OPW — May 28 — These are the conversions for the affiliate programs that Online Personals Watch makes money from. The period is for March 21st 2006 through March 21st 2007. I only list the affiliate programs from which Online Personals Watch generated more than 1000 unique click throughs for. Here are the top converting programs ranked by the earnings per unique. Affiliate links for these sites appear in the left bar in the form of industry rankings, and from links from posts on OPW.
HUFFINGTON POST — May 3 — eHarmony is run by someone with an unabashed religious and social mission? A company that by its own admission has rejected over a million people for reasons that range from not being "happy enough" (on a happy-meter they handily provide) to being divorced too many times, to being gay. eHarmony isn’t just a brand; it’s an ideological vessel, a brandologue. A Christian-founded, marriage-oriented matchmaking website. It’s legitimate for a competitor to call eHarmony out on its agenda. This week, Chemistry.com launched an advertising campaign that takes on eHarmony boldly and directly. TV commercials and print ads challenge eHarmony’s agenda and invite women and men who are seeking a relationship on their own terms to join Chemistry.com (View them on YouTube). FULL ARTICLE @ HUFFINGTON POST
Mark Brooks: eHarmony is getting beaten up for being discrimantory. However, they have a brand to build and a brand needs to be focused to be successful. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to launch new sites under new domains to cover the market more thoroughly, like Spark Networks, or FriendFinder or Zencon Technologies. This strategic blunder points towards their underlying mantra. They’ve left wide open areas of the market up for grabs.
HUFFINGTON POST — May 3 — eHarmony is run by someone with an unabashed religious and social mission? A company that by its own admission has rejected over a million people for reasons that range from not being "happy enough" (on a happy-meter they handily provide) to being divorced too many times, to being gay. eHarmony isn’t just a brand; it’s an ideological vessel, a brandologue. A Christian-founded, marriage-oriented matchmaking website. It’s legitimate for a competitor to call eHarmony out on its agenda. This week, Chemistry.com launched an advertising campaign that takes on eHarmony boldly and directly. TV commercials and print ads challenge eHarmony’s agenda and invite women and men who are seeking a relationship on their own terms to join Chemistry.com (View them on YouTube). FULL ARTICLE @ HUFFINGTON POST
Mark Brooks: eHarmony is getting beaten up for being discrimantory. However, they have a brand to build and a brand needs to be focused to be successful. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to launch new sites under new domains to cover the market more thoroughly, like Spark Networks, or FriendFinder or Zencon Technologies. This strategic blunder points towards their underlying mantra. They’ve left wide open areas of the market up for grabs.
PR NEWSWIRE — May 1 — Lavalife, originally called Teleclassifieds, was founded in 1987 by five young Toronto-based entrepreneurs who had been experimenting with IVR technology. A brief timeline outlining 20 years of Lavalife:
The full article was originally published at Free Press Release, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Webpersonals.com was started in 1994 by Dr Andrew Conru who sold it and then went on to start FriendFinder. Lavalife is strong in Canada, but it's top spot as the country's leading dating site has been supplanted by free dating site PlentyofFish.com
PR NEWSWIRE — May 1 — Lavalife, originally called Teleclassifieds, was founded in 1987 by five young Toronto-based entrepreneurs who had been experimenting with IVR technology. A brief timeline outlining 20 years of Lavalife:
The full article was originally published at Free Press Release, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Webpersonals.com was started in 1994 by Dr Andrew Conru who sold it and then went on to start FriendFinder. Lavalife is strong in Canada, but it's top spot as the country's leading dating site has been supplanted by free dating site PlentyofFish.com
BUSINESS 2.0 MAGAZINE — Mar 30 — Andrew Conru, a mechanical engineering Stanford PhD, started the first online dating site, WebPersonals, in the early ’90s, sold it in 1995, [started again in 1996] and now owns 27 sites under Various Inc. which control twice as much online dating traffic as Match.com. AdultFriendFinder accounts for 60% of the revenue. Conru’s privately held, 450-person company brings in well over $200 million in annual revenue, and averaged 40% annual growth for the past nine years. With more than 35 million visitors in 2006 and 75,000 new users registering each day, AFF ranks among the 100 most popular sites in the U.S.A. It’s become so mainstream that a joke about it appeared in the Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore romantic comedy, Because I Said So. “In Hugh Hefner’s day, it was ‘It’s OK to look at sexuality,'” Conru says. “Now it’s OK to be sexual.” The average AFF user pays $20 a month; others shell out as much as $50. “The more niche you get, the more value per member,” Conru explains. To expand without investment capital, Conru invented a massive affiliate program, in effect outsourcing his marketing to the public. Various now has more than 500,000 affiliates. This year his goal is to buy six businesses. So far he’s done well with the three purchases he’s made (Gradfinder.com, Bondage.com, and FastCupid.com). FULL ARTICLE @ CNN
Mark Brooks: Here’s the Quantcast numbers for the top adult dating sites…
AdultFriendFinder – 9.6m uniques/month
SexSearch – 3.3m uniques/month
Mate1 – 2.5 million uniques/month
I worked for Andrew in 2003 and remember Andrew walking into the marketing office one day and declaring part serious, part in jest, ‘who can I fire today.’ He was on his third marketing team in two years. Six months later one third had quit and the other third had been canned.
