GUARDIAN.CO.UK – Sep 22 – EasyDate acquires North American rival cupid.com in a deal worth £4.4m. EasyDate already operates cupid.com outside the US and will now take charge of its US and Canada operations – reversing a trend that has seen US sites such as eHarmony eye up the UK for acquisitions. FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK
Category: Cupid plc (formerly Easydate)
Mixergy Video Interview With Mark Brooks
Q: How are you managing your company from Malta?
A: 3 years ago I took a trip to Shanghai. There was an Internet dating conference in Shanghai, and I decided to stay there for 2 months. And business grew. I learned that my clients did not care where I was based as long as the work got done. I brought 15 people onto my team.
Q: What exactly do you do when you consult online personal sites?
A: We help Internet dating companies make more money. And also companies that want to talk to them. We do PR, business development, and strategic advisement.
Q: Can you tell people a little more about the blog?
A: In 2004, when I was working with FriendFinder, I noticed that I was getting great snippets of information from the press. And I consistently didn't have time to read all of the articles. So I thought it would be nice if somebody could summarize and extract the best intelligence out of what the press were writing about. So in June of 2004, I started OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. The idea is that we condense three hours of reading into three minutes of reading a day. In January of 2005, I had three jobs offers on the table, so I decided to take all three. And that is how Courtland Brooks started. At a point from there, I knew a lot of people that I thought could do a better job than me. So, I hired them.
Q: Is there still money in the dating world? It seems to me like most people either go to one of the top sites or they go to Facebook.
A: The reason dating sites have a future is because it's one thing to be single and another to be single and available. And it's even another thing to be single and available and looking. You don't find that on Facebook. Yes, you can find people that say they are single. But are they really single? Are they dating? Are they really available?
Q: But Markus at PlentyofFish has blogged that social networks are taking customers away from dating sites.
A: Yes. It is taking attention. But people want a more focused experience. There are two surprises that we have had in the dating industry. The first one is that social networking didn't kill the dating industry. And the second one is that Internet dating didn't kill the matchmaking industry.
Q: What about the idea that there are already enough established players out there that it is really hard to come in with a new site?
A: It is. Without a doubt.There are thousands of Internet dating services. I rather think it is like starting a restaurant. It's not that difficult, you would think, to start a restaurant. But there's a lot more moving pieces that go into building a successful restaurant than meets the eye. And the same with Internet dating.
Q: Let's say Casey Allen, who I see here in the audience, decides that he is going to start an online dating site. What's the first thing that you'd recommend that he do?
A: First question is, is he a marketer or a technologist? If Casey is a marketer then he should go down the white labeling route and use a service like White Label Dating, DatingFactory.com or EasyDate.
Q: What if Casey Allen happens to be a technologist and he can code something up? What would you advise him at that point?
A: There are two extra routes that he can take. Number one is to use an off the shelf software like BoonEx and another option is use a programming outfit that has already built dating sites in the past.
Q: How do you bring people into a site today?
A: All of the major dating sites spend a lot of money on PPC. So, Overture and AdWords are an absolute mainstay of the industry. PlentyofFish is a wonderful place to run ads. If you can pay an extra 50 cents to a network, then you can get 10 times more traffic. Commission Junction and ShareASale have a good reputation.
Q: What else brings people in?
A: SEO. Also I'm a big fan of affiliates. The problem with affiliates, by the way, is there are rogue affiliates that will send junk traffic. The only way to deal with them is you've got to understand their position. They want to make money. And affiliates tend to be short-term based. They don't care too much about the brand, because they will just switch out to a different brand. So, the only way to really manage rogue affiliates is by laying down guidelines.
Q: We talked about how to get people in the door. What about getting them to multiply? By multiply, we mean viral marketing, getting them to bring their friends..
A: Let's start with Zoosk. They are one of the great, recent, success stories. On a typical dating site, you sign up. You've got to put in all your information. With a Facebook based social dating site such as Zoosk, some of that information can be sucked over. And so that really improves the initial conversions and efficiency. Plus, you know, the kinds of people that are on Facebook are going to be a little bit more social. When people talk about a good or a bad experience they think of as Internet dating. They don't tend to think of it so much as, it's Zoosk. It's Match.com. It's FriendFinder or Fling or whatever. I think the industry as a whole needs to make sure that they have a good experience. That means not allowing scammers. Scammers are actually very good for short-term conversions, funnily enough.
Q: How is that?
A: Because they are very active about communicating with people and getting them to convert.
Q: Do you have a sense of what percentage of sales these scammers are responsible for?
A: I don't know. I think for some sites, it is quite significant. For sites of integrity, it is very small, because they kick them off.
Q: What else do people do to multiply?
A: I am a big fan of success stories. ChristianCafe.com is very good with success stories. So is Match.com and PlentyOfFish.com. Now, there is a bit more to be said for social media these days and mobile.
Q: Can you give me an example of one company that's doing social well and how they are doing it, and then one company in mobile and how they are doing mobile well?
A: PlentyofFish does well as a social dating site in and of itself. In terms of social media, well, actually, Zoosk is a good example. They have had some music videos that have been featured, and so has PlentyofFish. PlentyofFish has been in a video on Lady Gaga. So, that's quite a new thing for the industry. I think OKCupid has the best blog in the industry. Again, they have got material that is extremely compelling, extremely interesting. And so they are getting the press talking about it.
