LE FIGARO – Sep 13 – The two main shareholders of Meetic, the leading European dating site, confirmed that Messier Partners mandated to "evaluate all strategic options for the company and its shareholders." Among these options, Marc Simoncini, who still holds 22.98% stake in the company he founded, and Match Pegasus, which owns 26.72% stake, may sell their holdings. According to the statement released Sunday night, "no takeover bid has been received and any decision to sell was made". By unveiling half-year results in July, Meetic has confirmed his good health: the sequential growth stood at 10.6% in the Q2. Since the beginning of the year, Meetic shares rose 12.3%. FULL ARTICLE @ LE FIGARO
Category: Hot Stories
Easydate Takes Over Two Dating Sites
IB TIMES UK – Sep 1 – Easydate has acquired PlanetSappho.com for £200,000 and Spanish-based dating site Granamor.com for £25,000 to boost its international growth and expand its niche portfolio. Easydate said it had entered into an agreement with dating website Flirt.com to license the domain for an initial period of six months. Easydate will run the dating service across English speaking markets with an option to acquire the domain based on the performance over this period. Easydate has also entered into partnerships with Associated Newspaper's 'Metro' newspaper and Cosmopolitan and Men's Health magazines to promote two individual dating events in London scheduled over the next month.
The full article was originally published at IB Times UK, but is no longer available.
Jazzed Powered By eHarmony
ONLINE DATING SOUND BARRIER – Aug 25 - Jazzed is a new free dating site
and it will always be free for ever. Jazzed is designed to leverage eHarmony and is going to compete with PlentyOfFish and
OKCupid. PlentyOfFish and OKCupid are freemium sites, but at Jazzed,
they suggest to upgrade migrating to eHarmony. FULL ARTICLE @ ONLINE DATING SOUND BARRIER
Spark Networks Launches New Content Site
MARKET WIRE – Aug 24 - Spark Networks is launching Believe.com, a new faith-based content destination serving the Christian community. "Based upon member feedback, it became clear there was a need for a content destination site where devoted Christians could obtain advice, insights and interaction with other community members," said Garry Poole, Advisory Board Member of ChristianMingle.com, which is owned and operated by Spark Networks.
The full article was originally published at PR Inside, but is no longer available.
See all posts on Spark Networks
See all posts on ChristianMingle
Parship Launches Its Gay Service Worldwide
PRESS RELEASE – Aug 19 – Parship
is now offering its gay service on a global scale: from now on,
gay men and lesbians around the world can go on a worldwide search for a
suitable partner by visiting gay-parship.com. The site is now available in nine
languages. FULL ARTICLE @ PARSHIP.DE
Triangulate Gets Cash From Playdom Chairman
PAID CONTENT – July 27 - Triangulate, a startup trying to build an online dating business on Facebook, has raised $750,000 from Trinity Ventures and Playdom Chairman Rick Thompson. Triangulate is the latest so-called “social dating” site to attract interest from investors; Zoosk, the most established player in the market, has raised more than $40M, while SmartDate, raised $2.2 M in March. Triangulate’s Facebook app, called Wings, uses data from a member’s Facebook profile, as well as from their accounts on Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX), Twitter and Foursquare, to automatically generate a basic dating profile for them, which includes topics they are interested in, where they like to hang out, and who their friends tend to be.
The full article was originally published at Paid Content, but is no longer available.
Spark Network Services Partners With Match.com
PR WEB – July 27 - Spark Network Services announced that its MatchLink and WebFriends online dating solution will now be powered by Match.com, but with the continued customization of the media partner brand. MatchLink serves over 150 radio station groups and daily newspapers in the US and Canada. Under the MatchLink brand, Spark provides a telephone IVR-based dating solution, an online dating solution, and a mobile text message dating product for its media partners. The new partnership with Match.com allows for the MatchLink media partners to customize its online dating web sites with the look and feel of the radio station or newspaper, but with the power of Match.com and the largest database of singles in North America. Spark Network Services, a division of Advanced Telecom Services, has been providing dating solutions to radio stations and newspapers since 1993. Through nearly twenty years, the Spark MatchLink system is responsible for an estimated 10,000 marriages.
The full article was originally published at PR Web, but is no longer available.
eHarmony To Leave Pasadena, Taking Its 380 Jobs To Santa Monica
PASADENA STAR NEWS – July 13 – eHarmony is moving its corporate
headquarters out of Pasadena to Santa Monica. Eric Duyshart, Pasadena's
economic development manager, said he and others in the city held talks
with company officials in an unsuccessful bid to convince the firm to
stay. While eHarmony provides very little to the city in direct sales
tax revenue, Pasadena greatly benefitted from having the jobs in the
city. FULL ARTICLE @ PASADENA STAR NEWS
Oasis Active Takes The Lead In Australia
DIGITAL MEDIA – July 9 – Online dating site Oasis Active, managed by 3H group, has overtaken Fairfax’s RSVP as the number one dating site in Australia, according to the latest figures from Hitwise. The shift seems to reflect a general move by consumers away from pay-to-play providers to those supported by advertising alone.
The full article was originally published at Digital Media, but is no longer available.
EasyDate Raising £10m Through AIM Flotation
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK – June 29 – EasyDate, Edinburgh-based online dating business, goes public with a £10m placing on London’s junior market. Founder Bill Dobbie and business partner Max Polyakov are floating their niche-focused dating business on AIM to fund acquisitions and international growth as they attempt to win more of a global market worth an estimated £1bn. Tomorrow’s listing will give the company, which has a turnover of £11.5M, a market cap of approximately £45M as it issues 75 million shares at 60p. EasyDate is currently adding 200,000 members a month, and projects revenues will hit £19M next year. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK