NEW YORK DAILY NEWS – Dec 25 - “From Dec. 26 to Feb. 14 is our busiest season,” says Whitney Casey, Match.com’s relationship expert. “New Year’s Eve is such a big deal because it’s a new beginning,” she explains. “If you’ve had a bad time dating last year, there’s just so much optimism in the air for the new one.” Plentyoffish.com reports a 15% jump in signups for its free dating site this time of year, coupled with a 20% spike in activity from current users, “many of whom are looking for a date for New Year’s Eve,” says rep Shannon Smith.
Category: POF
Police Target Lonely Hearts Fraudsters
SUNDAY TIMES – Nov 28 – Romance scammers are to be targeted by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). According to Soca ~200K people have already been tricked by overseas conmen. Online dating scams have become one of the most lucrative methods. This is because online dating has itself become so successful, with 1,400 dating sites operating in Britain, including Plentyoffish, eHarmony and match.com. Mark Brooks, who runs Courtland Brooks, a consultancy specialising in the online dating industry, said: “Every site has significant problems in dealing with scammers. It is the bane of the industry.” Karl Gregory, head of match.com’s UK division, said cases of fraud were still rare. “Our advice”, he said, “is to stay within the site to build up relationships over time rather than giving out personal details, and never to give money to anyone for any reason.”
by Jonathan Leake
See full article at Sunday Times
Mark Brooks: Actually, this is far more a problem in the USA than the UK. Most sites are fighting and winning the battle against scammers, I think. But the isolated cases of date scamming are still very newsworthy and bad for the dating industry.
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PlentyofFish Rebrands As POF
PlentyofFish.com Adds New Features To Its Advertising Program
OPW – Nov 15 – POF Ads traffic has increased from 2.5 billion page views per month in 2010 to 3.9 billion per month. You can now target people by the number of ads they have clicked on previously. This allows you to exclude a certain % of users that will never click on an ad. Frequency cap has always been minimum 3/visit. POF now has the option to serve your ads on a minimum 3/hour or 3/day frequency cap, which helps you better manage your exposure.
This post also appears on FrequentFlirters.
PlentyofFish vs. PlentyMoreFish
OPW – Oct 18 – PlentyofFish were appealing for a declaration of invalidity for the UK registered trademark PlentyMoreFish. They argued that granting the trademark PlentyMoreFish in October 2007 was illegal and that it had left some consumers confused between the two services thus affecting the business of PlentyofFish in the UK.
Mr Landau, who approved the trademark, believed that on the 24th of April 2007, when PlentyMore applied for the trademark, PlentyofFish had no ’goodwill’ in the mind of the purchasing public in the UK. He found hits and visits to the website but no customers at that time.
PlentyofFish argued there was a proven trade connection between their website and the UK market and that visitors to the site should be viewed as customers as the site earns its money from advertising. However, the judge contended that a reputation is not enough and reminded PlentyofFish that this was case regarding the trademark of a dating site not advertising services. He said that since there were no paying customers in the UK before April 2007 then there was no ‘goodwill’ in the mind of the purchasing public and the case was dismissed.
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Badoo: No Dating Services for Now
by Desire Athow
See full article at ITPro Portal
Mark Brooks: Badoo used to be more defined as a dating site. They changed their position. Now they're a friends discovery site. Facebook is more about staying in touch with people you already know.
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This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Plentyoffish.com to Grow Through Global Buys
MERGER MARTKET – Oct 6 – PlentyOfFish.com has set aside $15M to acquire companies in dating, mobile and the daily deals space. POF revenue is estimated at $20-$30M. Markus said POF is not for sell at the moment. Noel Biderman, president of Avid Life Media, parent company of Ashley Madison, said Avid would absolutely acquire POF.
Frind compared POF's valuation to Badoo, which he said is £2 Billion. Cupid also could consider buying POF. Cupid has 34M members in 39 countries, and generated revenues of $25M in the six months. An IPO is also a possibility for POF. Frind maintained that POF is focused on buys and so far has made several acquisitions and investments this year, launching offeron.com, its new daily deals business.
Mobile Dating Apps Show Who’s Single Without the Mingle
THE JAKARTA GLOBE – Sep 29 - The phone apps, from Match.com or newcomers such as howaboutwe.com, pack in the features, from IM and video profiles to "check-ins" at hot nightlife spots. "It's all about getting people off-line", says Aaron Schildkrout, touting howaboutwe.com, the app he co-created. Users post specific date ideas such as attending a baseball game or having drinks on a rooftop bar. In the service's first month live, there were ~60K downloads; the user base was 60% female, ages 22 to 40. Andrea Martinez, 24 found her new boyfriend on plentyoffish.com's mobile app version. She preferred the app over the computer version because uploading photos from her phone was easier. Grindr founder and CEO Joel Simkhai says company surveys show that 85% of members used the app for making new friends, especially when they were new to town. That's why Simkhai believes the next evolution of apps won't be about dating but will focus on friendships.
by Sheba R. Wheeler
The full article was originally published at Jakarta Globe, but is no longer available.
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A Quarter of Canadians Venturing into Online Dating
CANOE.CA – Sep 25 - According to a Leger Marketing survey conducted on behalf of QMI Agency, one quarter of Canadians participate in online dating, including 36% of Canadians between 18 and 34. Kate Bilenki, director of love at PlentyOfFish, the free dating site with ~33M registered users worldwide, said the site’s membership has increased 40% over the last two years. Bilenki said POF is responsible for ~1M relationships per year, and 300K of those result in marriage.
by Sheena Goodyear
The full article was originally published at Canoe.ca, but is no longer available.
Courtland Brooks Signs Plentyoffish and 51Taonan
OPW – Aug 10 – Its time we tooted our horn. We're very proud to announce that the Courtland Brooks team is now working for both Plentyoffish and 51Taonan. We worked with POF from September 2006 to March 2010. Now we're back. 51Taonan is China's no. 4 dating site and top free dating site, and showing tremendous promise in this burgeoning, huge growth market. The Courtland Brooks team comprises 15 specialists and is a distributed workforce spread from Malta and Prague to Orlando and San Diego. Our business is horribly limited, but wonderfully efficient because we only work for idating companies, and companies with best-in-class products suitable for the industry's consideration. You can see all our free services on the right bar >>>>