NETIMPERATIVE — Sep 22 — DatingDirect is celebrating National Dating Day (September 24) with a dramatic cube installation located under the clock at Waterloo Station. Passers-by can later go to a specially-created microsite at DatingDirect to compete to win a date with any of the celebrities, single models, and DatingDirect members they saw inside the installation.
Category: DatingDirect
Sky And DatingDirect Launch Sky Dating
NEW MEDIA AGE — Aug 3 — Sky Digital Media has partnered with DatingDirect to launch Sky Dating. The partnership between the broadcasting and online dating companies will grant Sky users access to the over 5 million registered DatingDirect members in the U.K. via a co-branded homepage. Features of the new site include instant messaging, video calling and video intros, and the ability to create personal compatibility tests and photo albums.
Dating Firms Fight For UK Hearts
BBC NEWS — July 18 — "The UK is the battlefield for the World War of dating," according to Marc Simoncini, the Frenchman who started Meetic. His company bought the UK dating website Dating Direct and is going head-to-head with Match.com. Mr Simoncini says it is not just a clash of companies. He reckons it is about whether the British date in a manner more similar to people elsewhere in Europe or like the Americans. FULL ARTICLE @ BBC NEWS
Mark Brooks: Match helps people find love, whereas Meetic/DatingDirect promises dates.
DatingDirect.com Launches On Vodafone
MAD.CO.UK — July 11 — DatingDirect.com is launching a new partnership with Vodafone UK to feature the dating service on its mobile internet service. Users can browse images and profiles, upload photographs and text and receive alerts to notify them when another member has visited their profile. Earlier this year DatingDirect was bought by Meetic for £27.3 million. FULL ARTICLE @ MAD.CO.UK
British Online Dating Statistics
THE GUARDIAN — July 12 — With free sites such as MySpace and Facebook growing, dating services are borrowing their tricks to entice younger users. There are 141 dating sites in Britain. Dating Direct is the largest and is adding MySpace type features to appeal to younger users. Their average member is 45 and only 6% of British web users aged 18-24 do online dating, according to Synovate, though 38% have met friends online. 13.4% of UK internet users visited personals sites in May compared with 8.2% three years ago, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. 45-55 is the typical age worldwide for dating services. FULL ARTICLE @ THE GUARDIAN
Meetic Intends to Acquire DatingDirect
REUTERS — Jan 8 — Meetic signed an agreement with a view to acquiring DatingDirect, UK's leading online dating service. Founded in 1999, DatingDirect has 4.5 million members (3.5 million in the UK), 70,000 paying members, 1.6 million uniques a month and £11 million annual revenue. Meetic has also signed an agreement for the acquisition, from the same shareholders, of Chemistry.co.uk which organizes UK singles events. Dating Direct has marketing partnerships with AOL, Channel4.com, HeartFM.co.uk, iVillage.co.uk, NTL and Tiscali. The acquisition of DatingDirect and Chemistry, for £27.3 million, will be carried out entirely in cash once the operation is finalised.
Meetic Intends to Acquire DatingDirect
REUTERS — Jan 8 — Meetic signed an agreement with a view to acquiring DatingDirect, UK's leading online dating service. Founded in 1999, DatingDirect has 4.5 million members (3.5 million in the UK), 70,000 paying members, 1.6 million uniques a month and £11 million annual revenue. Meetic has also signed an agreement for the acquisition, from the same shareholders, of Chemistry.co.uk which organizes UK singles events. Dating Direct has marketing partnerships with AOL, Channel4.com, HeartFM.co.uk, iVillage.co.uk, NTL and Tiscali. The acquisition of DatingDirect and Chemistry, for £27.3 million, will be carried out entirely in cash once the operation is finalised.
Dating Direct Hopes to Cash in on New Voice Service
NMA.CO.UK — June 15 — The new Dating Direct voice greeting service allows members to leave a three minute message describing themselves. Other members can then phone up to listen to the messages, charged at 25p per minute. Dating Direct found that 58% of women and 42% of men felt that a person's voice is as important as their appearance when choosing someone to date.
Mark Brooks: Live connections are the next step. Dating companies need to facilitate (and make money on) live anonymous connections. PhoneMatrix provides anonymous calling. I've talked to a few companies recently that are working on throwaway number services which will be another alternative.
Dating Direct UK Newspaper Deal
REVOLUTION MAGAZINE — June 2 — Trinity Mirror will provide Dating Direct content and access to dating services through the online editions of The Daily Mirror, the People and the Daily Record (3.7m subscribers). A World Cup Survival Guide, Dating Toolkit and a Hot Date of The Week will follow.
The full article was originally published at Revolution, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Locking up major channels with big name media is a winning strategy for the long term…and for improving conversions in the short term. Users like to see these kinds of alliances. It makes them feel more warm and fuzzy about parting with their pounds. Another A1 distribution deal for Dating Direct. Match has been very strong with this kind of business development distribution deal in the past.
Online Dating Grows 30% Within Three Months
Mark Brooks: Hitwise graciosuly provide OPW the monthly UK rankings. See left bar. You can get to OPW more easily using opw1.com btw.