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
Category: Courtland Brooks Press
Niche Dating Sites Grow Steadily As Mainstream Ones Flail
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
Science Of Love
RED EYE CHICAGO TRIBUNE — Apr 24 — Scientific minds across the country are attempting to decode the rules of romance, tackling issues such as the role evolution plays in attraction, whether a "love" hormone exists, and how love affects the human mind. Science is sweeping even the online dating world, according to trend watcher Mark Brooks of Online Personals Watch, who said online dating sites are increasingly adding features, including handwriting analysis, to match like-minded mates. Scientificmatch.com dabbles in DNA testing, currently charging $995 for a lifetime membership. The site claims to analyze some of the potential partners' immune system genes in order to help online daters make the right romantic connections. "With all the time, energy and money that people put into dating sites or dating to find love, it's not surprising to see that even more scientific methods are being leveraged," said Brooks. "Since the mid-'90s, online dating has revolutionized the level of personal detail and data you can provide. I can totally see it heading in the direction of science to assist with compatible matching."
The full article was originally published at Red Eye Chicago Tribune, but is no longer available.
Online Sex: My Space Or Yours?
EDGE BOSTON — Apr 7 — Online venues, from IRC to AOL to Gay.com to MySpace and video chats, all seem to have replaced the function of the gay bar as a way for gay men to connect with other gay men. "Gay daters were some of the earliest, if not the first, to utilize the web for meeting potential partners. In the initial days of on online dating, users searched for profiles that looked interesting and eligible to them, whether that be for a relationship of a short-term encounter", said Patrick H. Perrine, MA, CEO and Founder of myPartner.com, who has worked in the field of human sexuality since 1997. FULL ARTICLE @ EDGE BOSTON
Alternate Dating Sites
CNET NEWS — Feb 18 — Worldwide there are more then 1400 internet dating sites. Given the market saturation online dating consultant Mark Brooks says newer sites are forced to innovate both in concept and technology. Want your avatar to meet mine? Try out OmniDate.com or let's find out if our voices are compatible. Log onto LoveDetect.com. Another one of those alternate dating sites is CrazyBlindDate.com. Prior to the date you only get to see a pixilated photo of your match and you can only communicate by texting through the site's cupid line. Unlike more established dating sites, webcam sites like SpeedDate.com, Woome.com and Camlink.com require very little personal information to get started. As long as people are out there looking for love there will be a website to cater to their needs, desires, fantasies and fetishes.
Virtual Dating – The Future Of The Future
NBC — Feb 25 — Omnidate is a dating site, where you choose a virtual person to represent you in a 3D restaurant or bar. By clicking on a button, users can blow a kiss or even touch their dates face. Even websites not focused on dating like the virtual reality site Second Life have also become places for love. Igor Kotlyar, Omnidate: "By going through a virtual dating experience allows you to relax, have fun and really create a bond with a person before meeting them in real life." SEE THE VIDEO HEREMark Brooks: Dating sites need to give their users something to talk about. Wether it be personality profiling, handwriting profiling, Love Detection, or avatar based IM. Add something different to your site and inspire your users to yabber. (Full Disclosure: OmniDate is a client of Courtland Brooks)
Gay Matchmaking Sites Find A Growing Market
SF CHRONICLE — Feb 14 — After eHarmony said its psychological research is based exclusively on heterosexual relationships, a growing number of rival online matchmakers are using their algorithms to find same-sex love as well. "There are just not enough services for creating healthy relationships, and it is a major gap in the gay community," said matchmaker Patrick Perrine, founder MyPartner.com, which caters to "sophisticated, cultured and relationship-oriented gay men. "There has been a long-held stereotype that gay people are only looking to hook up." Matchmakers like Chemistry.com, which estimates that about 10% of its 3.7 million clients are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, say all love is equal, straight or gay. The matchmakers claim "you can actually find people who are compatible, and this is a major advance that is going to keep the industry alive for the upcoming 50 years," said Mark Brooks, an Internet dating and social networking consultant. FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE
Online Dating Boom
OTTAWA CITIZEN — Feb 14 — Unlike traditional dating, people's intentions are more evident online than in the non-virtual world. PlentyofFish.com is virtually a dating haven for millions of people around the world. The site rakes in $10 million a year in advertising and Ontario is one of the biggest hot spots for PlentyofFish users. Founder, Markus Frind says that meeting people in today's fast-paced world is just too hard, and it only gets tougher with age. "The baby boomers are signing up in droves now," says Frind. "They never used to use the site, but now it's the biggest growth market for all dating sites." Lavalife has started a dating service called LavalifePRIME, exclusively for those 45 and older.
The full article was originally published at Canada.com, but is no longer available.
The Hottest Trends In Online Dating
NETWORK WORLD — Feb 7 — No one knows online dating better than Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. Brooks is a modern-day Cyrano — he's a consultant to many of the Web's largest online dating sites as well as traditional matchmaking services. Network World interviewed Brooks about the hottest trends in online dating.
Q:How many online dating services are there?
MB: Hitwise has estimated there are 800-plus. I think that's about right for the U.S. A lot of them are affiliate sites that are driving traffic to the main dating sites.
Q: How has online dating affected traditional matchmaking services?
MB: Internet dating has warmed an entire generation of users to the prospect of getting help in dating and paying for that help.
Q: What new technologies are you are seeing in online dating?
MB: One of the biggest innovations is avatar-based instant messaging. One site that's pioneering the use of avatars is OmniDate.com. Another emerging technology is iovation, which helps online dating sites battle fraud. With iovation's Reputation Manager, one dating site can flag a person as abusive and throw them out and then let other sites in the online dating community know about it.
Q: How has online dating technology changed in recent years?
MB: Actually, online dating is in about the same place that it has been in for the last three years. One of the things I'd like to see is more technology being applied to personality profiling. In this area there are four companies worth mentioning: Perfectmatch.com; eHarmony.com; Chemistry.com; and True.com.
Q: Have social networkings like Facebook and MySpace cut into online dating traffic?
MB: The numbers show that less people are coming to Internet dating sites. According to ComScore the number of people who came to Internet dating sites in December 2007 was down 10% over the prior year. But I don't think it's the end of online dating. I think the lookilous have gone away.
Q:What are the hottest trends in online dating?
MB: One is the rise in Baby Boomers and also rise of free dating sites, such as Plentyoffish.com, DateHookup.com, OkCupid.com, Matchdoctor.com, Bookofmatches.com, Smooch.com and CrazyBlindDate.com.
Q: What do you see as the future of online dating?
MB: It's difficult to enter the market and be a large generic dating site at this stage. The only thing you can build today is a niche dating site, and even niches are hard to build. That's why we're seeing the rise of a bunch of companies that offer white-label dating services. One of these companies is Whitelabeldating.com.
The Power Of One
MARY GARDNER — Feb 8 — Last week I had the distinct pleasure of attending then Social Networking Conference in Miami and met Markus Frind who makes about $10 million a year off of his free site PlentyofFish.com with one employee. I was interested how one person could achieve such dramatic results. He ultimately listened to his gut instinct. He said programmers like bells and whistles, but the average person just wants it to work. That's all they care about! He doesn't try to make it look good. He just wants it to be great at allowing people to meet. FULL ARTICLE @ MARY GARDNER BLOG