FAST COMPANY – Jan 26 – Author Dan Slater, who is writing a book about the online dating industry, attended the iDate Conference in Miami and took a look at the way technology is influencing the way we date online. Things are changing now that one third of America’s 90M singles date online, and it’s no longer the “unspeakable underworld” it once was. Seventeen years ago, when Gary Kremen founded Match.com, anonymity was key to success, protecting people’s privacy and allowing them to reveal their “true identity” on their own terms. In 2007, Zoosk was formed on the basis that the younger generation grew up on technology and the conventional online dating platform was of no interest to them. Zoosk “is for a social life – with dating in mind” where privacy concerns are not as rampant. New sites continue to pop up in the ever-changing industry challenge our notions of privacy and what we should expect going forward. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is right – morality may be divine, but it’s also fickle and shifts in technology make new things possible.
Category: Match.com
Check Criminal Records Of Online Daters, Experts Say
CBC NEWS – Jan 16 – Online dating companies should be taking advantage of the RCMP criminal records system to keep convicted criminals off their sites, say experts in the identity verification business. "There is no perfect instant criminal record system on the planet," David Dinesen told CBC News. "But Canada is the best in the world. No question." Criminal backgrounds of Canadian daters could be checked without breaking privacy laws, because the daters could authorize or volunteer to provide their criminal conviction record check to the dating sites, he said. Online dating companies such as PlentyofFish, Match.com, eHarmony and others should offer options to their Canadian clients. PlentyofFish, founded by Markus Frind, makes ~$30M annually from advertising on its website. The company espouses a "buyer beware" philosophy and posts warnings and safety tips for clients on its free site. eHarmony sent CBC News an email statement emphasizing that "eHarmony's efforts are focused on empowering people to use good judgment and to be responsible for their safety on eHarmony, as they would anywhere else. Since there is not a comprehensive database of criminal convictions and many crimes go unreported by the victims, eHarmony does not want to give its members a false sense of security. We make it very clear in several places throughout the site that eHarmony does not conduct criminal background checks on our members. In an email, Match.com told CBC News: "Match is always reviewing new ways to keep the community safe and is aware of RCMP National Repository of Criminal Records. Unlike the National Sex Offender Registry, against which Match.com screens against in the United States, the RCMP repository is not public information. Therefore, utilizing this information is not currently possible."
by Jeannie Stiglio
See full article at CBC News
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Online LDS Dating Sites Grow In Popularity
UNIVERSE – Jan 10 – More and more Latter-day Saint members have found success with online dating, through numerous sites including LDSSingles.com, Match.com and Plentyoffish.com. Arielle Schechtman, director of Spark Networks, the company that owns sites such as LDSSingles and ChristianMingle, said members of the LDS Church would likely be surprised at the number of people who have met their spouse online.
by Chelsey Saatkamp
See full article at Universe
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Gary Kremen, Founder Of Match.com And Founder & CEO Of Sociogramics
OPW INTERVIEW – Jan 3 – Gary Kremen, started it all. He’s the original CEO and the founder of Match.com. Here’s his story. – Mark Brooks
You founded Match.com in 1993. What was your original vision?
Our original vision was a dating service based on email. My genesis and idea was to find the right woman for myself. I had the idea that if I put all the women in the world in a database and sorted it on my criteria I’d find the right woman to marry.
How do you think the site has improved over the years?
Clearly the web and mobile interface has reached consumers and what they are doing today. Deeper databases, different ways of reaching…it has been improvement.
Back in 1996 you had a disagreement with the VC’s that were funding Match.com regarding serving alternative markets. What were the alternative markets?
I saw an opportunity. Match.com was about long-term relationships that were not considered casual dating. The long term relationships definitely could give online dating present value but I thought that short term relationships, gay/lesbian dating, different ethnic group targeting was the way to go. They were embarrassed by the whole thing.
Are you surprised by the level of innovations that has occurred since you started Match.com, one way or the other?
Match.com was not the first into mobile, not the first in using new technology/new platforms like Facebook. I would say that the innovation is at the rest of the market, not ahead of the market.
Internet dating really seems to be be moving onto the mobile phone. What do you think is going to be the next big move?
I think using GPS/location data to date more people around you and maybe social graph data.
If you were betting on a particular dating site which horse would you put your money on? Say we’re going to invest a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
I’ve been looking at Skout who have an interest in mobile product and more short term dating than long term but I don’t want disparage with any public bets. It’s a tougher business today because customer acquisitions costs are so high.
Skout sounds like a great horse. Tell us more about it.
They believed early on in using mobile location based data and using applications where the urban consumer would want to use it. I’ve been helping them out from time to time
So you do have an interest in getting back into the Internet dating arena?
I wouldn’t say that. I think there’s a time for everything and I think the time is gone for being the first mover. There’s other businesses out there that excite me, other technologies, other things that add different types of value to society.
So let’s move onto Sociogramics because that sounds very timely and another great cause. How does Sociogramics help the underbanked and those with little credit?
