for the week of October 30th through November 5th, 2009. We hope you enjoy the new weekly news format. Here is the news we covered for this week:
- White label dating businesses thriving in tough economy
- Mobile dating market expected to double to $1.3 billion by 2013
- Study shows online dating most popular with women over age 50
- Nominations being accepted for first annual iDate Awards