QUEERTY – Sep 29 – Denmark's gays claim to have the biggest penises on Manhunt.net. If the men of Denmark are to be believed, they take home the crown with an average 7.59 inches, followed by Italy and Sweden. (The U.S. comes in at No. 9., with 7.37.) FULL ARTICLE @ QUEERTY
Category: Manhunt
The Gaydar V. Manhunt Battle Over NYC Pride
QUEERTY – July 2 - Gaydar is trying to start a fight with Manhunt over supposedly hijacking NYC Pride. Gaydar, the British-based "dating" site is all upset that after donating cash to Heritage of Pride to become a sponsor for the NYC Pride parade march, which entitled them to wave their brand around at the Pier Dance, Manhunt hired a plane to fly a banner over all the queers. "I found the Manhunt’s aerial banner hijack attempt to be a bit desperate and, with no mention of Pride on their banner, not terribly supportive of the community", said Gaydar's marketing head Phil Henricks. Does flying an airplane banner over NYC Pride's festivities count as hijacking? Well, it's certainly not kosher — but it's a standard industry practice. FULL ARTICLE @ QUEERTY
Move Over Grindr, Here Comes Manhunt’s “ASSFINDER!”
WICKEDGAY BLOG – June 11 – Manhunt is working on a new service Manhunt GPS. It is a GPS instant find-a-man program that is sure to rival the popular Grindr service. This isn’t an iPhone app – Manhunt GPS will work with the iPhone’s browser. The profiles on GPS will look just like profiles on Manhunt.net. Manhunt GPS will be launching in a limited beta in the Boston area later this week.
The full article was originally published at WickedGay Blog, but is no longer available.
Manhunt Ads To Appear On Sports Illustrated
QUEERTY – May 6 – Manhunt.net's ads began appearing on the top of SportsIllustrated.com. Is Sports Illustrated finally acknowledging openly gay sports fans or just closeted jocks looking for a "brojob"? Manhunt's ads have also appeared Knight Publishing's mainstream newspaper sites such as the Miami Hearld, Asheville Citizen Times, and the Charlotte Observer. Manhunt's media buyers are using what's becoming increasingly standard in online ads: "re-targeting." When you visit a gay site like Queerty, your browser picks up a cookie that holds information about which sites (and of what type) you visit. Then, other sites on the net using that same re-targeting network will start showing you gay ads because it knows you've been on gay sites. FULL ARTICLE @ QUEERTY
Phone-sex Chat Lines Are Part Of Web Of Cybersocializing
WASHINGTON POST – May 5 – The phone-chat services offer several ways for users to interact. Traditionally, callers are connected at random to another user already on the line. If they are not interested, they can disconnect and move on to someone else. Recently, however, companies have offered members use of a voicemail box through which they can record a personal message and pore through dozens, or hundreds, of other people's messages before leaving a contact number for anyone. Some of the most popular adult-oriented chat sites have more than 1M visitors logging in each day, said Mark Brooks, a consultant and editor of Onlinepersonalswatch.com. What happens after users turn over their credit cards for monthly membership payments is largely left to chance — and users are generally good about taking precautions, Brooks and others in the industry said. "People arrange to meet at your place or mine," said Jonathan Crutchley, chairman and founder of Manhunt.com, which operates gay-oriented phone and Web chat services. "And every now and then, people get murdered. There have been some murders." "Even if you just go into a bar, you can have a bad experience," Brooks said. "So common sense applies. If you are going to meet up with someone, let someone know where you are headed. Don't let them pick you up at home. Meet somewhere public. There are three basic rules. People break the rules." FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST
Manhunt.net Launches Group Video Chat
OPW – Apr 1 – Manhunt.net just released a Beta version of a new group video chat. As of now the new feature is only available to members in New England. Once the test version is successful, Manhunt.net plans to roll out the product worldwide in a month's time.
