WASHINGTON POST — July 19 – By 2007, the over-50 set had become the fastest-growing group of subscribers for online dating companies, and double-digit growth has continued since, according to industry watchers. Pepper Schwartz, an adviser to Perfectmatch.com, cheers the trend. If a person in their 60s or 70s lost a spouse 20 years ago, "the chances of pairing again were small, because the avenues to meet new people were limited mostly to churches, senior centers and friends of friends. Today single seniors can go online and be opened up to thousands of options." FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST
Category: PerfectMatch
Love And Money
SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY — Apr 20 — During this time of economic hardship, people are finding that online dating is a relatively inexpensive way to meet people. Where one night out at the bar can cost the better part of £25, membership to a dating site is only about £20 a month. It also allows matches to cover a lot of ground in a short period of time and get things in the open before they meet, instead of waiting until the third or fourth date to find out she never wants kids, or he wants them within a year. PerfectMatch.com has seen a membership increase of 51% compared to the same quarter last year, and Match.com, billed as the world’s largest online agency, has reported its strongest fourth quarter in the last seven years. Plentyoffish.com visits have increased 77% from December 2007 to December 2008, and 32% over the last three months. FULL ARTICLE @ SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
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Balancing Love & Money
PR NEWSWIRE — Apr 7 – Perfectmatch.com has released its Love & Money Assessment. The seven-question assessment is designed to evaluate financial compatibility and determines the ideal economic profile of a future mate by providing an accurate diagnostic about financial habits and values. Perfectmatch integrated the Love & Money Assessment into its Duet Compatibility System.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
Divorce Numbers Fall Off, Dating On The Rise
UNION TRIBUNE — Feb 14 – Struggling couples are are staying together for love and money while singles are looking for romance and half the rent. According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 37% of its members said they see a decrease divorce cases during national economic downturns. At eHarmony, registrations from Sep '08 to Jan '09 have increased 20% from the same period a year ago. Perfectmatch's revenue increased 42% from the previous quarter. FULL ARTICLE @ UNION TRIBUNE
The Mature Dating Game
HARVARD MAGAZINE — Feb '09 — Increasingly, those 45-55 are meeting online through sites like Match, eHarmony and Y! Personals. Those 45+ comprise the fastest growing segment on PerfectMatch.com, and at PlentyofFish.com, where they tend to log on and stay on more often then younger users says CEO Markus Frind. "They are more committed to the dating process." Internet dating creates 'a bit of the kid in the candy store mentality.' But the anonymity can prompt some socially undesirable behavior such as misleading photos, married people posing as singles, and outright scams. Database matching relies on input from candidates who list their preferences. But Dawn Touchings, president of The Right Stuff, an 'introduction network' that caters to ivy leaguers, says "Many of th people who meet on our site tell me the person they are compatible with did not fit any of the categories they set." FULL ARTICLE @ HARVARD MAGAZINEMark Brooks: As a student I worked at the Simi Valley Ford dealership selling cars one summer. Seasoned salespeople liked to remind me that 'buyers are liars.' I refuted this but it seems strangely relevant in the dating space. Our buyers are liars, only insofar as they really don't know what they are looking for. Beyond the basic showstopper questions, don't we go a bit far by asking so many questions and offering up so many search filters?
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Online Dating: The Technology Behind The Attraction
COMPUTERWORLD — Feb 13 — We peek under the covers at online dating sites. To succeed, a site needs to do the following:
- Offer excellent response times. Try to give users at least some matches as soon as they've created an account.
Online personals services are glorified search engines. eHarmony, PerfectMatch and Chemistry.com ask a few dozen to several hundred questions and assemble a personality profile and a list of matches. Plentyoffish.com's keeps it simple and uses a short questionnaire. CEO Markus Frind says he doesn't promote it and he's disdainful of the complex matching algorithms offered by competitors.
2. Convert at least 10% of visitors who register into paying customers — preferably more.
eHarmony pulls information from its Oracle database into high-performance Netezza data warehouse appliances that slice and dice users into behavioral and demographic "buckets." "Because we know more about them, we can target them much better," says Joseph Essas, VP of Technology.
