EASY DATE — Jan 27 — EasyDate Ltd launched its own white label dating service in December. Despite the network being less than two months old, more than 250 White Label dating sites have already been launched by individuals and companies on the platform. Site creators are being rewarded with a 80% commission on first-time sales during the initial months of the launch. EasyDate's financial stability, rapid growth and reputation as one of the UK's top dating groups are the factors that help guarantee success for the company's white label partners.
Category: Cupid plc (formerly Easydate)
Credit Crunch Can Mean A Downturn In Love
BIRMINGHAM POST — Jan 13 — All hope is not lost for love in a time of recession. Online dating and speed dating, have seen an increase in business at a time when many other sectors are seeing growth slip away. Dating group Easy Date had seen rapid growth since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year brought the credit crisis to the consciousness of the general public. Nielsen Online indicating a 15% rise in unique users visiting online dating sites in November compared with the same month in 2007. FULL ARTICLE @ BIRMINGHAM POST
EasyDate Seeks Partnership Manager For USA/Canada
OPW — Jan 9 — EasyDate, UK's fastest growing online dating company, is looking for US Partnership Manager. The person will be responsible for:
– Sourcing & Recruiting new White Label Partners
– Handling incoming White Label enquiries
– Managing Key Affiliates
– Managing and Growing Traffic Partners
Experience with online business is essential.
Rewards:
– Salary of 40k – 50k USD per year
– Impressive Bonus Scheme
– Opportunity for personal growth
Please send Resume and Cover Letter to: hr@easydate.biz.
Online Dating Sites Flirt With Record Growth
FORBES — Jan 6 — With the current downturn in the economy, singles are turning away from traditional methods of meeting people casually in bars and instead are flocking to online dating. Easydate.biz has gone from making a pretax profit of £180k in 2006 to a projected £6m this year. Parship claims it has grown by 400% in sales terms from 2005 to 2007. In Britain alone, 8m active singles went on 24m first dates in 2008, with 69% of these arranged online. FULL ARTICLE @ FORBES
Recession Boosts Online Dating
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK — Jan 5 — Match.com reported pre-tax profit of £3.67m in the year to 12/31/07, compared with a loss of £2.19m a year before. Last year, total revenue for Match worldwide rose 12% to $348.7m (£240m) and operating income rose 13% to $65.8m. The international growth was driven by the UK and Scandinavia. British dating sites in general are seeing a rise in members despite the credit crunch. Nielsen Online indicate a 15% rise in unique users visiting online dating sites in Nov compared with the same month last year. Match and EasyDate, which owns the SpeedDater, DatetheUK and BeNaughty brands, say they have seen some of their best days of trading since the collapse of Lehman Brothers ramped up global financial turmoil in September. Ross Williams, founder and chairman of WhiteLabelDating.com, says its database of members has grown by 250% to over 1m in the UK, and overall annualised revenues have increased by 450% to over £12m in the past 12 months as the dating sector booms in the economic gloom. Mark Brooks, an internet dating analyst, says: "The entire industry, with the exception of more marginal traditional matchmakers, is doing better despite the downturn." FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
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Lonely Log On To Find Love In A Cold Climate
THE INDEPENDENT — Dec 14 — Membership is booming at internet dating sites as the credit crunch and impending recession bring a rush to find a partner to share the pain. Companies such as Match.com and EasyDate, which owns the SpeedDater, DatetheUK and BeNaughty brands, say they have seen some of their best days trading ever. Match says it has experienced its 10 biggest days in terms of visitors in the past year, and three of those have been in the past few months. EasyDate says its sites have seen growth 10% above average since the beginning of September. DatingDirect hit 5m registered users five weeks ago. Nielsen Online indicate an 18% rise in unique users visiting internet dating sites between September and October, although that follows a 14% decline in the previous month. According to Jupiter Research, the industry will grow from 2.8m paid users in Europe in 2006 to about 6m by 2011. Over that period, revenues from British dating sites, will increase from €85m last year to €147.3m. Industry expert Mark Brooks says only four or five internet dating sites worldwide make serious money and that the growth in online dating is likely to slow in the UK next year as the market begins to reach maturity. FULL ARTICLE @ THE INDEPENDENT
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EasyDate Offers 80% On First-time Sales
EASY DATE — Dec 8 — Partners who sign up before 1 January 2009 will be able to earn 80% on first-time sales during their first month on the network. Partners who sign up after this date will be able to earn from 60% to 80% on first-time sales and 50% to 60% on repeat sales. FULL ARTICLE @ OPW
Max Polyakov & Bill Dobbie, EasyDate – Interview
OPW INTERVIEW — Sep 14 — EasyDate powers some of the top dating brands in the UK. BeNaughty.com and Datetheuk.com. I talked with their Founder, and their COO, Bill Dobbie and Max Polyakov.- Mark Brooks
What’s your personal background?
Max: I finished Medical University in the Ukraine and, in 2000, started a web development outsourcing company. In 2004 I relocated to the UK and started HitDynamics, a WebAnalytics package which is now part of Hitwise, with one of my clients. At the same time we started an online dating business. We realized very quickly that you cannot do a dating business unless you have a database. So through Bill and his network we found a company in London which had been in the internet dating business for years. On top of their database we built what’s now known as EasyDate. We continued to work together with Bill on the other few projects under the IDE group, and the website content optimization company, Maxymiser.
