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:
PRESS RELEASE – Nov 3 – Russian dating site, Mamba,
has released Mamba.App, which is a mobile plug-in for Apple's
devices. The app enables all basic functions of the Mamba network,
including unlimited search, instant messenger and profile updates.
The app's connectivity is enabled through Wi-Fi, 3G, GPRS or EDGE.
Mamba's membership totals over 11 million, with 80,000 active online
at one time.
OPW – Sep 25 – The European Internet Dating Conference in London is drawing to a close now. Woome, ChristianConnection.co.uk, EasyDate, White Label Dating, The Guardian newspaper, Bharat Matrimony, comScore and Google spoke among others.
Jackie Elton from Christian Connection spoke on the subject of attracting women to dating sites. Results from a survey that she ran showed that 35% of female idaters were very concerned about safety issues, whereas only 16% of males considered it very important for their online dating experience. She said that women needed more empathy and time when calling in with customer service issues. Guys often call in to complain that something is broken, and they suggest fixes, whereas women are more likely to call in to find out how to get something to work, and would need reassurance, and possibly an apology.
Jackie also suggested that there were many differences between American and European daters. Americans spend a lot more per date and tend to take dating more seriously and be a little more formal. Europeans are more casual about dating. Americans also generally believe that its ok to date several people at once, whereas Europeans are less inclined to think that dating multiple at once s ok. Americans spend 6x per capita on self-help analysis books than Europeans, according to Amazon.
Mike Shaw from comScore gave an excellent talk, with some fascinating analysis. Here are a few keypoints.
– A hundred million people visit dating sites globally each month
– The global traffic to online dating sites is up 5% in 15 months
– The North American market is flat
– Turkey, Israel, and Canada have the highest proportion of internet users visiting idating sites
– Over the last 2 years there's been an 87% growth in uniques to social networking sites in Europe and a 21% growth in uniques going to online dating sites in Europe
– The average time spent on European social networks has gone up 34% in the last 2 years, while time spent on internet dating sites has decreased 30%
– 8% of the population account for 85% of clicks in ad campaigns
– The British have the lowerst CTR at just 0.08% CTR
– Plentyoffish is the biggest display ads advertiser in the UK and USA
– Out of 56 billion online display ads shown in the UK in June 2009, 370 million were to internet dating sites
– Online dating is growing fastest in Europe
EASY JET — Feb 11 — Match.com is now the world's largest dating website, boasting 15m subscribers. In 2007, match.com had a global turnover of €240m with an operating income of €54m. Over in Germany, a rival website, be2.com, was launched in 2004 by Robert Wuttke, who has a PhD in sociology. Within three months of launching in Germany, be2.com launched in Spain and Italy; it now operates in 35 countries worldwide, spread across all six continents. Meetic.com was an instant success in France. It is now Europe's largest, and the world's second largest online dating service. Meetic makes €130m a year and has more paying customers than any other in Europe. 60,000 babies have been born as a result of couples meeting on Meetic. The online dating industry seems to be resistant to the current economic downturn, with all the companies reporting steady growth.
The full article was originally published at Easy Jet, but is no longer available.
See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on be2
See all posts on Meetic
OPW — Feb 9 — A special Valentines speed dating event which will be held at The O2 Body Worlds Exhibition, with half the proceeds going to Heart UK. The ticket price of £20 includes entry into Body Worlds & The Mirror of Time exhibition at the O2, a glass of champagne on arrival and the chance to find a soul-mate while speed dating. More info here at SpeedDater.
NEW MEDIA AGE — Jan 22 — eHarmony is to launch a major integrated marketing campaign
this month, the first since the dating site launched in the UK last
year. eHarmony, which has an estimated US marketing budget of $160m
(£114.8m), will launch a search, affiliate and display campaign coupled
with a high-profile above-the-line marketing push to generate awareness
of the company. FULL ARTICLE @ NEW MEDIA AGE
PR NEWSWIRE — Jan 16 — In 2008, Britain's 8m active singles went on 18m first dates. 68% of these resulted from initial contact via the Internet. Introductions through friends accounted for 13% of all first dates, first dates resulting from chance encounters in bars 5%, while first dates with work colleagues represented just 4%. Each first date now lasts an average of 4 hours and 18 minutes, but the build-up to each date occupies over 12 hours of each person's time.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
PRESS RELEASE — Jan 13 — According to a report released by Logitech, 58% of Europeans
who have dated online have been lied to when seeking a potential match.
Italians lead the way, with 72% of respondents experiencing dating
dishonesty. In turn, 58% of German, 56% of French and 55% of British
respondents admitted to suffering the same fate. As the world's leading manufacturer of webcams, Logitech
commissioned the study to establish how much difference a video call
with a prospective date would make. FULL ARTICLE @ RESPONSE SOURCE
PR NEWSWIRE — Jan 5 — Meetic will focus on profitability in 2009. Meetic allocated ~15m Euros exceptional ad expenditure in 2008, mainly for offline branding to increase the profile DatingDirect, Neu.de and the matchmaking service MeeticAffinity. The Group is confident that it will gain a significant share of the European matchmaking market in 2009 and generate EBITDA margin of 20% to 25%. In '08 the Group disposed of its Chinese operations (eFriendsNet, Yeeyoo). Investments in Latin America, which are currently marginal, will be maintained.
The full article was originally published at MSN Money, but is no longer available.
NOMISWEB — Nov 24 — Nearly a quarter of all households found in rural areas of the UK, including Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire are single occupancy, while marriage rates among the under 30s are falling, research reveals. And prospects are worst for men, who outnumber women in Lincolnshire alone by 13,000. Kissinggates.com is a new website designed to help country-minded people find fun, friendship and romance.