2010 Internet Dating Conference Highlights
OPW – Feb 5 – The 2010 Internet Dating Conference was held from January 27th through January 29th at the Miami Beach Convention Center. iDate Miami is the largest single gathering of online dating CEOs, matchmakers, and social networking executives in one room. iDate2010 also included the first annual iDate Awards, results for which can be found here.
The hottest topic of the event was the competition between free sites and pay sites, as well as the convergence of the two models into an increasingly popular “freemium” model. PlentyofFish and OKCupid dominate the free dating site market and have pioneered the new “freemium” business model in which users of free sites can enhance their profile for a nominal fee. PlentyofFish offers a Serious Dater badge and OKCupid has its A-List upgrade.
Mark Brooks, editor of OPW, delivered his annual industry review addressing the top news stories and online dating trends for 2009. During the year, internet dating sites worldwide received 113 million visitors, a key indicator that the stigma of online dating is a thing of the past. Among the big stories for the year were the purchase of PeopleMedia by Match parent company IAC and Meetic's purchase of Match Europe operations. There were several key trends for the year, such as the strong growth of niche dating, the increasing importance of mobile messaging as a “must have” feature, and the implementation of personality profiling on a growing number of sites.
The Internet Dating Executive Alliance, or IDEA, hosted a brainstorming session on ways to improve revenue for online dating sites. IDEA members Scot McKay, Bill Broadbent and Sandira Calviac offered their best ideas to the conference attendees. One of the key suggestions was offering users more services beyond the typical dating functions. Scot McKay of X&Y Communications believes sites should increase conversion and retention by encouraging more creativity in profiles with free-form inputs instead of check boxes. Bill Broadbent, Instinct Marketing, believes sites should create a network of niche sites and cross-sell. Sandira Calviac was a strong proponent of offering lifestyle enhancing products and services such as personal development books and travel.
Manhunt's Jonathan Crutchley delivered an informative overview of the gay online dating market. According to Mr. Crutchley, the average subscription on Manhunt is 15 months, opposed to the 3 month average on traditional sites. Additionally, men married to woman account for 30% of the gay dating business. Brazil is the largest gay dating market outside of the United States.
Sam Yagan, CEO of OKCupid, presented his thoughts on the online dating industry. He discussed the rise of the “freemium” model which is where a site has free limited use with the option to pay for added features. Mr. Yagan also believes that sites should communicate more with their customers through blogs and social media in order to build deep bonds.
Dr. Eva Ritvo from the University of Miami School of Medicine offered her insights into increasing female retention on internet dating sites. She suggests appealing to a woman's instinctive behaviors. According to Dr. Ritvo, sites need to do a better job of protecting and educating women about dating.
She also encourages dating sites to focus on boosting self confidence, as women tend to see themselves as 20% less attractive than other see them.
Steve Faktor, American Express, gave his insights on the economic factors in the current online dating market. More people are switching to lower cost entertainment, fueling the growth of online dating. Women increasingly have stronger and more stable incomes. There is also a trend of longer relationships prior to marriage, which is likely to affect dating sites in the coming years.
The Internet Dating Conference was ended with the traditional Final Panel Debate. This lively discussion was dominated by the free site versus paid site battle. In the end, it was evident that free sites and paid sites have a form of symbiotic relationship which serves to advance the dating industry as a whole. There was also a general consensus that the best way for a new site to enter the market is to find a niche that is under-served.
The next Internet Dating Conference will be held in Beverly Hills from June 16th through June 18th. For more information, visit www.idate2010.com.
Jonathan Crutchley And Adam Segel, Founder Of Manhunt And CEO Of Online Buddies
OPW INTERVIEW – Dec 14 – Online Buddies runs Manhunt.net, one of the most prominent gay dating sites. Manhunt recently acquired DList.com, a social networking site for the gay community. We have interviewed the founder of Manhunt, Jonathan Crutchley, and Online Buddies CEO Adam Segel about the merge and their marketing plans for DList.
For those not familiar with DList, can you describe the site?
Jonathan: DList is a social networking site for younger gay men. Users post videos and music clips and hang out chatting with friends, who could be anywhere, unlike with Manhunt, which was intended for guys to meet each other locally. DList was founded in 2006, and Online Buddies recently acquired it.
