Category: OkCupid

Online Dating Has More Singles Clicking

Posted on March 10, 2008

Sam_yagan_2 MY58 — Mar 10 — "We met online." Those words, once taboo, have now become mainstream. "Back in the 1990s, the early adapters were nerdy, geeky, techy people," said Sam Yagan, cofounder of OKCupid.com. "The other issue is the introduction of money into dating. That is what makes some people feel like it is desperation. Now online dating isn't a big deal, once you're used to using the Internet for shopping, news, information and more", said Yagan.

The full article was originally published at MY58, but is no longer available.

Internet Playing Middleman In Romancing

Posted on March 7, 2008

Couple_internet_playing INDIA TIMES — Mar 7 — Indian online dating revenue were $30 million in 2006 showing a growth rate of 50% year-on-year. Internet usage for online dating has increased from 9% in 2006 to 37% in 2007. In India, where up to 90% of all marriages are arranged, domestic online dating companies are racking up some impressive numbers. In US the online dating revenue was $900 million in 2007, and growing more than 70% year-on-year, according to Jupiter Research. The growth of various free dating sites like OkCupid, Matchdoctor.com, Bookofmatches, Smooth.com and CrazyBlindDate.com have driven the trend of online dating. The concept of virtual dating is gaining popularity, where sites like Mate4all.com or OmniDate.com are offering users the chance to date with the help of avatars in a place that resembles the real environment. Another promising technology is 'iovation' which helps online firms prevent fraudulent activities. FULL ARTICLE @ INDIA TIMES

OKCupid Takes Aim At Online Dating

Posted on February 25, 2008

Okcupidnew_logo BOSTON NOW — Feb 25 — Free dating site OK Cupid markets itself virally, spending less than 1% of its budget on advertising. "Everything about match.com is geared toward the user getting out their credit card," said CEO, Sam Yagan.

BostonNOW: What advice do you have for others starting a business?
Sam Yagan: One of the key drivers to my success is picking really great business partners. You also have to be 100 % passionate about it.

BN: What do you wish you had known before you started your business?
SY: Human resources really are the most important thing you have, so I wish I'd spent more time recruiting and developing the crew that we had.

BN: What's the biggest mistake you made in getting your business going?
SY: I think early on we didn't spend enough time differentiating ourselves from the competition. I spent too much time on the concept of "free". It's not about just being free, it's about being free and better.

The full article was originally published at Boston Now, but is no longer available.

Starting Up: The Business Of Love

Posted on February 14, 2008

Online_dating_nove SM SMALL BIZ — Feb 13 — Making a bundle in the dating industry, isn't easy for a small player competing against Yahoo! Personals, Match.com and eHarmony. At PlentyofFish, which now ranks among the top 10 dating sites in the U.S. for unique visitors, Frind's strategy was simple. "I undercut them on price," he says. When it comes to the business of love, newbie entrepreneurs need to figure out a way to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Here's how:

– Find a Niche
– Undercut the Competition
– Add Value
– Innovate

More narrowly focused niches have begun to surface. i.e. golfmates.com and vegetariandating.com. The best niche businesses are usually started by entrepreneurs who have a deep understanding of the community they want to serve. i.e. Patrick H. Perrine, a psychologist who spent years studying human sexuality and dating preferences, launched a gay male matchmaking service in San Francisco in 2004, and then expanded the service online – myPartner.com — to a national audience last year. "We discovered there was no space for gay men looking for a serious relationship on the web", he says. To compete with the big guys, Sam Yagan, co-founder of free dating site, OKCupid.com, offers users the ability to craft their own personality quizzes, or choose from 30,000 others. The idea behind the quizzes is that users will share them with their friends who, in turn, may sign up for the service.

The full article was originally published at SmallBiz, but is no longer available.

The Hottest Trends In Online Dating

Posted on February 10, 2008

Mark NETWORK WORLD — Feb 7 — No one knows online dating better than Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. Brooks is a modern-day Cyrano — he's a consultant to many of the Web's largest online dating sites as well as traditional matchmaking services. Network World interviewed Brooks about the hottest trends in online dating.

Q:How many online dating services are there?
MB: Hitwise has estimated there are 800-plus. I think that's about right for the U.S. A lot of them are affiliate sites that are driving traffic to the main dating sites.

Q: How has online dating affected traditional matchmaking services?
MB: Internet dating has warmed an entire generation of users to the prospect of getting help in dating and paying for that help.

Q: What new technologies are you are seeing in online dating?
MB: One of the biggest innovations is avatar-based instant messaging. One site that's pioneering the use of avatars is OmniDate.com. Another emerging technology is iovation, which helps online dating sites battle fraud. With iovation's Reputation Manager, one dating site can flag a person as abusive and throw them out and then let other sites in the online dating community know about it.