3. Deliver an acceptable range of probable matches and offer a variety of ways to pursue those prospects.
Video chat is perhaps the most controversial communication method offered, if only because video sessions often take a "sexual tilt," especially with men, and that drives away the women, says Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch. The most innovative communication method is virtual dates in a 3-D world. OmniDate, offers an avatar-based virtual dating system.
4. Weeding out cheats, scammers and married guys.
"10% of sign-ups a day are people trying to scam someone — or rude, obnoxious people, or spammers," Frind says. He removes ~2,000 suspicious users from the system daily. eHarmony has contracted with Iovation, which offers ReputationManager, a service that gathers information on individuals' illicit activity from online dating and other sites and makes it available to subscribers.
The Recession. Isn’t It Romantic?
NY TIMES — Feb 12 — Online dating has had a following ever since dating sites popped up around '94, said Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch. The industry then started leveling off in Feb '05. "Now at a time when money is scarce or uncertain, they don't want to go through it alone," said Dr. Pepper Schwartz of Perfectmatch.com, which had a 51% increase in new members in the Q4 of '08 compared with '07. Speeddate.com's traffic is up 60%. "During recessions people stay at home more, they don't want to pay and go to bars. They're going online to meet each other," said Markus Frind, the CEO of Plentyoffish, a free site, where visits have increased 77% from Dec '07 to Dec '08, and 32% over the last three months. While "marriage" and "children" were always popular key words, Mr. Frind said, during this period last year Plentyoffish.com users mentioned the word "job" in their profiles 5.5% of the time. This year, that number has risen to 7.7%. On BlackPeopleMeet, the percentage of people listing "job" as a criterion when asked 'What are you looking for in a partner?' increased 18% from Jan '08 to Jan '09. Offline romance specialists say they are also seeing a spike in business. From Oct through Dec'08, new membership at The Right One/Together Dating, a dating service with 60 locations across the country, increased ~18% compared with the same period the previous year. The price of membership starts at $1,000. "People are putting down deposits rather than paying in full, which is fine," said CEO, Paul Falzone.
The full article was originally published at New York Times, but is no longer available.
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Social Networks Change The Breakup Game
HARTFORD COURANT — Feb 6 – With Facebook, it definitely makes it harder to get over someone. "If it's over, it's not quite over on Facebook," said Dr. Pepper Schwartz, of Perfectmatch.com. Updates like "Barry is in a new relationship" or "Sarah went dancing all night last night" or photos of your ex with a new woman are sure to rankle.
The full article was originally published at Hartford Courant, but is no longer available.
www.cheapdate.com
GLOBE & MAIL — Jan 29 — Lavalife, PlentyofFish, Match and PerfectMatch have seen their memberships soar after the stock-market plunge. Lavalife registrations are up 11% from last month, PlentyofFish enjoyed 77% growth in visits from Dec '07 through Dec '08. "Unlike the real world, dating sites offer the lovelorn a "completely refined, focused community", says Mark Brooks. Dating sites take care of the formalities. "If somebody wants to wander around and meet somebody, that's not a good idea on two counts: No. 1, it'll take them a long while and No. 2, they've got to get all the difficult questions out of the way." A survey by Florida-based Avalanche LLC – which operates international sites date.com, matchmaker.com and amor.com – found that 48 per cent of respondents were spending more time online or on the phone with a potential date before spending cash on a face-to-face meeting. Joe Tracy, publisher of Online Dating Magazine, agrees that bad economic times force people to "reprioritize their goals in life." Paul A. Falzone, CEO of LoveAccess.com agrees. "People, when they're confronted with any type of dilemma in their lives, tend to want to migrate back to what's comfortable to them. They go back to eating their comfort foods, they crank up the heat by the fire instead of going out all night, and they want someone to be able to share things with." FULL ARTICLE @ GLOBE & MAIL
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Falling Stock Markets Spur Searches For Love Online
REUTERS — Dec 8 — As stock markets across the globe have plummeted, more people have opted to try their luck looking for love online as a distraction from financial woes — and to save themselves money, according to dating Web sites. Match.com had experienced its largest membership growth over the last seven years in November. Perfectmatch.com reported a 47% jump in the number of members in the three months to November compared to the previous quarter. A poll conducted on behalf of eHarmony, found that 57% of Americans said the credit crunch made them worry about their love lives with married men the most stressed group with 63% of them concerned. FULL ARTICLE @ REUTERS
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