Category: Outlets – Globe and Mail

The Fishing’s Been Pretty Good So Far For Markus Frind

Posted on February 11, 2013

Pof markus frind sepiaTHE GLOBE AND MAIL – Feb 10 – When Markus Frind sat down at his home computer in 2003 to build a website, he had only one goal: to teach himself a programming language. But a decade later, his programming exercise has grown into one of the largest dating sites in the world, with ~50M registered users visiting POF more than 430M times each month. In Canada alone, ~400K people log in every day.

Q: How does Plenty of Fish’s matching system work?
Markus Frind: We look at hundreds of thousands of people who left the site in relationships and we look at what combinations of attributes made them successful. For instance, we know that a doctor will never date a carpenter.

Q: Do you have any interesting statistics that relate to Canada specifically?
A: Edmonton and Calgary have a lot of singles. It’s mostly because those are singles towns; with the oil boom and whatnot it’s harder to meet people.

Q: Does the site see any patterns, such as dips or spikes, over certain holidays?
A: We see 15- 20% increase from two days after Christmas and it goes all the way until the Wednesday after Valentine’s Day.

Q: What have been the biggest changes to the site lately?
A: ~60% of our users now access the site from mobile. We also launched top prospects a few weeks ago, which shows all the people you have communicated with and then we predict which one of those you’re most likely to enter into a relationship with and also stay in it.

by Andrea Woo
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

See all posts on POF.com

Tawkify: Online Dating With Human Matchmakers

Posted on August 3, 2012

Tawkify logoGLOBE AND MAIL – Aug 3 – Tawkify.com is a new dating site that is launching in Canada. Singles who sign up are prompted to answer fewer than 10 questions for assessment by Tawkify’s team of five human matchmakers. When a match is found, Mr. Brooks, an automated robot butler, e-mails with instructions on how to proceed. It costs $19 per match, $49 for three matches and a variety of higher-end packages are available, ranging from $99 to $999 for unlimited matches. The matchmakers' involvement goes beyond the initial matchmaking. They act as the go-betweens, scheduling calls and planning dates like personal assistants.

by Sofi Papamarko
See full article at Globe and Mail

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‘No Asian. No Indian’: Picky Dater Or Racist Dater?

Posted on February 24, 2012

Fastlife logo newTHE GLOBE AND MAIL – Feb 23 – Racial filtering is alive and well on mainstream dating and hookup sites, which give users the option of checking ethnic preferences alongside ideal body types and social habits like smoking and drinking. While most critics agree that the ethnicity checkbox is vastly preferable to specifying 'No Asians,' they disagree about whether the option is a step backward. Is it any different than hunting through niche sites like Shaadi or JDate? Grindr acknowledged that users can list race in their preferences, but can be banned for posting material "perceived to incite racism". "We also encourage our users to state what they are looking for as opposed to what they are not looking for." A dating poll of 2K Lavalife users found that 74% of women surveyed said ethnicity affected their dating decisions, compared with 49% of men. "Men are more open to meeting people from different communities. They tend to concentrate on physical aspects whereas women are much more interested in lifestyle and background," said Justin Parfitt, CEO of speed-dating company FastLife International. "People should be free to have sex or not have sex with anyone they want", argued Harry Reis, a psychology professor at the University of Rochester who co-authored a review of 400 studies on online dating. "In my estimation, it is fine (although self-limiting) to be racist with regard to sexual preferences", he said. "Throw out the checklist," Mr. Parfitt advises. "What you think you want and where you end up finding chemistry are often two very different things."

by Zosia Bielski
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

See all posts on Shaadi            See all posts on Lavalife
See all posts on JDate              See all posts on FastLife
See all posts on Grindr

Airline Offers “Meet & Seat” Dating Service

Posted on December 20, 2011

Klm planeTHE GLOBE AND MAIL – Dec 16 - KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is introducing “Meet & Seat,” a service that lets passengers pick their seatmates in advance based on shared interests stated on their Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. Malaysia Airlines has already launched a similar service on Facebook, letting passengers find out which friends might be taking the same flight. Virgin Atlantic has also shown interest in the scheme.

by Zosia Bielski
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

Matchmaking with Money in Mind

Posted on September 29, 2011

Perfectpartners header GLOBE AND MAIL – Sep 29 – Gloria MacDonald, founder of Perfect Partners, says both men and women equally want a partner who shares the same financial values. Asking about finances on the first, second, or third date is tacky, according to Ms. MacDonald. By your fifth date though, you’re okay. Money and sex are two of the early-stage conflicts.

by Angela Self
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

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Online Dating and Politics Don’t Mix: Study