Q: How has online dating technology changed in recent years?
MB: Actually, online dating is in about the same place that it has been in for the last three years. One of the things I'd like to see is more technology being applied to personality profiling. In this area there are four companies worth mentioning: Perfectmatch.com; eHarmony.com; Chemistry.com; and True.com.

Q: Have social networkings like Facebook and MySpace cut into online dating traffic?
MB: The numbers show that less people are coming to Internet dating sites. According to ComScore the number of people who came to Internet dating sites in December 2007 was down 10% over the prior year. But I don't think it's the end of online dating. I think the lookilous have gone away.

Q:What are the hottest trends in online dating?
MB: One is the rise in Baby Boomers and also rise of free dating sites, such as Plentyoffish.com, DateHookup.com, OkCupid.com, Matchdoctor.com, Bookofmatches.com, Smooch.com and CrazyBlindDate.com.

Q: What do you see as the future of online dating?
MB: It's difficult to enter the market and be a large generic dating site at this stage. The only thing you can build today is a niche dating site, and even niches are hard to build. That's why we're seeing the rise of a bunch of companies that offer white-label dating services. One of these companies is Whitelabeldating.com.

Full article @ NetworkWorld

OkCupid Raises $6 Million

Posted on January 12, 2007

Okcupidlogo_1GIGAOM — Jan 12 — OkCupid raised $6 million from a group of angels. Each time I talk to Yagan about his new company, he pulls out some variation on the same line: "Our goal is to reduce GDP by half a million dollars by completely eliminating the subscription online dating market." Yagan says he can run a successful dating site without making people pay, something PlentyofFish has also had success with. OkCupid currently has 600,000 active users (logged on within 90 days). Match.com has 1.3 million subscribers. PlentyofFish reports a quarter million users logging in per day. Yagan led SparkNotes and eDonkey before but, didn't take venture capital. He talked to twenty VC firms last year but went with collecting checks from five angels, whom he says he's not disclosing because we've never heard of them. FULL ARTICLE @ GIGAOM

 

OkCupid Raises $6 Million

Posted on January 12, 2007

Okcupidlogo_1GIGAOM — Jan 12 — OkCupid raised $6 million from a group of angels. Each time I talk to Yagan about his new company, he pulls out some variation on the same line: "Our goal is to reduce GDP by half a million dollars by completely eliminating the subscription online dating market." Yagan says he can run a successful dating site without making people pay, something PlentyofFish has also had success with. OkCupid currently has 600,000 active users (logged on within 90 days). Match.com has 1.3 million subscribers. PlentyofFish reports a quarter million users logging in per day. Yagan led SparkNotes and eDonkey before but, didn't take venture capital. He talked to twenty VC firms last year but went with collecting checks from five angels, whom he says he's not disclosing because we've never heard of them. FULL ARTICLE @ GIGAOM

 

Oodle Launches Personals

Posted on December 4, 2006

Oodle_logoBUSINESS WIRE — Dec 4 — Oodle, the search engine for classifieds, launched Oodle Personals for consumers to search over a million public profiles from sites such as OkCupid and PlentyofFish as well as smaller community sites Nerve and GolfMates.com. Launched in April of 2005, Oodle provides an index of 19 million listings from 75,000 sources.

Mark Brooks: Lycos Dating Search has gone away. Dating sites paid on a cost per lead basis and fed them a flat file of members periodically. The lead stream wasn't what partner sites were hoping for unfortunately. Oodle seems like a better bet. No flat file, no CPL. Nice! I called them and they tell me they grew 463% since last year. They're funded by Greylock Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. Featured listings are available if you want to move your listings up in the search rankings and pay them some money.

Another Free Dating Site – Datopia

Posted on October 11, 2006

Datopia_logo_1PR WEB — Oct 11 — The Heart2Heart Network, a leading provider of targeted online dating services, today announced the launch of its free, all-access dating community, Datopia.

The full article was originally published at PR Web, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Ever since Markus Frind showed off his $900k check for January and February from Google Adsense I've seen free dating site after free dating site launch. I've added a top 3 ranking for the free dating sites on the right bar. Plentyoffish is way ahead. OKCupid and Matchdoctor are doing well also. It falls off significantly from their.

Free Sites vs American Singles, Social Networks

Posted on June 26, 2006

Logo_plentyoffishOPW — June 26 — Here's a little graph of Plentyoffish vs OKCupid vs Matchdoctor vs American Singles fyi. Plentyoffish is powering away. Here's Myspace vs Friendster vs Hi5 vs Facebook.

Mark Brooks: Crazy outta control! Myspace is taking over the internet.