This is the news for the week of October 23rd through October 29th, 2009. We hope you enjoy the new weekly news format. Here is the news we covered for this week:
DEUTSCHLAND RUNDFUNK – Sep 29 – Ignighter, a group online dating site, started as a Facebook app. Adam Sachs and his two friends created Ignighter app for Facebook after their negative experiences with traditional online dating. Ignighter got over 1M funding in 2008 and became the leading group dating site. Unlike other dating sites, Ignighter's members can only communicate within groups. Adam Sachs now has to figure out how to generate revenue since most of Ignighter's members came from Facebook and are used to the free service. Parship.de, a personality profiling dating site, doesn't have to worry about generating revenue. This company has been around and charging for their services for over 10 years now. Members have to fill out 200-question questionnaire before they receive their first match. The site claims that over 10K people sign up a day. FULL ARTICLE @ DEUTSCHLAND RUNDFUNK (in German)
PRESS RELEASE — May 29 — 8m singles in the UK are looking for love, and they’ll go on 18m first dates this year – but at least 6m of those will end in disaster, and even fewer will lead to something special. Of the 1,300 singles polled by PARSHIP.co.uk 40% admitted to turning up late for a first date – or not showing at all; 28% talked about their ex and past sexual experiences, 14% confessed to over-indulging in alcohol, and 6% said they’d been chaperoned by a friend, their mother — or even a pet. 14% of women surveyed admitted to drinking so much on a first date that they felt out of control.
NEW MEDIA AGE — Apr 30 — The UK dating services industry is worth an estimated £600 million a year and, according to Hitwise, there are more than 1,300 dating sites in operation. Meanwhile, Jupiter Research predicts the number of paying members of dating sites will reach 6 million in the next three years, rising from 2.6 million in 2006. In the midst of such vast anticipated growth, two of the biggest players — Meetic, which owns Dating Direct, and IAC, owner of Match.com — have agreed to a deal.
Industry reaction to the owners of Match.com and Dating Direct getting into bed together seems to be one of general puzzlement. IAC plans to sell its European operations of Match.com to Meetic in return for €5 million (£4.5 million) and a 27% interest in Meetic. So why would the world's largest dating site suddenly decide to sell its profitable European operation? Ross Williams, co-founder of WhiteLabelDating, which powers dating sites for publishers, sees the strategy behind the decision. "There was a clause in the announcement that didn't make many of the headlines, but I think will tell you the direction IAC is going in: Match has the option to buy Meetic in its entirety in about three years. So this is kind of phase one of setting the limits of both businesses."
There's a general feeling in the industry that the Meetic/IAC deal will be just the first of a number of unions in a sector that has hundreds of competitors. Markus Frind, founder and CEO of free dating site Plenty of Fish, believes we'll see more forced marriages in the UK market. "A lot of dating sites have been losing traffic over the last two years and some aren't even profitable; that can't go on forever," he says. But it seems the economic squeeze isn't impacting the bigger players in this sector. eHarmony launched in the UK last October saw an almost 2% increase in the number of pages people viewed on days when the Dow Jones was down 100 points or more. Match.com has also seen a 35% increase in sign-ups since the beginning of the year.
With so many players in the market, differentiating each dating service arguably comes down to how effectively sites match individuals. While approaches differ slightly, no one player seems to be doing anything radically different. Online dating service Parship claims to have been the first in Europe to offer a scientific approach to matchmaking, with its psychometric compatibility test, taken by more than 9 million people to date. eHarmony uses an in-depth 250-question questionnaire based on 35 years of clinical psychology research. Tapping into this trend, Match.com launched its work-in-progress personality test in December 2008.
Another growth opportunity for the buoyant dating market is the 'second' generation of single people, who are gradually putting their trust online. WhiteLabelDating, which runs Fun at Fifty, has seen a "massive increase" in the popularity of its over-50s dating site. Launched in October 2008, user numbers have risen each month, with March 2009 showing visits up by 47% on the previous month.
The full article was originally published at New Media Age, but is no longer available.
See all posts on Meetic See all posts on PlentyofFish
See all posts on Dating Direct See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on Match.com See all posts on Parship
See all posts on WhiteLabelDating
Online Personals Watch News Summary #2, April 10, 2009
This weeks news covers the rise of philandering, virtual goods companies making $500m+, mobile dating to hit $1.4b in 2013, banner ad blindness, lock and key and events, online speed dating and a survey of fussy singles.
PRESS RELEASE — Apr 9 — A new European survey from Parship found out
that when it comes to love women are 27% more choosy than men, with
Irish women being the fussiest in Europe. However, British men are the
least fussy. When compared to 13 other European countries, Brits are
the second least fussy in Europe, joint 11th with the French. Whilst
French men place the highest importance on looks (71%), British men
value brains over beauty 71%. Other findings:
FORBES — Jan 6 — With the current downturn in the economy, singles are turning away from traditional methods of meeting people casually in bars and instead are flocking to online dating. Easydate.biz has gone from making a pretax profit of £180k in 2006 to a projected £6m this year. Parship claims it has grown by 400% in sales terms from 2005 to 2007. In Britain alone, 8m active singles went on 24m first dates in 2008, with 69% of these arranged online. FULL ARTICLE @ FORBES
PRESS RELEASE — Oct 8 – According to a new survey by PARSHIP.co.uk European serious online matchmaking service, 31% of single men would prefer not to try getting closer to a busty woman. A survey of 13,000 singles across Europe by the dating firm PARSHIP.co.uk revealed that one in ten (9%) single British men find big breasts a real turn-off and one in five (22%) say they would just barely consider dating anyone above a "D" cup, so 34E is off their scale.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
PRESS RELEASE — July 21 – Parhisp's Cost of Love Index finds singles have decreased their love shopping bill by 12%. In 2008 singles will spend just £11.5 billion in the pursuit of love and happiness, compared to the staggering £13.1 billion forked out in 2007. The cost of a first date has dramatically decreased in the same period from £69 in 2007 to £48 in 2008. Men now spend £49, compared to £46 spent by women. All things being equal, you would expect the bill at the end of the evening to be split, however only 40% of women were prepared to go Dutch. No less than 42% now expect the man to pay and only 1% of women would be prepared to pick up the bill, preferring to spend their budget on a new pair of shoes.
The full article was originally published at IT News, but is no longer available.
PRESS RELEASE — July 1 — Half
of Britain’s men would choose Kylie Minogue for a Romantic Rich List
date, according to a new poll of British singles by Parship. Virgin-al Richard Branson flies away with a third
of the female vote.
Topping Women’s Romantic Rich List
1. Richard Branson – 35%
2. Paul McCartney – 25%
3. Roman Abramovich – 19%
4. Alan Sugar – 13%
5. Andrew Lloyd Webber – 5%
6. Mohamed al-Fayed – 2%
Topping Men’s Romantic Rich List
1. Kylie Minogue – 49%
2. J.K. Rowling – 23%
3. Madonna – 12%
4. Kate Moss – 10%
5. Jackie Collins – 3%
6. The Queen – 3%
Surveys asking people
what they find attractive in others have shown that personality factors
and looks are cited as being far more important than wealth by the vast
majority of people.