BUSINESS 2.0 MAGAZINE — Mar 30 – Andrew Conru, a mechanical engineering Stanford PhD, started the first online dating site, WebPersonals, in the early '90s, sold it in 1995, [started again in 1996] and now owns 27 sites under Various Inc. which control twice as much online dating traffic as Match.com. AdultFriendFinder accounts for 60% of the revenue. Conru's privately held, 450-person company brings in well over $200 million in annual revenue, and averaged 40% annual growth for the past nine years. With more than 35 million visitors in 2006 and 75,000 new users registering each day, AFF ranks among the 100 most popular sites in the U.S.A. It's become so mainstream that a joke about it appeared in the Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore romantic comedy, Because I Said So. "In Hugh Hefner's day, it was 'It's OK to look at sexuality,'" Conru says. "Now it's OK to be sexual." The average AFF user pays $20 a month; others shell out as much as $50. "The more niche you get, the more value per member," Conru explains. To expand without investment capital, Conru invented a massive affiliate program, in effect outsourcing his marketing to the public. Various now has more than 500,000 affiliates. This year his goal is to buy six businesses. So far he's done well with the three purchases he's made (Gradfinder.com, Bondage.com, and FastCupid.com). FULL ARTICLE @ CNN
Mark Brooks: Here's the Quantcast numbers for the top adult dating sites…
AdultFriendFinder – 9.6m uniques/month
SexSearch – 3.3m uniques/month
Mate1 – 2.5 million uniques/month
I worked for Andrew in 2003 and remember Andrew walking into the marketing office one day and declaring part serious, part in jest, 'who can I fire today.' He was on his third marketing team in two years. Six months later one third had quit and the other third had been canned.
OPW — Feb 27 — Meir from Date.com had asked me about SNS rankings worldwide so here they are… Here's the Alexa online personals rankings for Australia extracted from the Australian top 100. – Mark Brooks
Australian Alexa Rankings for Online Dating and Social Networking as at 2/26/07.
1. MySpace (5)
2. YouTube (7)
3. Bebo (17)
4. Flickr (22)
5. LiveJournal (41)
6. Friendster (44)
7. Photobucket (47)
8. Orkut (59)
9. Xanga (73)
10. Hi5 (88)
1. RSVP (34)
2. AdultFriendFinder (66)
3. AdultMatchMaker (69)
4. Red Hot Pie (94)
OPW — Feb 27 — Meir from Date.com had asked me about SNS rankings worldwide so here they are… Here's the Alexa online personals rankings for Australia extracted from the Australian top 100. – Mark Brooks
Australian Alexa Rankings for Online Dating and Social Networking as at 2/26/07.
1. MySpace (5)
2. YouTube (7)
3. Bebo (17)
4. Flickr (22)
5. LiveJournal (41)
6. Friendster (44)
7. Photobucket (47)
8. Orkut (59)
9. Xanga (73)
10. Hi5 (88)
1. RSVP (34)
2. AdultFriendFinder (66)
3. AdultMatchMaker (69)
4. Red Hot Pie (94)
EMAIL WIRE — Feb 12 — Various, Inc., the leading owner of intimate dating and relationships websites, has acquired Bondage.com, a highly popular site devoted to alternative lifestyles. The newly acquired company will join the Various site Alt.com and together they will create the world's largest online community for bondage, discipline and fetish enthusiasts (BDSM).
The full article was originally published at ChatMag, but is no longer available.