THE NEXT WEB – Mar 8 – Monthly revenues for the social networking category on the App Store jumped 87% YOY in January, according to a new study from App Annie. The social networking apps category is now the third highest in terms of monthly revenue, behind games and productivity. In terms of downloads, social networking was sixth overall among categories on the App Store in January. According to App Annie, monthly downloads were up 30% YOY and now account for 5% of total downloads. Globally, the list of top social networking apps with respect to downloads was predictably dominated by Facebook, Apple’s Find My Friends, Twitter and Skype. Dating apps like Zoosk, Badoo, Grindr Xtra and eHarmony also proved capable at monetization.
Category: eHarmony
ChristianMingle Saw 89% YOY Increase In Paid Members
BUSINESSWEEK – Feb 28 – The $30M advertising and marketing push had made ChristianMingle an unexpectedly popular dating site with 8M registered users, 154K paying subscribers at $19.99 a month. That’s almost double the 84K paying subscribers of SparkNetwork’s groundbreaking Jewish singles site, JDate. SparkNetworks.com was founded in 1997. JDate grew rapidly by word of mouth. ChristianMingle was launched in 2004 and remained small until 2010, when Spark consulted with local ministers and prominent Christian leaders about how best to serve their constituents. As a result, the company founded an advisory council of church leaders and hired ChristianMingle spokeswoman Ashley Reccord, a pastor’s daughter, to help conduct outreach. Then the company launched Believe.com, which features Christian editorials, and redesigned the site into something more devout-seeming than JDate. Spark reported the number of ChristianMingle paid subscribers grew 89% for the Q4 of 2012 vs. the period a year earlier. There are other suitors in the market for Christian romance; eHarmony and ChristianCafe.com.
by Logan Hill
See full article at BusinessWeek
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eHarmony Uses Real-Time Customer Insight To Increase Mobile Conversions By 40%
PRESS RELEASE – Feb 26 – Qualtrics, the provider of enterprise data collection and analysis software, is partnering with eHarmony. eHarmony has used Qualtrics Research Suite to capture real-time customer insight to improve its online site and app. In gathering customer insight, eHarmony discovered the pain points in setting up accounts on a mobile device. eHarmony restructured its mobile app based on specific customer suggestions and increased the number of new customers signing up via mobile by 40%.
The full article was originally published at Fort Mills Times, but is no longer available.
AnastasiaDate, eHarmony, IntroAnalytics, LikeIt Discuss Internet Dating Disruption
Steve Carter: What disrupted online dating more than eHarmony was the changing societal attitude about being online. eHarmony got people to realize that online dating wasn’t just for hookups. Freemium or free services have been very disruptive. What Facebook is trying to do and what everyone is afraid of, it is to leverage that enormous amount of data that is out there on people. Any use of big data offers the potential for mass disruption.
Dan Winchester: I would argue that there hasn’t been any meaningful disruption in the last 13 years. The closest I’d say anyone has come to disruption is the free space.
Brian Bowman: eHarmony took the high end of the business away. POF and took out the bottom end of the industry. The biggest reason dating hasn’t innovated is the business model, and this 1990 model of charging to communicate obfuscates all kinds of innovation. The major innovation in dating is going to be infusing social networking.
Larry Cervantes: I think instead of being disruptive, a lot of what we call innovation is simply adoption and implementation, which AnastasiaDate does as a business model. One example is the video chat market, which may not be as prolific on some domestic sites but is a major mover in our.
The other issue is the pay model. We don’t have a membership component but we feel it’s fair that you cut the largest slice you like and pay as you go. I don’t think that international dating is a disruptor per se because our clientele are kind of different animal.
Dan Slater: Would you say having moved mail order brides online has moved the yardstick at all in terms of enhancing a number of folks who are interested in it because now it’s so easy to access. Do you think online dating has shifted the stigma a bit?
Larry Cervantes: The shift has been in the international move, the ease of travel and the Internet itself… the wall is coming down.
Dan Slater: In the past year or so we’ve been hearing a lot about social dating. But it still only appeals to a very small segment.
Dan Winchester: Social is all about eroding privacy. Dating is all about respecting privacy.
Brian Bowman: Privacy doesn’t matter. I believe the role of a dating site is to let me have a great first date. The industry does a horrible job of matching. People are having bad dates because we just don’t have enough information on people to match them.
Dan Slater: What impact Facebook Graph search may have on the online dating?