There’s a lot of borrowers out there, let’s call them fallen angels, underbanked that deserve credit that aren’t being given chances by traditional lending institutions. So we are trying to help traditional lending institutions by bringing back the importance of character to lending so people who want to pay back can. One of the things that we learned in this financial crisis is that there are a lot of people that didn’t. Can we go find people that really do want to pay back that aren’t given the chance? Character and community is the bottom line.
6 Million Brits Set To Seek Love Online During Holidays
METRO.CO.UK – Dec 26 – ~6M British people are set to take to the internet to find love during the festive season in the biggest week of the year for online dating. According to Match.com one in ten Brits is likely to browse a dating site between now and 2012. Meanwhile US-based dating sites also expect a boost in traffic over the next week as hopefuls look to find someone to share New Year's Eve with, as well as forthcoming events such as Valentine's Day.
The full article was originally published at Metro.co.uk, but is no longer available.
Dating Sites Report 15%-20% Increase In Traffic As Big Night Approaches
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS – Dec 25 - “From Dec. 26 to Feb. 14 is our busiest season,” says Whitney Casey, Match.com’s relationship expert. “New Year’s Eve is such a big deal because it’s a new beginning,” she explains. “If you’ve had a bad time dating last year, there’s just so much optimism in the air for the new one.” Plentyoffish.com reports a 15% jump in signups for its free dating site this time of year, coupled with a 20% spike in activity from current users, “many of whom are looking for a date for New Year’s Eve,” says rep Shannon Smith.
How Match.com’s Founder Created The World’s Biggest Dating Site And Walked Away With Just $50,000
BUSINESS INDISDER – Dec 16 – In 1994, when only 5% of Americans had Internet access, Kremen took a $2,500 advance on his credit card to buy the domain name Match.com. Today, Match is the undisputed leader of online dating. Incredibly, however, Kremen has no ties to the Match brand today. Kremen walked away with $50K when he departed Match, a site that is on track to earn $450M in revenue in 2011. Late in 1994, Kremen secured $1.5M in funding from angel investors and a few venture-capital firms. Match went live in April 1995. Kremen was spending every waking hour working on the site, but a rift began to form in the board room. The first point of contention was the business model. The board also disliked the personals category. And the V.C.’s had serious doubts about Kremen’s management skills.
After butting heads once too often, the V.C.’s removed Kremen from the CEO post in mid-1995, although he remained on the ECI board. The board’s next step was to find a new CEO. Richard Neustadt, the first candidate, was “a great, salt-of- the-earth guy,” according to Kremen. On the weekend before Neustadt’s first day at ECI, he died in a rafting accident. Then the board made a billion-dollar mistake. Frustrated with the difficulty of finding the right CEO, and eager to pursue the newspaper-partnership business model for ECI, the V.C.’s spun off Match in 1997, selling it for $7M to Cendant. In June 1999, Cendant sold Match to Ticketmaster Citysearch Services for $50M. Kremen received only $50K cash from the Match sale.
Dating Stocks To Go Steady With
SMART MONEY – Dec 12 – Of singles over 18 years old, 43% have browsed online dating sites, equating to 40M active U.S. accounts and ~600M visits per month, according to Mashable. Several publicly traded companies compete for online daters. But just like dates themselves, not all are worth your time or investment dollars. The strongest stock also happens to be the biggest. IAC/InterActiveCorp dominates the category with a 20% market share, according to Online Personals Watch. Significantly smaller but potentially more lucrative than IAC is Spark Networks. Last month, Spark Networks reported a 28% boost in YOY revenue and a 30% increase in paying subscribers. While the U.S. has over 40M active online dating accounts, China has more than three times that amount. Jiayuan.com, China's largest dating site, listed on the NASDAQ in May. Despite doubling the number of active paying accounts since 2010, the stock has cratered in the past month.
by Jonathan Hoenig
See full article at Smart Money
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Apple Axes Match.com’s iOS App Over Billing Squabble
FIERCEMOBILE CONTENT – Dec 2 - Apple has removed Match.com's iOS application from its App Store after the dating site failed to adhere to the storefront's subscription billing policies. It enabled users to pay for Match subscriptions with a credit card using an external link, bypassing the App Store's billing mechanisms and denying Apple its 30% cut of subscriptions and content sold via iOS apps. Apple and Match.com are currently in talks on how to revamp the app to meet the App Store's guidelines.
by Jason Ankeny
The full article was originally published at FierceMobile Content, but is no longer available.
Boomer Talk: Dating And Mating
NEWBURY PORT NEWS – Dec 2 – Close to 29% of adults ages 50 to 65 are now single. Dating can be challenging at any age. But for boomers, this is even more true when you consider that social skills may be a bit rusty. While some boomers may be skeptical or embarrassed to try online dating, people over age 50 make up Match.com's fastest-growing segment of users, with a 300% increase since 2000. When it comes to relationships, 84% of boomers rank physical intimacy as being "important" or "very important."