Mar 30 — I had a chat with Duane Dahl, CEO of personality profiling relationship service, Perfectmatch.com, about the Seattle Times article "Some Feel Wronged by Perfectmatch." He commented…"I'd encourage sites to check their listings with the Better Business Bureau. One complaint is too many – but the writer of our story failed to put the story in perspective by doing a comparisin vs. our competitor eHarmony which has 447 BBB complaints! (compared to our 30)." He added, "our growth in '06 was very exciting – we've spent the past quarter focused on reinforcing our infrastructure to be sure we are appropriately positioned to take on eHarmony." – Mark Brooks
Category: PerfectMatch
Some Feel Wronged by Perfectmatch
SEATTLE TIMES CONSUMER AFFAIRS — Mar 27 — Perfectmatch.com is getting out there, thanks to product placement in three major movies and TV segments on "Dr. Phil" and "Live With Regis and Kelly." But Perfectmatch.com also is getting a bad reputation among some consumers who say the site didn't find them a perfect match at all – and didn't respond when they tried to get a refund. "The last year and a half for Perfectmatch has been a very exciting period," Chief Executive Duane Dahl said. "We've experienced a tremendous amount of growth, and certainly from that growth we've had a couple of challenges." Perfectmatch has doubled its staff in the past year and has 3 million members, Dahl said. Much of its growth can be attributed to a pre-Valentine's Day "Dr. Phil" show last year that featured the company. Perfectmatch says Galpin was one of about 207,000 people who paid $99 that day for a four-month promotional membership. Many of the Perfectmatch complaints were about the company's automatic-renewal policy.
The full article was originally published at Seattle Times, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: The down side of giving away trial memberships is the aftermath of chargebacks and complaints.
Online Dating a new Trend
BG NEWS — Feb 17 — PerfectMatch.com currently has three million registered members. The biggest difference between Perfect Match and eHarmony is the mainstream attitude of PerfectMatch.com, CEO Dahl said. eHarmony.com does not allow people who have been married multiple times to join. They also exclude homosexuals.
The full article was originally published at BG News, but is no longer available.
www.findlovehere.com
NEWSWEEK — Feb 20 issue — According to JupiterResearch, 15% of Internet users between the ages of 45 and 54 browsed dating sites last year. The number of baby boomers visiting Lavalife has grown 39% over the last three years. At Match the 50-and-older crowd is the fastest-growing segment. SciConnect.com; 60% of its science nerds are 40-59. PerfectMatch.com; 63% 35-60. PrimeSingles.net is a 50-plus site whose membership grew 39% in 2005.
The full article was originally published at MSNBC, but is no longer available.
December Online Personals Rankings
Jan 14 — Hitwise – Plentyoffish moves up one spot to displace singlesnet. Manhunt.net jumps in at 10th spot. First time I've heard of them but it looks like they've been around for a while according to Alexa's 2 year graph. MSN Match and PerfectMatch move down three spots to 13th and 15th spots respectively. Hotornot climbs one spot to #12.
Nielsen Netratings – myYearbook moves up two spots to 5th place and Mate1 bumps down two spots to 7th. Tagworld, Tickle's Lovehappens and Crush Calculator spring onto the scene at 8th, 10th and 14th spots respectively and LoveAccess moves up four spots to take the 11th spot. Perfectmatch moves down one spot to #12 and eCrush gets bumped from 9th to 15th spot.
Alexa – Singlesnet moves up to 6th spot bumping Date.com to #7…and that's it. Only one change.
Match.com Teams Up With Dr Phil
Jan 12 — Match says, 'We'll Show You Who, He'll Show You How.' MindFindBind is Dr Phil's 'provocative' advice for finding the right person. Dr Phil paired up with Perfect Match but moved to Match.com. - Mark Brooks
November 2005 Site Rankings
Dec 27 — The November rankings are live (see left bar). Nielsen has tidied social networks Myspace, Facebook, hi5 and Friendster out of their online dating rankings, leaving Yahoo Personals (1), Match (2) and TRUE (3) with the November 2005 top spots.
Not much change with the Alexa rankings. Plentyoffish and Friendfinder bump Date.com down two spots to #6. For the social networking rankings Facebook bumps Friendster out of the top 3. Myspace now leads the social networking category, followed by Hi5 and Facebook.
TRUE trumps American Singles on the Hitwise top 15 rankings for November and takes the #5 spot. Singlesnet moves up one spot to #7 and wrestles Plentyoffish and adult oriented Mate1 down one place. MSN leans on it’s online dating and moves up five full places to take the #10 position. Niche site Blackpeoplemeet impressively moves up a spot to #11 and Perfect Match gets squeezed out to #12. Youngsters online dating site, Hotornot, moves up a spot to #13. – Mark Brooks
Friends with Benefits. Buddies. Booty calls. Is this what dating has become?
THE SEATTLE TIMES — Dec 11 — Today's dating scene is about as easy to pigeonhole as the color of paint. Sure, there are plenty of traditionalists out there, but there are many others who don't date so much as hang out or hook up. Some rely on what I'll politely call "bed buddies" to get them through the lonely times. Dating has changed dramatically. Fifty years ago, a single woman would sooner hide out in a darkened apartment than let her neighbors know she didn't have a Saturday night steady. These days, she'll post her picture on AdultFriendFinder or Lavalife's "Intimate Encounters" section to find a no-strings sex partner for the night. "If somebody has no intention of looking for someone special in their life and just wants sex for fun and pleasure, isn't it better that they tell you up front?" says Pepper Schwartz, University of Washington sociology professor and author of "Finding Your Perfect Match." (and PerfectMatch.com spokesperson). "The honesty may be a little difficult to take, but it might hurt less in the long run."
