OPW – Nov 23 – Have you ever watched TV, and surfed at the same time. The simul-surfing trend is rising, according to an article in Businessweek. The TV has been losing attention to the internet, so some TV networks are using this simultaneous viewing behavior as a way to draw people into digital discussions around the content they're viewing. It's also proving lucrative. A Nielsen study found that ~60% of TV viewers simul-surf, and viewers spend 3 hours 41 mins a month watching TV and simul-surfing. Bravo has been encouraging simul-surfing and has seen digital ad sales improve notably. Companion viewing is also seen as a way of countering the rising DVR and Netflix threat to ad sales. Miso, Get Glue, and Play Philo are jostling for attention as stand-alone simul-surfing TV communities. But hey, shouldn't dating sites latch onto this trend? Certain TV shows would be natural partners for white labeled dating sites. – Mark Brooks
Category: Outlets – BusinesWeek
Japan’s Government Plays Matchmaker
BUSINESS WEEK – Aug 26 - Japan's Fukui prefecture has the nation's biggest share of dual-income households, the highest ratio of working women, and the lowest unemployment rate. What it doesn't have is enough babies. So this month the provincial government will launch an online dating site for singles, called the Fukui Marriage-Hunting Cafe. At 1.34 children per woman, Japan's fertility rate is one of the lowest in the world, well below the 2.1 that is considered the minimum for a developed nation to maintain a constant population. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK
Mark Brooks: The Singapore government has also gotten involved in spurring and supporting matchmaking startups. Meanwhile, in Japan, idating is somewhat of a dirty word thanks to thousands of sites that match men with young girls, preferably school girls. A major fetish in Japan. Mixi is the main social network in Japan, and the place where many young singles connect, through their friends.
Infidelity Rises When She Makes More Than He Does
BUSINESS WEEK – Aug 16 – A new study by Christin Munsch, a graduate student at Cornell University, finds that men are more likely to cheat if their income is much lower than what their wife or female partner makes, while women are more likely to fool around if they make more than their husband or male partner. However, Helen Fisher, an anthropologist, said it makes sense that men with more money would be more likely to fool around. "He probably travels a lot and drives nicer cars, and he's probably in finer restaurants. He's advertising the kind of resources that women are looking for from an evolutionary perspective," she said. "Around the world, women go for men who are on the top of the pile." As for women, she said, wealth brings them a greater power to do what they want, whether it's leave a bad relationship or have an affair.
The full article was originally published at BusinessWeek, but is no longer available.
Yahoo! Enters The Middle East Market
BUSINESS WEEK — Aug 26 – Bentelhalal is a popular matrimonial site within Maktoob, the large Jordanian Internet property Yahoo! said it was acquiring on Aug 25 for what TechCrunch reported to be $85M. The purchase gives Yahoo command of one of the most visited online news portals in the Arab world, with business, finance, games, blogging, and other sites that reach an estimated 16.5M people. Maktoob is largely supported by online ads, which are expected to make up a $142M market among Arabic-speaking countries by 2011, according to Dubai-based Madar Research.
The full article was originally published at Business Week, but is no longer available.
Why Pay When Dating’s Free Sites Beckon?
BUSINESS WEEK — Feb 6 – In December, free sites accounted for ~25% of all traffic to the top 10 U.S. dating sites, up from 15% a year ago, according to Hitwise. During the second half of 2008, PlentyofFish was the most-trafficked dating site in the U.S., according to Hitwise. "We are going to double our staff this year," said Markus Frind, CEO of PlentyofFish.com. "The economic downturn doesn't affect me." OkCupid.com says growth picked up in Sep, as the economic decline accelerated. Some paid sites are getting hurt more than others. Traffic to Yahoo Personals fell 15% in Dec from a year earlier, according to Hitwise. In the same period, eHarmony's traffic dropped 61% and True.com's tumbled 68%. At the same time, traffic to Match.com jumped 31% while Singlesnet.com's traffic rose 16%.
The full article was originally published at Business Week, but is no longer available.
