Category: POF

Online Dating: The Technology Behind The Attraction

Posted on February 13, 2009

Online dating zavinac a srdicka COMPUTERWORLD — Feb 13 — We peek under the covers at online dating sites. To succeed, a site needs to do the following:

  1. 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.

Your Profile’s Long, Scary Shelf Life

Posted on February 13, 2009

COMPUTERWORLD — Feb 13 — Dating services don't delete your data. "We have an archiving strategy, but we don't delete," says Joseph Essas, eHarmony's VP technology. Users who return later don't have to fill out the 400-question profile again. TRUE retains the data indefinitely. But PlentyofFish deletes records after six months to a year of inactivity. Though rare, legal actions have been filed in cases ranging from date rape to sexual harassment. Ross Williams, CEO at White Label Dating, says the prospect of offering highly targeted advertising based on demographic, behavioral, psychological and profile data is attractive. "If I have a hair product for men, I don't think there are any places online other than online dating where you can get that [demographic data]." That type of information, Williams says, gives online dating sites a unique competitive opportunity, if they're willing to exploit it.

Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch, sees highly targeted marketing as inevitable. He says traditional "interruption marketing" — rollovers, pop-ups and so forth — hasn't worked well on Internet dating sites because users don't pay attention to the ads and thinks ad-supported sites such as PlentyofFish should leverage profiles to target users with contextual offers that would be of most interest to them. "Advertising is an annoyance. The only way it will work [well] is through the power of the friendly referral," he says. But for now, PlentyofFish's Frind says the site's current advertising model, which lets advertisers target users based on basic demographic information, is working just fine, with a higher click-through rate than social networking sites and $10 million in ad revenue last year.

FULL ARTICLE @ COMPUTERWORLD

Mark Brooks: Advertising that is highly targeted, timely and relevant is a service to your users. iDating sites have the richest profile info on the net. Eventually we'll make use of this data to serve our users more effectively by 'recommending' interesting lifestyle products to them. (Full Disclosure: POF and White Label Dating are current clients of Courtland Brooks)

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Free Sites Don’t Appeal To Lower Income Users

Posted on February 13, 2009

Plentyoffish logo THE PARADIGM SHIFT — Feb 13 – We will still grow at least 80% organically this year but I don't think all that much is because of the recession. Most of PlentyofFish users are higher income and aren't really effected by the current economic problems. 

Hitwise demographic stats for 4 weeks ending  2/7/2009
12.36% of singlesnet users are under 25
10.15% of match.com users are under 25
9.65% of  Plentyoffish users are under 25
7.28% of downtoearth  users are under 25.

Hitwise income statistics for 4 weeks ending  2/7/2009.
4.11% of singlesnet  users make over $150,000 a year.
5.05% of match.com users make over $150,000 a year.
6.23% of eharmony users make over $150,000 a year
12.37% of Plentyoffish users make over $150,000 a year.

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

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The Recession. Isn’t It Romantic?

Posted on February 12, 2009

Online dating dobry obrazek 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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Canada’s Most-Visited Websites Key In On Content

Posted on February 11, 2009
Plentyoffish logo MEDIACASTER MAGAZINE — Feb 11 – A new survey of Canadian-owned websites shows that sites publishing original news and articles get the most traffic. 'Where The Online Readers Are' is the first readership index of Canadian-owned websites. It was released by Vancouver-based Suite101.com, an online magazine. The top 10 sites are:

1  Metro Lyrics            
2  Plenty of Fish          
3  Government of Canada   
4  CBC
5  Suite101.com           
6  Canoe.ca               
7  Canada.com             
8  The Weather Network   
9  TD Canada Trust       
10  Rogers Communications

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

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10 Things Online Dating Services Won’t Say

Posted on February 9, 2009

10thingsdatingserviceswontsay SMART MONEY — Feb 9 – 
1. Keep your hopes high and your expectations low.

2. We've yet to meet two people who aren't a potential match.  "No one knows if (personality profiling datin services) actually work," says author Robert Epstein. If you really want individualized matchmaking then consider a personal matchmaker.

3. Everyone's lying about something. Some users lie about their age to show up in more search results but most lies in the online dating universe are pretty small, says Nicole Ellison, an assistant professor at Michigan State. 

4. We don't have as many members as it seems. Experts say that at best, subscriber services convert ~ 10 and 15% of browsers into members. That means 90% or more of the profiles at a subscriber site could belong to unreachable browsers. On free sites like Plentyoffish.com or OKCupid.com every profile belongs to an active member.

5. Fall in love too quickly and you could end up with an empty wallet. "The romance scam is the most prevalent on dating sites, and the hardest to stop", says Brian Erickson, director of operations at Mate1.com.

6. Our guarantees are only guaranteed to keep you here. Match.com and Yahoo Personals offer "guarantees" and six-month "promises". If you don't find the one during your six-month subscription, you'll get more time to keep trying. Dating sites do this because it's an easy, low-cost way to keep traffic up—and a great marketing tool, says David Evans, an industry consultant. 

