BCBUSINESS – Oct 21 - POF grew into one of the world’s most popular dating websites. Despite the popularity of its iPhone and Android apps, POF's old revenue model is under siege, as advertising doesn’t work well on the smaller screens of smartphones. POF will need to evolve to survive. POF CEO & Founder, Markus Frind, says that for people under the age of 35, 90% of POF’s visits now come from phones rather than web browsers. Frind says up to 60% of the company’s “tens of millions of EBITDA” still comes from its website. POF’s apps make money from upgraded memberships Frind is the first to admit monetization on mobile has a ways to catch up. Mark Brooks, one of the Internet dating industry’s few consultants, says that while Frind will never have the deep pockets of IAC, POF’s mobile numbers are promising. Now he just has to figure out how to make mobile visitors as valuable as its declining desktop ones. Brooks points to Craiglist for inspiration. “Most people think it’s entirely free,” he says, “and it is—except for people who want to advertise jobs, and they make a lot of money from that. Mobile is pretty much a land grab right now,” he says. “Grab as many users as you can, then figure out what to do with them.”
Category: Courtland Brooks Press
$8K Course To Make A Man Commit And Other Expenses Of Online Dating
THE GUARDIAN – Oct 13 – Lisa Hoehn's website, Profile Polish, offers editing of dating profiles. “Writing about yourself is really hard,” says Hoehn. She spends three to four hours on each client, rewriting their profiles to sound conversational, upbeat and interesting. Business is steady, if seasonal. Major dating sites tried to offer professional profile editing services themselves but failed, says Mark Brooks, an internet dating industry analyst. Match and eHarmony learned that people required all-around coaching on online romance. It’s a territory Brooks terms “hazardous” for the dating sites to do themselves. Evan Marc Katz has a dating coaching business that is focused entirely on women. He charges $5,250/4weeks and $7,775/12 weeks to teach women how to make a man commit. If that may seem like big money, Brooks is not surprised. It’s behavioural economics, he says. “When people do good [in dating], then they are willing to pay good in business.” More and more users are moving to mobile apps. The distant future, Brooks says, may be wearable computing. More data could lead to better algorithms. In 10 years’ time, dating websites may track everything that goes on when you meet your online date. “Do we know your heart rate? Do we know if you’re sweating. There’s going to be so many more observables,” Brooks says.
IAC: The Big Matchmaker
MARKETPLACE – Aug 8 – Tinder makes ~ 2M “matches” a day and is just one of the online dating brands under the banner of InterActiveCorp that includes Match.com, OkCupid, HowAboutWe, BlackPeopleMeet, and OurTime. Experts thought the future of online dating was in small niche sites, but the big sites are winning for a simple reason. “It’s like a shop,” said Mark Brooks. “You’ve really got to stock the shelves. You can’t make do with a few hundred people. You need to have thousands of active people on a dating site.” IAC doesn't combine all the sites into one because, as Sam Yagan explains, dating is “such an intimate and personal search process, that people care a lot about the emotional affiliation they have with the brand that they choose.” Having the sites under one roof provides opportunities for cross-promotion. The strategy has led IAC to control more than 1/4 of the $2.2B online dating market in the U.S., twice the next biggest competitor, eHarmony.
Thread Needs To Attract Users Quickly, Expert Says
AUSTIN BUSINESS JOURNAL – July 28 – ThreadDating.com, the app that Michael Dell’s son Zachary plans to launch later this year isn’t the first dating tool known as Thread. In 2009, a group of San Fran entrepreneurs raised $1M to launch Thread, a dating site that integrated with Facebook to make matches based on mutual friends. By early 2011, it had closed. It’s unclear what type of business model Zachary's Thread plans to use. "It takes ~5,000 log-ins per day for a dating site to be successful. And the amount of activity is more important than the number of members," said Mark Brooks. "Advertising revenue is negligible because users are too distracted to pay much attention to ads," he said.
by Christopher Calnan
See full article at Austin Business Journal
The Future Of Internet Dating
OPW – July 28 – I was interviewed for the French magazine, NEON, and the article is now in print. In 10 years, dating sites won't exist. We will move to mobile and wearables. iDating becomes wDating. We'll be able to access more observable and measurable behaviors. Coaches will be able to provide real time feedback and advice. i.e. "Don't go into that restaurant, she doesn't like Thai." I started wearable.ai to learn and help bridge the iDating industry into the new medium of wearable computing so they won't miss the boat. Here's the full interview I had with the reporter.