FULL ARTICLE @ MIXERGY
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Easydate Takes Over Two Dating Sites
IB TIMES UK – Sep 1 – Easydate has acquired PlanetSappho.com for £200,000 and Spanish-based dating site Granamor.com for £25,000 to boost its international growth and expand its niche portfolio. Easydate said it had entered into an agreement with dating website Flirt.com to license the domain for an initial period of six months. Easydate will run the dating service across English speaking markets with an option to acquire the domain based on the performance over this period. Easydate has also entered into partnerships with Associated Newspaper's 'Metro' newspaper and Cosmopolitan and Men's Health magazines to promote two individual dating events in London scheduled over the next month.
The full article was originally published at IB Times UK, but is no longer available.
EasyDate To Play Cupid Across The Globe
EDINGBURGH NEWS – July 14 – Bill Dobbie, founder of EasyDate, is a St Andrews pure maths graduate who got a job with Burroughs in Cumbernauld in the 1970s making "business machines" – today they're known as computers. Then he build up Teledata, a telephone information services company that he sold to Scottish Telecom, and Iomart, an internet web hosting firm he helped create with his brother-in-law Angus MacSween. He left six years ago, but maintains interests there, and launched web-based DVD rental firm, dvds365.com. When that was sold to LoveFilm.com, it was time to seek out a new venture. Named last year as one of Deloitte Technology's Fast 50 – a list of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in the UK – EasyDate attracts about 200,000 new fee-paying members a month. "We wouldn't be maximising the company's capability if we didn't take it worldwide," said Bill Dobbie, the founder. "And we've had an international outlook from the beginning." Boosted by the stock market cash injection, EasyDate is now preparing to do just that. First up is the acquisition of an American firm that will increase the firm's presence there. Australia, where EasyDate already draws ~£200,000 a month, is targeted for expansion, as is Brazil, China and almost everywhere else you might care to mention. FULL ARTICLE @ EDINBURGH NEWS
EasyDate Raising £10m Through AIM Flotation
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK – June 29 – EasyDate, Edinburgh-based online dating business, goes public with a £10m placing on London’s junior market. Founder Bill Dobbie and business partner Max Polyakov are floating their niche-focused dating business on AIM to fund acquisitions and international growth as they attempt to win more of a global market worth an estimated £1bn. Tomorrow’s listing will give the company, which has a turnover of £11.5M, a market cap of approximately £45M as it issues 75 million shares at 60p. EasyDate is currently adding 200,000 members a month, and projects revenues will hit £19M next year. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
Easydate To List On Alternative Investment Market
NASDAQ – Jun 18 – Easydate said it plans to list on London's Alternative Investment Market at the end of June. Easydate operates a number of mainstream and niche dating websites such as DatetheUK.com, Canoodle.com and DatingforParents.com, and four of the U.K's top 15 dating sites belong to Easydate's portfolio. The company began its international expansion in 2009 and said it continues to grow in all other English-speaking territories outside the U.K. including India. Easydate said shares of 2.5 pence each would be admitted, but didn't give details of how much it plans to raise on admission or its expected market capitalization. FULL ARTICLE @ NASDAQ
EasyDate Seeks To Woo Investors
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH – May 20 – EasyDate is looking to expand internationally, raise funds and launch a new site that will allow singles to browse all the available online dating toos. "It'll be a bit like a comparison site", said Bill Dobbie, chairman and founder of EasyDate. "Canoodle is one of our R&D experiments. Users would key in their requirements and all dating sites would be searched to help find that ideal companion. EasyDate was formed in 2005 when Dobbie teamed up with software writer Max Plyakov and has been growing steadily ever since. "Unlike our competition such as Match.com and DatingDirect, we operate a portfolio of sites and we are a niche operator", says Dobbie. "EasyDate can launch both new niche sites itself or, as a white-label site provider, with a partner." Alongside the niche and comparison site approach comes global growth. EasyDate's international expansion began last year. "We are now in all the English-speaking countries and beginning to look at Spanish-speaking and others such as Sweden, Netherlands and Thailand". He plans to launch in Brazil this year. EasyDate sees 155,000 a month income from its Australian site. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
This week: news on Match.com, SNAP Interactive, EasyDate, Zoosk, AreYouInterested, GameCrush and Executive Dating.
EasyDate To Acquire Allegran
PRESS RELEASE – Apr 5 - EasyDate has acquired Allegran's online dating business, one of the UK's largest online dating groups, from Associated Northcliffe Digital. The acquisition increases EasyDate's current portfolio of dating sites from seven to twelve. EasyDate has purchased GirlsdateForFree.com, Loopylove.com, Quickflirt.com as well as the successful niche dating sites DatingForParents.com and MatureDating.co.uk.
The full article was originally published at Easydate website, but is no longer available.
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Everyone Wants To ‘Be Naughty’
EASY DATE – Mar 31 - EasyDate has reached a major milestone with over one million active users of their BeNaughty Facebook app. Easydate is one of the UK’s leading online entertainment solutions providers. Founded in 2002, the company has expanded rapidly and in 2009 was listed in the Deloitte Fast 500 EMEA as one of the fastest growing companies in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Easydate now offers a network of niche, traditional and casual dating sites in the USA, Australia, Canada, South Africa and India and is also active in mobile dating and social media.