Posted on September 21, 2011

Onlinedatingwoman1 THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Sep 20 - People are more likely to reveal they are overweight than divulge their political stripes on online dating sites, according to a new American study. Sifting through 2,944 randomly sampled online dating profiles, only 14% of users stated their “political interests." Older daters as well as those with higher levels of income and education were more likely to divulge their political leanings. So were men, with women 8% less likely to report a political bent.

by Zosia Bielski
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

The Vancouverite behind PlentyofFish

Posted on August 27, 2011

Frind_big THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Aug 25 – Markus Frind founded  PlentyofFish.com in 2003 on his home PC. Today, it’s the most popular dating site in the country. When he built the site, there was no shred of a business plan, just a basic offering. "When I first met Markus at a conference in 2006," recalls Mark Brooks, a consultant for the Internet-dating business, "he said, 'I’m going to be the biggest dating site in the U.S.' I pooh-poohed his hokey little site. Then he made me eat my words." Because it’s the Internet, and nothing makes sense, the site’s original aesthetic laziness bolstered its credibility. "It was underpromising in its looks and overdelivering in its service," says Brooks. "It sent the message, as a Craigslist does, that here’s this one guy doing us all a favour.”  According to comScore, PlentyofFish draws 2.8 billion page views per month, compared to 723M for Match.com, and has 6.3M unique visitors. And the newly launched PlentyofFish mobile app has been downloaded by 1M users. Markus declares that PlentyofFish users send 5.5 billion e-mail messages to one another in a single year. Match.com has the mightiest revenue $400 million (U.S.) last year, with revenue up 20% in the first half of 2011. By comparison, says Frind, PlentyofFish’s earnings, generated solely from advertising, are in the "tens of millions."

On registering at PlentyofFish.com, users are asked a series of questions that determine whether they should be placed in a "commitment material" bucket or a “casual dater” bucket. Then the match pools are narrowed down to "people you aren’t likely to hate". From there, "every user affects another user’s behaviour."

by Maryam Sanati
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

See all posts on Plentyoffish

You Deleted Your Dating Profile. Is It Really Gone?

Posted on June 22, 2011

Web-dating_jpg_1289337cl-3 GLOBE AND MAIL – June 21 - Beware what you share while searching for love online, your intimate details may linger long after you have found it. That’s the warning from the Privacy Commission of Canada in a report tabled today in Parliament. A Canadian woman asked eHarmony to delete her account. eHarmony said it could not “entirely delete her record of having joined, or remove her personal information.” eHarmony only “anonymizes” the information because 40% of member reactivate within two years. The online dating site should give users a chose between deactivating accounts and deleting them permanently – and needed to be clear about the process for doing so. eHarmony responded by saying it would keep personal information of departing clients for two years. While the commission accepted eHarmony’s actions, the report also pointed out that many of the online dating sites do not have privacy policies.

by Erin Anderssen
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

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Tigits Dials Up Online Dating Opportunity

Posted on April 15, 2011

Tigits logo THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Apr 15 – When Sean Miller got into the online dating world, he saw opportunity in providing people with second telephone numbers that could be used just for dating, and would be less expensive and easier to get than through a major telephone company. It took him 18 months to develop Tigits. Mr. Miller was also able to bring on Bruce Croxon, co-founder and former CEO of Lavalife as an adviser and investor. The service, which includes voice mail and will soon offer text messaging, costs $9.99 a month after a 30-day free trial. Tigits’ customers get a second telephone number that works just like their regular number. They can block callers, switch number and stop their service at any time.

by Mark Evans
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Vumber came three years earlier with the same solution. It's good for end users, but not good for dating sites. The service is too disconnected from dating sites.  Match and FriendFinder integrated Jangl (which was later sold to Jajah). Jangl/Jajah is a better solution for dating sites because it keeps users connected to the dating site. Users simply hit a 'call this person' button on Match. (Full Disclosure: Vumber and Jangl are prior clients of Courtland Brooks)

See all posts on Lavalife

Love May Be The Drug, But Work Is No Longer Place To Score

Posted on February 14, 2011

Helen fisher1 GLOBE AND MAIL – Feb 13 – According to a new U.S. survey of 5,200 single people, only a third would be willing to date someone they met on the job. And only 12% said they actually do date a colleague. “Office romances are few, short and not usually destructive,” said Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist. Only 6% of single women said they had ever dated their boss. People now have many other opportunities to meet potential partners aside from the workplace, most notably via the Internet. Citing another survey of more than 11,000 married people, Dr. Fisher said: “One out of six marriages made in the past three years were between people who met online – more than twice the number who met in bars, clubs or other social events and many more times than through church or place of worship.”

By Susan Pinker
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.