How did the idea to acquire DList come about?
Adam: We had been friends with the owners of DList for quite some time, and we were watching the development of the social networking space. Manhunt is more a dating and connections website, while DList is a place for people to meet friends, explore art, music, etc. It was a different offering, and we wanted to make that available to men.
Our ultimate goal is to be the largest and best place for men to meet men on the Internet. If they want to meet each other through a site like Manhunt, then that’s terrific. If they want to meet each other by sharing art, photos and things like that on DList, then that’s fantastic as well. We want to give all the mediums possible for men to be able to interact and meet each other.
How many members does Manhunt and DList have right now, respectively?
Jonathan: Manhunt has at least 2 million member subscriptions. Just under half of those are in the United States, and the rest are international. DList has about 180,000 subscribers at the start, and the idea is to grow it beyond that.
Adam: We have already started marketing DList just this week, and we’ve already quintupled the number of people joining each day.
Jonathan: We’re doing more marketing under the new ownership than the previous owners of DList were able to do.
How are you marketing DList?
Jonathan: It was a couple of years ago, but we advertised Manhunt on MySpace one weekend. On the Friday night the ad appeared, the responses crashed our website. The place to advertise an Internet product is on the Internet.
Adam: We started off by marketing DList through the Manhunt website and to the younger Manhunt members. We’re also marketing DList through events and promotions and through Facebook, MySpace and Google. We also advertise on some adult interest websites. The adult ’tube sites seem to do well for us.
Tell me more about these DList promotional events.
Adam: We work with the gay and lesbian organizations at a lot of different colleges. We’re coming up with some different contests and promotions, like traveling DList parties. We just did our first party at Harvard. It was a joint with MIT, and we had tons of guys come. We want to continue to host these parties at other campuses across the country.
What is the advertising budget for DList?
Adam: Marketing for DList is part of the overall marketing budget for Online Buddies, which is between $3 and $4 million per year.
Who would you consider DList’s competition to be?
Adam: One of them is called Connexion. Another one is called JustGuys.net. But they’re much smaller. Plus, they don’t seem to have the traction that DList has, especially now with the power of Online Buddies behind it and the marketing might we’re able to give it.
How does DList currently make money?
Adam: There are a few people who pay for some premium features. But the vast majority of the site is free, and the revenue is generated through advertising.
Do you plan to make any changes to the revenue model?
Adam: We aim to keep the website free so that more and more guys will use it, and thus we will be able to fund the website with advertising dollars.
We have a steady stream of advertisers now. We actually have advertisers waiting for us to make even more inventory available.
Any changes to current DList content offerings?
Jonathan: I don’t know if we plan any immediate changes in content. I think the first problem will be marketing and increasing the number of subscribers.
Who are some of your advertisers?
Adam: Most of them are through ad networks. In the past, we have worked with American Express, BMW, some of the clothing companies, some movies, etc. Lady GaGa is someone who advertises on our site.
Does Online Buddies offer any packaged advertising deal across all its sites?
Adam: Not yet, but it’s something we’re planning.
Internet Dating Industry Weekly News 2 Oct 2009 – 3 mins
This is the news for the week of September 26th through October 2nd, 2009. We hope you enjoy the new weekly news format. Here is the news we covered for this week:
- comScore numbers from iDate London as the first bullet point
- CourgarLife versus ABC’s “Cougar Town”
- Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan magazines teaming up to launch dating sites
- Online Buddies acquires DList.com
- Interview with Michael Norton of Harvard Business School
Online Buddies Acquires Majority Stake In Dlist.com
PRESS RELEASE – Sep 25 - Online Buddies, the parent company of Manhunt, has acquired a majority stake in a social networking site for gay men under age 30, DList.com. As part of the deal, Online Buddies will take over all marketing efforts for Dlist.com. Dlist.com launched in 2006 and similar to MySpace, the site allows members to share music, art, and photos, and build their personal pages.