7. Don't expect quick results. "You can't just throw up a profile and expect to go on a date," says Mark Brooks, an industry consultant for online dating services. The world of online dating has its own rhythms and rituals, which often take some time. Keep that first date light. "You're going to know by the second sip of your latte if there's something there," says Trish McDermott, VP Love at Engage.com.

8. Once you log in, you're pretty much on your own. Some people could simply use more help than others, says Mark Brooks, but good luck getting it from the dating service you're using. "Online dating sites' biggest flaw is they don't offer service of any kind," he says. Rather, most of them function more like a giant virtual bar or nightclub.

9. You might not need all these extras—but we do. "Besides the overall dampening of consumer spending, the Internet dating market has simply become saturated", says Brooks. That means online dating services have had to start getting creative. 

10. Good luck trying to break up with us.

FULL ARTICLE @ SMART MONEY

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Why Pay When Dating’s Free Sites Beckon?

Posted on February 6, 2009

Online dating dve mysi a srdce BUSINESS WEEK — Feb 6 – In December, free sites accounted for ~25% of all traffic to the top 10 U.S. dating sites, up from 15% a year ago, according to Hitwise. During the second half of 2008, PlentyofFish was the most-trafficked dating site in the U.S., according to Hitwise. "We are going to double our staff this year," said Markus Frind, CEO of PlentyofFish.com. "The economic downturn doesn't affect me." OkCupid.com says growth picked up in Sep, as the economic decline accelerated. Some paid sites are getting hurt more than others. Traffic to Yahoo Personals fell 15% in Dec from a year earlier, according to Hitwise. In the same period, eHarmony's traffic dropped 61% and True.com's tumbled 68%. At the same time, traffic to Match.com jumped 31% while Singlesnet.com's traffic rose 16%.

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

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Multitaskers Say One Online Dating Site Won’t Do

Posted on February 6, 2009

Online dating - par se zavinacem ASSOCIATED PRESS — Feb 5 – With 1,400 dating sites, according to Hitwise, many singles are posting profiles on multiple sites in the hopes of reeling in the one. Neither eHarmony nor Match.com capture information about how many of their members are on other sites. Markus Frind, CEO of the free dating site Plentyoffish.com, estimates 15% of the people in the US who are active on his site are members of other, paid dating sites. It makes sense to post profiles on more than one site, according to Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch . He compares serial online dating to bar-hopping. He said people generally settle on one main site and a smaller niche site. Some relationship experts aren't so sure that signing up for multiple sites brings better luck in love. It's better to be on one site proactively than three passively, said Nancy Slotnick, founder of the love-life management site Cablight.com. FULL ARTICLE @ ABC NEWS

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The Morning Show With Mike And Juliet

Posted on February 3, 2009

Mike and juliet FOX NEWS — Feb 3 — There a plenty of fish in the sea, and nearly as many online dating sites. M&J investigate which services will help you find that perfect catch. M&J spoke to Dr. Gian Gonzaga from eHarmony, CEO of Lavalife Marina Glogovac and Mark Brooks from PlentyofFish.com. 

Juliet: Dr Gian what are the components to making a successfully compatible relationship?
Dr. Gian Gonzaga: One thing relationship science has shown for the last 40 years is that people who are similar to each other on some important core personality traits, attitudes, values and interests are going to get along better.

Juliet: We’re going to move from E-Harmony to Lavalife.
Mike: Marina, I’ve heard this site called sort of the Sex and the City website.
Marina Glogovac: Yeah, we have 3 distinct communities- a dating community, a relationship community and an intimate community and that’s for people who are more open minded about exploring intimacy. The point is if you’re single you can quickly be surrounded by likeminded people who share your relationship goals.

Juliet: Next we’re going to look at PlentyofFish.com. What set’s PlentyofFish apart from all the other sites?
Mark Brooks: Well we heard a lot of talk about Plenty of Fish being free, free, free, but the real difference these days is it’s big, big, big. We have 900,000 people logging in every day. And we know now that 800,000 people a year are meeting and are in successful relationships because of PlentyofFish.com.
Juliet: Is there a science behind why you hook up so many people together?
Mark Brooks: The fellow who started the site is actually a math wizard and he’s observed the real world and he’s bottled the best of matchmaking. We have a chemistry test but there is a lot going on behind the scenes to match compatible people.

Stephanie: I’m a huge fan of PlentyofFish. Because it’s free and with the economy being down like it is, why not try a free site for 3, 4, and 5 months and then if it doesn’t work you can always pay later. And then take your saved money and go on a date.

Watch the show @ Mandjshow.com
PART 1
PART 2

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www.cheapdate.com

Posted on January 29, 2009

Online dating - heart on keyboard 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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