See all posts on Plentyoffish See all posts on True.com
See all posts on YahooPersonals See all posts on Singlesnet
See all posts on eHarmony See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on OkCupid
Companies Use Twitter To Bolster Their Brands
BUSINESS WEEK — Sep 6 — A growing number of companies are keeping track of what’s said about their brands on Twitter. Comcast, Dell, General Motors, H&R Block, Kodak, and Whole Foods Market are among a handful of companies haunting Twitter to do everything from burnish brands to provide customer service. JetBlue keeps tabs on what Twitter users say about it, using a scanning tool, to find customers who might need information, say, on flight delays or cancellations. Begun in 2006, Twitter is a pioneer of microblogging, a way for users to keep others informed of their current status by way of text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, or the Web. Other services that have followed suit include Jaiku, Pownce, FriendFeed, and Plurk.
The full article was originally published at Business Week, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: See Tweetbeep, Tweetscan, and Summize to search Twitter. Every brand should have their own Twitters set up. We have a newsflash set up for Social Networking Watch under twitter.com/social_news, and for Online Personals Watch at twitter.com/internet_dating
A Kiss-Off To Online Dating
BUSINESS WEEK — Nov 20 — The era of Web 1.0 is over, online dating is dead. Going on sites like Facebook or MySpace it's like going to a bar with your friends, whereas a dating site is like walking past a bunch of animals in cages at the zoo. According to comScore, the number of people visiting online dating sites dropped 6% in September. Unique visitors to Yahoo Personals and eHarmony fell 21%, Match.com had a 16% drop, and True.com's visitors plummeted 46%. ComScore does show some names like Plentyoffish.com growing, but these are new sites with far smaller user bases. I doubt PlentyofFish will ever get to the size or valuation of a Match.com.
The full article was originally published at BusinessWeek, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Match had $89.1 million revenue in Q3. That's ~$360 million a year. PlentyofFish is now making $10 million+ a year. I doubted Markus would ever get into the top 10 when I met him in 2004. I underestimated him. PlentyofFish is #2, Match #4 on the Hitwise USA rankings. On Comscore USA rankings, Match is #2 and PlentyofFish is #8. In the UK, Hitwise ranks PlentyofFish.com as the #2 dating site, and Match comes in at #5. And PlentyofFish comes in at #1 in Canada according to Comscore, with Lavalife at #2 and Match at #13. See the full rankings here. (Disclosure: PlentyofFish is a client of Courtland Brooks)
Europe’s Love Affair With Meetic
BUSINESS WEEK — Oct 5 — Meetic is now Europe's biggest online dating site, with $73.9 million in revenues during the first half of this year, up 48.5% from a year ago. Although it only has 525,000 paying subscribers compared to Match.com's 1.3 million, the online dating market in Europe is expected to double from 2006 to 2011 while the U.S. market will likely grow less than 50%.
The full article was originally published at Business Week, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: I'll be spending a few months in Europe next year and visiting major dating sites and social networks. Prague, Helsinki, Munich, Paris, Cannes, and London are on the itinerary for Q1-Q2, so far. I'm hoping to do some CEO video interviews, and see how continental Europe does internet dating and SNS. The European dating companies definitely seem a little more 'progressive'. Your comments please.
The Coming Virtual Web
BUSINESS WEEK — Apr 19 — The Internet of the future, and the vast wealth of information and services on it, will look different: slicker, more realistic, more interactive and social than anything we experience today. "Three-dimensional virtual worlds will, in the near future, be pervasive interfaces for the Internet," says Bob Moore, a sociologist who studies virtual worlds at PARC, in Silicon Valley. Virtual worlds are inherently social settings. "You go up to an avatar and you know there's a real person on the other end," says Joe Miller, VP at (Second Life) Linden Lab. Social interaction is the key driver of people's use of the Internet today. From social networking sites to participatory projects such as Wikipedia to sharing services like Google's YouTube, e-mail and IM.
The full article was originally published at Business Week, but is no longer available.
The Coming Virtual Web
BUSINESS WEEK — Apr 19 — The Internet of the future, and the vast wealth of information and services on it, will look different: slicker, more realistic, more interactive and social than anything we experience today. "Three-dimensional virtual worlds will, in the near future, be pervasive interfaces for the Internet," says Bob Moore, a sociologist who studies virtual worlds at PARC, in Silicon Valley. Virtual worlds are inherently social settings. "You go up to an avatar and you know there's a real person on the other end," says Joe Miller, VP at (Second Life) Linden Lab. Social interaction is the key driver of people's use of the Internet today. From social networking sites to participatory projects such as Wikipedia to sharing services like Google's YouTube, e-mail and IM.
The full article was originally published at Business Week, but is no longer available.