The full article was originally published at Seattle Times, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: This is a groundbreaking article. I rarely see the subject of casual dating sites broached in the press. Some interesting social trends are empowering the press to start picking this subject area up. Adultfriendfinder, Sexsearch and Mate1 are the top adult dating sites.
Men’s Turn to Offer Dating Complaints
SEATTLE TIMES — Oct 30 — If many women over 40 find the dating scene a dark continent, older single men have their own news to share: It's not all that great for them, either. 42% of single men in their 50s named bitter baggage as their #1 complaint, according to a 2003 AARP survey of 3,500 baby boomers. 35% of women had a problem with this, as well. "I'll meet a woman and the first thing she'll do is ask 'What do you do?' They'll weigh your wallet," says Scott Abraham, a 53-year-old Seattle counselor who says he's given up on dating. "I have a friend who's a doctor, but he never wants to tell women that because he'll be treated differently. We went out one time and he said, 'OK, tonight, you be the doctor.' That night, I got all the attention. I had my choice of three or four women. He said he sold cars and he got no attention." "Dating is a numbers game," he says. "The more people you meet, the better chance you have of meeting quality people and to me, dancing is a good way to meet them. It's not like you're being set up, it's not like a Match.com type of thing. You've got a girl in your arms for two and a half minutes. You can talk. They're right there." Match.com lists 9,000 local members in their 40s, nearly 60% of them men. There are another 5,000 in their 50s. Seattle's own PerfectMatch.com currently has more than 100,000 "over-39" members in the Seattle/Tacoma area. The over-39 category is one of their fastest growing age groups. Some local options: PlayDate Seattle, Space City Mixer, Elements of Soul and Spartay.com, which recently added events for the 35 to 55 set.
The full article was originally published at Seattle Times, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Social events are a pain to organise and not that profitable. But, they are the last vestitude for online personals to make a real world connection and offer instant gratification for those who venture out from behind their computers. Check out my little club http://www.ace-club.com.  I started it in 1998 by sticking a poster up in a bagel shop in Silicon Valley. People talked and it grew to an email list of 3600. Now, my legion of hosts run a few hundred events a year for an exclusive base of paying members; $20 a month.
Personality Profiling Sites: Who Would You Trust
ONE2ONE MAGAZINE — Sept 15 — ARTICLE BY MARK BROOKS, ONLINE PERSONALS WATCH EDITOR/BLOGGER — Which of these people would you trust with probably the most important decision you'll ever make? Dr Warren of eHarmony is a clinical psychologist with a theology background and 30 years of counseling experience. Dr Houran of TRUE is a young clinical psychologist with 15 years counseling experience and many journal papers to his name. Then we have the sociologist Dr Pepper Schwartz of PerfectMatch.
SIMILAR/COMPLEMENTARY: eHarmony matches on similarities whilst PerfectMatch offers you a choice. You can see people who are similar to you, and also people who are complementary to you. TRUE is mainly focused on matching you with people who have complementary traits.
MAGIC BOX: eHarmony does the searching for you. PerfectMatch and TRUE take alternative approaches. You have more visibility and control over the way you are matched and the speed at which you can get out on a date. PerfectMatch and TRUE also offer instant messaging which eHarmony doesn't favor. Both TRUE and PerfectMatch are less decisive, and more open box rather than magic box. Dr Pepper Schwartz of PerfectMatch commented, "I'm a sociologist, not a deity."
ON CHEMISTRY: Cupid.com CEO, Eric Straus argues that chemistry can only be gauged in the real world, by meeting and getting eyeball to eyeball. "There's no mathematical formula to love," affirms Abe Smilowitz, CEO of WebDate.com. "You can't qualify love by doing a profile analysis. Love is about feelings and a persons emotions." On the other hand Pat Dines, CEO of Mary.com argues, "chemistry works in unison with long term compatibility. Compatibility tests simply identify who you are compatible to be friends with. You need to meet many 'compatible' people to find chemistry." Dr Glenn Wilson is one of the fathers of compatibility testing and states, "[Compatibility testing] will not tell you whether or not you are going to fall in love with another person in a compulsive, 'chemical' way, just whether or not it is a good idea if you do."
Imagine, you walk into your favorite coffee shop, bar or club and meet someone that you click with. You spend the next six months with them, only to find you're COMPLETELY incompatible. Would you have had a better time with someone who was a 'good match.' How about the perfect match? Relationship based online personals sites hold high promise. They are new. They are still experimenting. Dr Houran confirmed, "we're in the infancy of compatibility testing." FULL ARTICLE @ ONE2ONE MAGAZINE
Mark Brooks: ONE2ONE Living (available on Amazon) is a magazine for the singles lifestyle…'Fuel for the single life: entertainment, travel, culture, events, style, dating.' I thought Halle Berry's quote in the latest magazine was fascinating. "I'll never get married again, and I always hate to say never to anything, but I will never marry again… I want love and I'll find it hopefully and have a committed relationship, but no more marriages." These attitude is fueling the decline in number of people getting married… and the future success and growth of the online personals industry.