Dan Winchester: Graph search, in my view, is Facebook trying to add intent into their already well established advertising business. They want to serve job ads, dating ads, classified ads but they don’t want to become a dating site.
Dan Slater: What if it’s not about dating. Facebook has always been used for dating, but now it just has this enhanced dating capability.
Dan Winchester: Facebook is saying we’re no longer going to be a social network; we’re going to be dating site. They could do that but they can’t do both.
Brian Bowman: If they want to do this they are absolutely positioned to do it better than anybody because they know a tremendous amount about you and they know who you are. The question is, is that a priority for them?
Steve Carter: Facebook doesn’t really know that much about us. Does anyone know why Google hasn’t entered this space?
Dan Winchester: I didn’t get the sense that Facebook users are on Facebook saying I really wish Facebook was a dating site. This isn’t going to disrupt dating because dating is actually a pretty simple problem to solve. It’s about discovery and messaging and that’s already being done very well and the only way to disrupt it is to do it cheaper.
Larry Cervantes: Google is ideally positioned to create a separate dating function. I think there’s a lot of media out there, a lot of magazines that have their own proprietary dating sites.
Dan Winchester: There are plenty of people who use dating sites specifically because they don’t want to meet friends of friends. They want to meet people who they have no friends in common and if all goes wrong it is completely insulated from their life.
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Dating Website Info Being Used In Divorces
UPI – Feb 18 – A recent survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers said 59% of the nation's top divorce attorneys have seen an increase in the number of cases using evidence taken from dating sites during the past three years. 64% said Match.com was the top site cited, followed by 9% who said eHarmony and 27% who listed other choices.
eHarmony In Location-based Trial To Broadcast Romance
MARKETINGWEEK – Feb 14 – eHarmony is taking part in a location-based trial that will let lovers stream romantic messages to one another via London’s black cabs this Valentine’s Day. Those taking part in the trial can target loved ones by specifying their message is displayed in the vicinity of a specific address such as their significant other’s office or where they plan to spend the day together.
Outsourcing The Algorithm Of Love To Online Dating
FORTUNE MAGAZINE – Feb 14 – There are thousands of sites out there, many with an incredible degree of specificity in their target audience. The personals sites for The Onion and Salon are both powered by a service called FastCupid. That company is a property of FriendFinder Network. FriendFinder Networks, formerly called Penthouse Media Group, operates ~40K sites. FriendFinder does not mix together all the profiles of all its branded sites. Because people from BigChurch.com for Christian singles for example, may not get along with those from another, say, Bondage.com. Many established online dating operators eschew the practice altogether, but it's fairly common, particularly in the U.K. where it's standard practice. Today, four companies control 77% of the $1.22 billion online dating market, according to research from IBISWorld. IAC controls 41% of the market, eHarmony is next, with 23.5%, in third place is Zoosk at 7.7%, followed by Spark Networks at 4.9%. Despite the competitive advantage conferred by niche markets, big data-driven dating clearinghouses may be the way of the future for much of the online dating industry. "Strategically, bigger is best," says Brooks, industry analyst and editor of Online Personals Watch. "If you consider what would be the perfect model for an Internet dating site, in theory it would have all the people in the world who are single on it, and you could find your perfect match within a day's work." A single major U.S. service that controls more than 50% of market share is "inevitable," Brooks says. In theory at least, a bigger pool means more happy matches, even if they're from unlikely sources. Data confirms: "It's kind of a waste of time anyway asking people what they want anyway," Brooks says. "Because they don't really know."
by Anne VanderMey
The full article was originally published at Fortune Magazine, but is no longer available.
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Why Online Dating Is Struggling To Go Global
THE DAILY BEAST – Feb 14 – Different countries date differently. Cupid Plc burned a lot of money when it tried to expand its BeNaughty website with becoquin.fr in France and gibsmir.de in Germany. Match.com sold its entire European business to the French site Meetic.com. These companies were sometimes felled by practical idiosyncrasies such as offering credit cards as the sole payment method in Europe, not knowing that only 25% of Germans own them. Australians take a more relaxed approach to dating. “In Australia you can never really be sure if you are on a date or you are just hanging out as friends,” says Katrina, an Australian who spent a year in Texas. Taiwan offers a more conservative scene. Potential partners are mainly set up through friends, and romance must be found within one’s social circle. Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch, predicts that the Chinese online dating industry alone will generate $350M in revenue in 2014, and forecasts growth in developing markets such as Russia and Latin America. Gian Gonzaga, chief scientist for eHarmony, sent out thousands of questionnaires in countries including Brazil, Australia, and the U.S. “We found Brazilian couples value passion the most,” Gonzaga says. “The importance of similar levels of spirituality is highest in the States.” eHarmony then adjusted its websites’ algorithms to reflect Gonzaga’s findings.
by Ella Delany
See full article at Daily Beast
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A Match Made In The Code
NY TIMES – Feb 11 – eHarmony’s senior research scientist, Gian C.
