PITCH ENGINE – Mar 2 – Cupid Media’s popular dating site FilipinoCupid.com continues its rapid growth with its membership size now totaling ~2M members. In total, Cupid Media operates 33 niche dating sites internationally covering a variety of demographics such as ethnicities, religion, physical appearance, sexual preferences etc; attracting ~18M people internationally.
The full article was originally published at Pitch Engine , but is no longer available.
PRESS RELEASE – June 7 – Cupid Media is protecting online daters and
generating dating safety awareness during the National Cyber Security
Awareness Week in Australia through its newly revamped internet safety
resource – OnlineDatingSafetyTips.com. The site not only educates
online daters about potential online dating risks such as scams and
identity theft, but also advises on issues such as sex trafficking,
date rape and domestic violence. The list of Top 10 scams is also a
handy reference guide. According to figures released by the Australian
Competition Consumers Commission (ACCC), 550 people reported
online dating and romance scams in 2009 – a 30% increase from 2008. FULL ARTICLE @ PR LOG
ONLINE PR NEWS – Apr 11 - Asian dating site AsianEuro.com has been rebranded as AsianDating.com. Launched in 2000 as AsianEuro.com, the site was one of the first niche dating sites catering specifically to the Asian market. AsianDating.com is owned and operated by Australia based online dating company, Cupid Media. The company operates 33 niche specific dating sites internationally.
The full article was originally published at Online PR News, but is no longer available.
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD – Jan 10 - The Australian online dating industry grew by 5% last year and is expected to grow by a further 5 to 10% this year. According to dating site RSVP survey 50% of respondents had tried online dating and 10% had met their current or most recent partner on the internet. Business analyst IBISWorld expects the industry to earn ~$100M from subscriptions and advertising this year. Cupid Media, Australia's biggest online dating company, has 33 websites that specialise in religion, ethnicity, sexual preference and physical appearance. The company started at least three new websites every year and had ~15M customers in 50 countries. IBISWorld does, however, expect the boom to slow in a few years with the increased sophistication of social networks. FULL ARTICLE @ SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Mark Brooks: People Media was recently sold for $80 million to IAC. Cupid Media is doing well. I wonder how long it will be before they are acquired? First Beat Media, World Singles, FriendFinder's network of sites, Avid Life Media are other examples of networks of niche sites that have exceled and enjoyed the benefits of the 'network effect.' Given the choice, users will often join multiple sites within a network, which means improved ARPU. (Full Disclosure: First Beat Media and Avid Life Media are current clients of Courtland Brooks. World Singles is a former client, and I worked for FriendFinder in 2003-2004).
This is the news for October 18th through October 23rd, 2009. Here are some of the topics we covered for this week:
BRISBANE TIMES – Oct 16 – Cupid Media is rejecting 3000 personal profiles each day suspected
of being created by fraudsters preying on singles. The figure
represents one fifth of profiles created each day on Cupid Media's
dating sites, the company's managing director Andrew Bolton said. Ways
to spot a fake dating profile include poor use of English on a profile
of a person purporting to be from an English-speaking background such
as America, or use of profile photos which looked unrealistic, he said. FULL ARTICLE @ BRISBANE TIMES
Mark Brooks: Manual methods are good for catching the most obvious scammers. But don't go it alone. iovation, a sponsor of OPW, helps the internet dating industry to work together to beat scammers. Over the last three years iovation has wrapped their arms around the dating business and work with several of the top 15 dating sites.