This is the news for the week of October 23rd through October 29th, 2009. We hope you enjoy the new weekly news format. Here is the news we covered for this week:
FORBES — Feb 13 – Last month, traffic on Match.com's U.K. site grew 17%, from last year. EasyDate.biz, the parent company of online dating websites BeNaughty.com and DateTheUK.com, posted a 112% increase in sales this month from February last year. "We are currently experiencing massive growth in sales and membership levels are exceeding our projections. Month-on-month we are seeing an overall growth of 20%," said Easydate.biz Chief Executive Max Polyakov. FULL ARTICLE @ FORBES
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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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PRESS RELEASE — Dec 16 — A third of UK office workers admit to having had a fling with their boss or a colleague at their Christmas party according to a survey by DateTheUK.com, 33% said they had sex and more than half 55% said they had passionately kissed the boss or a colleague. FULL ARTICLE @ MIRROR.CO.UK
LONDON PAPER — Dec 15 – A festive hook-up with a co-worker could even lead to love. One in four hook-ups results in a proper relationship, according to datetheuk.com. Just watch your step, says dating expert Adam Lyons (www.puatraining.com):
The full article was originally published at London Paper, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: 'Pulling' is British slang for when a guy successfully hits on and successfully starts chatting with a woman. Casual dating sites are doing storming business because people want to lead with their sexual preferences and desires and don't want to commit quickly. Especially the guys, of course. Women are catching on and signing up in ever greater numbers as they discover, thats where the guys are hanging out in droves. (Full Disclosure: DatetheUK.com/EasyDate is a client of Courtland Brooks)
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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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.