Gonzaga, went to the big annual meeting of the Society for Personality
and Social Psychology, held recently in New Orleans. He said its newest
algorithm matches couples by focusing on six factors:
– Level of agreeableness
– Preference for closeness with a partner
– Degree of sexual and romantic passion
– Level of extroversion and openness to new experience
– How important spirituality is
– How optimistic and happy each one is
The more similarly that two people score in these factors, the
better their chances, Dr. Gonzaga said. His assertion left the critics
slightly intrigued but quite unconvinced. Similarity components are
notoriously weak at accounting for relationship satisfaction,” said Paul
W. Eastwick of the University of Texas, Austin. “For example, what
really matters for my relationship satisfaction is whether I myself am
neurotic and, to a slightly lesser extent, whether my partner is
neurotic. Our similarity on neuroticism is irrelevant.”
10 Things Dating Sites Won’t Tell You
MARKETWATCH – Feb 8 –
1. Finding a soul mate is expensive
The industry is now worth about $1.2 billion, up 4% from a year ago. eHarmony, launched in 2000 and marketed toward people seeking long-term relationships, blazed a trail with its prices, charging some of the highest in the industry, says Mark Brooks, a dating-industry analyst and the editor of Online Personals Watch.
2. Everyone is single sooner or later
The fastest-growing segment is baby boomers.16% of online daters are 50+. In January, the advocacy group AARP launched its own dating service, AARP Dating, powered by HowAboutWe.com. The number of HowAboutWe users 50+ grew 173% in the past year. It’s a good fit, says Brooks, especially given that 25% of AARP’s 37M members are single.
3. Cupid’s arrow often misses
Dating sites pride themselves on the wizardry of their algorithms. “It’s very early in the online dating industry,” says Dan Slater, author of “Love in the Time of Algorithms”. "Sites have gotten better at cross-referencing what people say and do, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement,” he says.
4. So many liars, so little time
Over half of U.S. online daters lie on their profiles. On the plus side, people who lie online tend be people-pleasers and very self-aware, says Jeffrey A. Hall, assistant professor of communications at the University of Kansas.
5. And you thought Facebook was nosy
The more people learn about each other before the first date, the better, author Slater says. “But nothing is free,” he says, “you’re giving them a ton of data.”
6. This place is a hotbed of adulterers
While most sites don’t promote infidelity, some make it easy. AshleyMadison now has 18M members worldwide. Some experts say, the marriage and divorce rate has been unaffected by the Internet.
7. Don’t judge a person by their photo
“Men like it when a woman is looking into the camera, as a man wants to believe that a woman is focused on them exclusively,” says Slater, the author. Men who stare into the lens, on the other hand, should take care not to appear intimidating, he says.
8. Keep a close eye on your wallet
Consumers lost $50M to romance scams in 2011. On newer, smaller sites, as many as one in 10 profiles could be fake, according to Brooks. “Scammers come in droves, and they’re very aggressive.” He advises talking to someone on the phone before meeting.
9. Objectification: It’s what’s for dinner
On-the-go dating seems to be a hit. Mobile dating revenue is expected to nearly double over the next five years, from an estimated $251.2M in 2013, according to IBISWorld. Crazy Blind Date app, which pixelates user photos, was downloaded ~100K times in the first 24 hours of its launch last month.
10. Endless love — or endless chat?
The endless supply of fresh faces, and the modern worker’s lack of leisure time make it difficult for people to ever actually go out on a date, says Hall, of the University of Kansas. Match says it’s responsible for 12% of all dates in the U.S., while eHarmony is saying its service accounts for 5% of all weddings in the U.S. Users, meanwhile, typically stick to a site for three months before moving on, says Brooks. But then roughly one-fifth of members on the big sites return within 18 months, he says.
by Quentin Fottrell
See full article at MarketWatch
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