How The Endless Quest For Love Is Sparking Massive Growth In Dating Apps
BUSINESS INSIDER – July 24 – We've got new apps popping up every day: Coffee Meets Bagel, Hook, Pinch, Instamour, Wyldfire, Whim, Floret… Online dating can often be frustrating, which in turn leads to more willingness to try new apps. A lot of people see a need to come up with new ideas. Mark Brooks, the iDating consultant behind Courtland Brooks, thinks that dating apps more closely translate the real-life experience of meeting someone. "The mobile platform is simply a superior platform for internet dating. Mobile daters will go on many times during the day but just for a few minutes, they’re chatting and then they go back to work, and then jump back on. Internet dating has never really meshed with true user behavior," he said. "The true user behavior is when someone starts chatting someone else up, they’ll be in a continuous conversation and reel them in for a date. The problem with online dating is the incentive structures are quite broken. Mobile gets us closer." These dating apps all need to figure out the revenue model. Brooks thinks in-app spending is the way to go. And then there's always ads. Larger corporations acquiring the smaller startups when they run out of money. We saw this happen with IAC. Brooks sees Match Group holding out as the powerhouse. Match Group is currently under IAC, but Brooks anticipates a future separation that would leave Match Group as the ultimate online dating umbrella. "Starting a dating app is rather like starting a restaurant," Brooks said. "It looks very easy to do. It's a very sexy business. But it's a lot more difficult because of the critical mass problem. "What I typically find happens is that entrepreneurs spend 90% of their money building the app. But it does require cold hard cash to grow. Although there may be many startups, there will be few survivors. Very few have that unique way of driving eyeballs. Tinder did well."
Online Dating Services Get Into Matchmaking Big Leagues
USA TODAY – May 20 - Match.com and Three Day Rule announce partnership to get Match into high-dollar matchmaking. eHarmony launched eH+ ($5k service) matchmaking in Jan. "They've got very significant market shares. Between them, they own the industry, and where do they go from there?" dating industry analyst Mark Brooks says. "They have two problems — a limited number of people left to reach and a limited price point."
Matchmaking has exploded in the past few years. Bravo's The Millionaire Matchmaker and other copycats have targeted the professional who has plenty of money but not enough time to hunt for a relationship. Traditional dating sites, which have millions of daters, haven't tried to reach this profitable market until now. Match.com gets a cut from each customer at Three Day Rule, says Sam Yagan, CEO of Match Group. Three Day Rule has matchmakers in New York, L.A., Chicago and San Francisco and will add matchmakers in Dallas, Boston and Washington by the end of the year. Six months costs $5k.
Interview With Mark Brooks About Online Dating Scammers
YAHOO NEWS – Feb 17 – In Britain, £24.5M is lost every year to online dating scams. That figure might be a serious underestimate, according to Mark Brooks, Editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch. Many victims are so ashamed and distraught that the perpetrator is never prosecuted.
Q: If you’ve ‘known’ each other for months, are you safe?
A: No. Scammers often do this full time. It usually takes a few months to build up to the 'I need money for a kidney operation or I'll die' type scam.
Q: Can you spot scammers by looking at their profiles?
A: The line of communication is the give away. If they want you to get off the dating site asap, that's a sign. People should do a video or real life date.
Q: Are there details I should leave off my profile, in case I’m targeted?
A: The religiously inclined are targeted. Older women are also targeted because its tough to find a hot older gentleman.
Q: I am worried my ‘new romance’ might not be what it seems – what can I do?
A: Call your local police department and notify the dating site. I like the 419eater.com approach.
Most dating sites have automated systems which root out scammers, using patterns of language – such as the word ‘wire’. There are certain kinds of profile that scammers do tend to use, i.e. ex-pats working abroad. Check their Facebook. Don't send money to someone you've never met.
Holidays: The Busiest Time For Dating Sites
MARKET WATCH – Dec 30 - Zoosk typically sees a 26% increase in signups during the two weeks after Christmas. Grindr had a 15% rise in activity on Thanksgiving and ~30% to 50% increase on Dec. 25. Tinder experiences a 5% to 7% surge in users on Dec. 26. “Hanukkah, Thanksgiving and New Year are when singles around the dinner table think, ‘Maybe it would be better to have a partner,’” says Mark Brooks, a dating-industry analyst. “That’s when they start hitting dating sites in droves and go on dates before the indigestion sets in.” "Family should come first. They’re going to be around for you long after your relationships,” he says. “The trick with holiday dating is to make sure no one feels neglected.”
by Quentin Fottrell
See full article at Market Watch
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New Dating App Twine Looks To Dig Deeper
MERCURY NEWS – Sep 1 – Twine launched on July 31st and wants its users to connect based on common interest instead of relying on looks. Twine stands out by initially hiding members' identities and appearances, according to Mark Brooks, an iDating industry analyst and consultant. It vows to keep an even ratio of men to women in each city, which solves a criticism of digital dating that women get "inundated by guys and guys are often ignored," Brooks said. In 2011, for the first time, singles spent more time on dating apps than on dating websites, according to IBISWorld. "This app world we live in now is not going to be around forever," said Marc Lesnick, who organizes the annual iDate conference. Users continue to complain about the limited features available on their smaller smartphone screens, along with advertisers who don't like the size of their ads, Lesnick said.
by Dan Nakaso
See full article at Mercury News