Category: Outlets – Wall Street Journal

Marriage-Maker Claims Are Tied In Knots

Posted on July 29, 2009

Marriage1 WSJ — July 29 — eHarmony has twice commissioned studies from Harris Interactive to estimate its impact on marriages. The first, in 2005, found that 90 people a day married because of the site. The second, in 2007, found that the number had surged to 236. Using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on marriages, eHarmony estimated that it could claim credit for 2% of marriages in the U.S. A Match.com media kit claimed that 12 marriages a day trace their roots to the site, but the company now says it's inaccurate. Markus Frind, CEO of PlenyofFish.com, says his site creates 800,000 relationships each year, according to exit interviews with departing members. ~100,000 marriages per year. The only statistic Mr. Frind knows with certainty is the number of members who have self-reported success stories on his site — now ~ 2,000. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ

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Spark Networks Loses Online Daters’ Love

Posted on June 11, 2009
Logo_spark WALL STREET JOURNAL — June 10 — Spark Networks is losing subscribers even as Internet dating as a whole is growing.  Spark said it's trying to rebalance its portfolio to be less reliant on JDate. However, its segment weighting seems to be shifting more because of the relative speed of subscriber losses. Stock is down about 9% year-to-date and ~47% over the last 52 weeks, reflecting the prolonged poor performance, and has a market capitalization of $47.1 million. "I live in hope for them," said Mark Brooks, editor of the blog OnlinePersonalsWatch.com and an industry consultant. "But quite consistently, they've shown not particularly enthralling results." Spark's Q1 revenue dropped 20%. Meanwhile, revenue at Match slid just 1%. Ad-supported free sites like PlentyOfFish.com, which saw unique visitors nearly double to ~2.9 million in April from a year earlier, are a threat. Spark is focusing ad spending on a handful of its niche sites to bring them to scale and has all but given up on AmericanSingles.com.

Mark Brooks: Spark Networks acquired Engage.com a few months back, and acquired Hurrydate in February 2007.  What should Spark Networks do next? Your comments please.

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eHarmony’s Same-Sex Dating Site Launches

Posted on March 31, 2009

Compatiblepartners picture WSJ — Mar 31 – In response to discrimination litigation, eHarmony will launch the gay version of its heterosexual match-making service on Tuesday. The site, Compatible Partners, was developed as part of a settlement last fall with the New Jersey attorney general. Patrick Perrine, founder and CEO of myPartner.com, an online dating site for gay men, remains skeptical about eHarmony’s new venture. He says the compatibility system on his site, matching men with other men, wouldn’t work for lesbian women. “They’re very different populations that have very different needs,” he said. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ

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PlentyofFish Adds Pay Option For “Serious” Daters

Posted on March 6, 2009

Plentyoffish logo WSJ — Mar 6 — PlentyofFish announced plans to add a pay option aimed at customers who want to show that they’re serious about meeting someone. In a February report, Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay called it “the most successful of a new generation of ‘free’ or advertising-supported dating sites,” and one whose growth could pose a “Craigslist-like disintermediation” threat to established players like Yahoo Personals and IAC’s Match.com. PlentyofFish’s approach to a paid option is different from Match and Yahoo Personals, which charge users when they sign up or attempt to contact someone. “Paid sites monetize on impulse,” Markus Frind wrote on his blog. “PlentyofFish is going to monetize on user intent. I believe we will have far more members that are serious than paid sites.” FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ

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Deciding To Ditch A Successful Ad Campaign

Posted on February 25, 2009

Eharmony-logo
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL — Feb 23 — eHarmony's successful five-year ad campaign was bringing
in millions of users and was so well-recognized that "Saturday Night
Live" parodied it. But eHamorny's CEO Mr. Waldorf worried the format – which featured
several daters per ad talking about the site – might be too
superficial. He wanted a way to focus more closely on individual
couples. He considered new commercials that featured one couple per ad
talking in-depth about their relationship. FULL ARTICLE @ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

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EHarmony Settles Dispute Over Gay Matches

Posted on November 25, 2008

Eharmony-logo
WSJ — Nov 20 –  A settlement between eHarmony and the New Jersey attorney general requires the online heterosexual dating service to also cater to homosexuals, raising questions about whether other services that target a niche clientele could be forced to expand their business models. eHarmony denied violating discrimination law and said its business had been based on years of researching opposite-sex marriages to understand what makes such couples compatible. EHarmony attracted nearly 2.6m unique visitors in October, a 28% jump from a year earlier, according to comScore. Consumers are expected to dole out nearly $1 billion in fees for online dating sites this year, according to Forrester Research, and the market is expected to expand by 10% in each of the next five years. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ

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Drilling Through Data

Posted on September 15, 2008

Book_the_numerati
WSJ — Sep 15 — Book review of The Numerati. The world is buried in data. Computer programs drill
through it all to pick out patterns and trends that may be useful to
marketers. The Numerati are taking over dating services, too. How do
you find that special one in a million? By mining the data of the
million. The Numerati are even mining the output of bloggers. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ

The Cut-and-Paste Personality

Posted on February 15, 2008

Matchlogo WALL STREET JOURNAL — Feb 15 — Among the 125 million people in the U.S. who visit online dating and social-networking sites are a growing number of dullards who steal personal profiles, life philosophies, even signature poems. Hugh Gallagher, a 36-year-old writer in New York, is one of the copied. Match.com has more than 50 profiles with parts of Mr. Gallagher's college entrance essay. In a recent Engage.com's survey of more than 400 online daters, 9% of respondents copied from another person's profile. A search on Match.com brought up more than 90 profiles with such lines as: "I want an opposite. A yin to my yang," or "You know that woman who is the first person on the dance floor at every party? That's me." They were cribbed from sample profiles posted at E-Cyrano.com by dating coach and profile writer Evan Marc Katz. JDate.com's recently released online dating tips include the advice: Look at what everyone else is saying and then SAY SOMETHING DIFFERENT".

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

Scamming On The Rise In Online Dating

Posted on September 28, 2007

Romancescam_logoTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL — Sep 28 — Online dating scams may have tripled in recent years. With 9 out of 10 online daters lying at least once in their dating profile and lonely hearts desperate for love, it's not surprising. One site, romancescam.com, tracks online dating scams and, so far, has collected about 10,000 pictures and 60,000 email addresses used by scammers. FULL ARTICLE @ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

People Interactive Considers A 2009 Public Offer

Posted on August 27, 2007

Shaadi_logoTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL — Aug 26 — People Interactive, the consumer Internet subsidiary of Mumbai-based People Group, is considering a 2009 public listing to finance acquisitions in the online classifieds and communities spaces. People Interactive, which owns matrimonial portal Shaadi and online dating service Fropper, may list either on NASDAQ or on the domestic bourses. In preparation for the public debut, the group will begin offering online services on the mobile platform. FULL ARTICLE @ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Mark Brooks: Westbridge Capital Partners invested $8 million in Shaadi back in March – more info here. BharatMatrimony is the other leading matrimonials service in India, fyi. Murugavel Janakiraman aka Muru is the CEO/Founder.