Bill: After graduating from university with a degree in mathematics I moved on to sales and marketing with Unisys computer company. In 1989 I started Teledata which I sold to Scottish Telecom in 1996. Then after an earn out period there I started Iomart (AIM : IOM) and at the same time I created a joint venture with AboveNet which was sold to Metromedia Fibre Networks (MFNX). After I left Iomart and AboveNet I started several other businesses in the UK which include EasyDate and IDE Group.
Can you tell me more about some of your sites? What are the top EasyDate sites at the stage?
Max: DateTheUk is a traditional dating site which is growing quite successfully. On top of that we have SpeedDater which is now a fast growing component. Be Naughty is the other side of our business which is now bigger than FriendFinder in the UK. These three brands I think are recognizable in UK right now and have over 200,000 registrations a month just from the UK.
How are the sites differentiated from other sites in the UK?
Max: The lifetime value of the customer on sites like Match.com is around 2-3 months. People get tired of the interfaces and the site and cancel their membership. We have several white labels sites and can change design and integrate different functionality quickly, thus making more of our acquired customers by cross advertising between sites.
Bill: It’s important that we’re beginning to differentiate by niche and customer preferences, and by functionality. We will soon be integrating speed dating and mobile services in a way that hasn’t been seen before. You’ll see very shortly what we’ll be doing with events and, before Christmas, what we will be doing with mobile dating.
You’re large and you’re not really competing with the likes of WorldDatingPartners and WhiteLabelDating. You have your internal brands you’re rolling out and you are looking for external market, is that right?
Bill: Yeah but we debate whether we should try White Label Dating. But only because people come to us and have asked us to do White Label dating.
Max: Yeah. We have the engine ready for that but realistically, external white labels are not really protected. We believe internal white labels are much stronger because we’re effectively monetizing the brands and the brands belong to us. FriendFinder did it successfully. They built it on the basis of different niche websites.
One major strategic concern we have on white labeling is that your revenue and margin is dependent on a third party who has no real interest in your business and could leave you tomorrow, on the flip side it is probably a good short term cash geneartor as publishers and entrepreneurs are attracted to the dating business.
What are you plans and goals for Easy Date through the end of 2009? What will EasyDate look like by the end of 2009?
Max: We are going to replicate what we’ve done in the UK in other countries. Potentially, if we have enough resources and human power, we definitely can start in Brazil and India. We’ve already started successfully in the USA, Canada and Ireland.
Bill: That’s very much a secondary priority. The main priority is to improve our financial stand by doubling our profit in the next 18 months.
Max: For the 3 years, we have been doing this business, our profit has tripled and our revenue has grown 2 to 2.5 times every year. This will be our year number 4 and I don’t know why we couldn’t do it this year as well.
Plentyoffish.com #1 Dating Site In North America And U.K.
PR NEWSWIRE — July 28 — The latest comScore Media Metrix numbers now rank the free dating site Plentyoffish.com as the leading dating site in both North America (U.S.A. + Canada) and the U.K.
Top 10 North American Dating Sites by Total Visits (000's)
PlentyofFish 36,825
Singlesnet 29,896
eHarmony 19,269
Match.com 18,329
Yahoo!Personals 16,365
People Media Sites 12,340
TRUE.com 10,716
SparkNetworks 9,124
Mate1.com 4,847
Humor Rainbow, Inc 3,714
comScore Media Metrix. June, 2008, age 2+ universe
Top 10 U.K. Dating Sites by Total Visits (000's)
PlentyofFish 8,052
Meetic 4,024
Match.com 2,724
Gaydar.co.uk 2,617
GirlsDateForFree 1,392
WhiteLabelDating.com 1,120
EasyDate 1,110
Smooch.com 1,102
QuickFlirt 1,054
LoopyLove 853
comScore Media Metrix. June, 2008, age 15+ universe
On Monday 14th July, the CEO and Founder Markus Frind opened up his 26th floor office in downtown Vancouver. Plentyoffish.com has hired its first six employees, the first six of a planned thirty person team that is being assembled to help roll out new advertising programs.
The full article was originally published at PR Inside, but is no longer available.
BeNaughty.com Survey Exposes Britain’s Top Fibs
BUSINESS WIRE — July 8 — The Truth Be Told survey, commissioned by online dating site www.benaughty.com, revealed that nearly a third (29%) of the 1,028 people between 16 and 64 that were interviewed said they lied about how much money they owe. Britain's top fibs exposed in BeNaughty.com survey:
1. Debt (29%)
2. Smoking/drinking (28%)
3. Weight (24%)
4. Number of sexual partners (14%)
5. Age (13%)
6. Salary (11%)
7. Fidelity (9%)
8. Hobbies (8%)
9. Job/employment (8%)
10. Education/qualifications (7%)
11. Travel experience (5%)
12. Height (5%)
13. Where you live (5%)
14. Physical endowments (4%)
BeNaughty is one of seven dating websites operated by EasyDate, the UK online dating company.
FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE