CHRISTIAN CAFE — June 1 – ChristianCafe.com and Single Christian Network have combined. Members of both Christian-owned dating services will now be part of one combined community at ChristianCafe.com. FULL ARTICLE @ CHRISTIAN CAFE
Spark Networks acquires Engage.com. Sugar Daddy sites criticized. New Facebook apps from GenePartner and DateRaters.com. eHarmony lawsuit and Compatible Partners criticism. Matchmakers doing ok according to CNN. Virtual singles marry online, and Courtland Brooks blog launches.
This weeks news from Venice, Italy.
Online Personals Watch News Summary #1, 4 3 09 from Mark Brooks.
This weeks news covers Skout, eHarmony, IC3, and Mobestar along with my favorite April 1st joke, Steve Wozniak in the new Footloose movie.
IVEY INTOUCH MAGAZINE — Apr 3 — “Tele-personals,” known today as Lavalife, is one of the world’s oldest online dating services. The founding partners started out dabbling in the business of celebrity voice tapes for answering machines. They developed “Tele-classifieds" and soon found that personal advertisements had the most potential. Today, Lavalife offers its voice, Web and mobile services in more than 60 markets across the U.S., Canada and Australia. Sam Moorcroft discovered online dating services when he found himself single and unemployed in Toronto in the late 90s. He created ChristianCafe.com. The key to the success of ChristianCafe.com was filling a niche in the market. ChristianCafe.com has grown into a multi-million dollar operation, and is now celebrating its tenth anniversary online.
The full article was originally published at Ivey InTouch Magazine, but is no longer available.
OPW — Feb 18 — Sam Moorcroft, the CEO/founder of ChristianCafe.com mentioned that he had slightly more women than guys on his site so I asked him for his numbers across various age ranges. He's allowed me to share them with you. The following stats are across all members in the ChristianCafe database.
TORONTO DATING SOCIAL — Nov 30 — The first Toronto Internet Dating Industry Party for the owners and executives of the Internet Personals and Social Networking companies was held on November 25, 2008. This networking event was attended by 27 representatives of 15 dating technology companies. Companies that attended the Toronto Dating Social Party:
Date.com, OmniDate Inc., Dating Ad Network, Lavalife Corp., Epic Advertising, Canoe / Reseau Contact, ChristianCafe.com, Cupid.com, Talkster, Impact Mobile, Randodate.com, WorldFriends Networks, Personality Pro, Dating Essentials
The full article was originally published at Toronto Dating Social, but is no longer available.
PR WEB — Aug 5 — Viewpoints, a consumer review site has consumer based reviews and rankings of 40 dating sites on the site. OKCupid has the highest rating, 3.58 on a 5 point scale. PlentyofFish is second. However, the poll is completely unscientific as the these two site’s ratings are based on only 12 reviews and 15 reviews respectively. eHarmony and Match.com have the most reviews at 47 and 24. Christian Café got a perfect 5.0 rating . . . with one review. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB
See all posts on OkCupid
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See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on Christian Cafe
NY TIMES — Apr 27 — A growing number of people have found love on dating sites that pair members based on a specific shared interest or background, like Nerdsatheart.com, DateMyPet.com, STDmatch.net and Veggielove.com. "Singles are increasingly eager to narrow the audience and really target their needs," said Mark Brooks, a consultant who keeps his own blog, OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. "It's the same reason why Procter&Gamble makes so many detergents. We are all drawn to things that cater to our very specific desires." According to Hitwise there are now 1,378 U.S. dating sites, up from 876 three years ago. Mr. Brooks estimates that 44% of those sites in the U.S. are niche sites, up from 35% in 2006. Large companies like Match.com, eHarmony, Yahoo Personals and SinglesNet.com have the general market cornered, Mr. Brooks said, "the only real entrepreneurial opportunities left in the online dating world lie in the niche market." FarmersOnly.com has attracted 90,000 members so far, 50,000 in the last year alone. One month's membership costs $15.95. Mr. Brooks said the most successful niche sites pair people by race, sexual orientation or religion. The 20 most popular dating sites this year as ranked by Hitwise include JDate, Christian Mingle and ChristianCafe.com, Manhunt, Love From India, Amigos, Asian People Meet, and Shaadi. "A few years ago, a company called Spark Networks was putting major funding into its general dating site, American Singles," Mr. Brooks said. "But when executives saw that the Jewish market was huge and relatively untouched, they switched gears and ratcheted up JDate." FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES. Also in THE LEDGER
TECH CRUNCH — Apr 24 — In the internet dating space, bigger is not always best. According to the latest U.S. numbers from Hitwise, the top niche dating sites are steadily gaining market share while their big mainstream counterparts stagnate. In March 2008, the top 5 overall sites held 7% less market share than they did in 2007 (Plentyoffish and Singlesnet were the only sites to buck this trend individually). Meanwhile, the top sites (Adam4Adam, Manhunt, Gay.com, BlackPeopleMeet, BlackSingles, BlackChristianPeopleMeet, ChristianMingle, JDate, and ChristianCafe.com) from the top five major niche dating categories made considerable gains. The biggest niche in terms of total traffic is casual dating, which consists of sites like Fling, AdultFriendFinder, and SexSearch. While the top 10 mainstream dating sites gained only 0.01% of total Internet traffic over the past year, the top three casual adult sites gained 0.07%. That's a hefty 56% increase in the traffic. (Authored by Mark Brooks)
FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
WESTERN ALUMNI GAZETTE — Mar 27 — ChristianCafe.com, an online dating service for Christians, was launched in 1999. The idea was to give like minded persons of faith the opportunity to connect in a virtual "Christians meeting Christians for a coffee" setting. Their initial investment of upwards to $100,000 went towards website and database development. "It was a tough first year," recalled co-founder Sam Moorcroft. Today, ChristianCafe.com boasts roughly 100,000 members. It is a 'premium' dating site based on its higher-than-average membership fees. Members pay $34.95 for one month or $109.95 for one year. FULL ARTICLE @ WESTERN ALUMNI GAZETTE