Category: POF

Online Dating Boom

Posted on February 14, 2008

Babyboomers OTTAWA CITIZEN — Feb 14 — Unlike traditional dating, people's intentions are more evident online than in the non-virtual world. PlentyofFish.com is virtually a dating haven for millions of people around the world. The site rakes in $10 million a year in advertising and Ontario is one of the biggest hot spots for PlentyofFish users. Founder, Markus Frind says that meeting people in today's fast-paced world is just too hard, and it only gets tougher with age. "The baby boomers are signing up in droves now," says Frind. "They never used to use the site, but now it's the biggest growth market for all dating sites." Lavalife has started a dating service called LavalifePRIME, exclusively for those 45 and older.

The full article was originally published at Canada.com, but is no longer available.

Money And Relationships: It’s Love 3.0

Posted on February 14, 2008

Internetmakingmoney2REPORT ON BUSINESS– Feb 14 — Unlike Facebook and MySpace, whose values are based largely on their potential to generate future revenues, online dating sites are making millions from user fees and advertisers now. For Vancouver-based PlentyofFish.com, the emergence of love 3.0 has generated what its creator Markus Frind admits is a global cash machine. More than 600,000 people log on to his site every day. Online dating has become a billion-dollar industry; companies that own a portfolio of sites, such as Spark Networks, are ringing up revenues of between $15-million (U.S.) and $18-million every quarter.

The full article was originally published at The Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

Dating Site Visits Up, Pre-Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 14, 2008

Hitwise_logo CNET NEWS — Feb 14 — Visits to dating sites were up 26% in the week ending February 9 in comparison with the equivalent week in 2007, according to Hitwise. At the top of the rankings was SinglesNet.com, followed by PlentyOfFish.com.  Rounding out the top five were eHarmony, True, and Yahoo Personals.

The full article was originally published at CNet News, but is no longer available.

Starting Up: The Business Of Love

Posted on February 14, 2008

Online_dating_nove SM SMALL BIZ — Feb 13 — Making a bundle in the dating industry, isn't easy for a small player competing against Yahoo! Personals, Match.com and eHarmony. At PlentyofFish, which now ranks among the top 10 dating sites in the U.S. for unique visitors, Frind's strategy was simple. "I undercut them on price," he says. When it comes to the business of love, newbie entrepreneurs need to figure out a way to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Here's how:

– Find a Niche
– Undercut the Competition
– Add Value
– Innovate

More narrowly focused niches have begun to surface. i.e. golfmates.com and vegetariandating.com. The best niche businesses are usually started by entrepreneurs who have a deep understanding of the community they want to serve. i.e. Patrick H. Perrine, a psychologist who spent years studying human sexuality and dating preferences, launched a gay male matchmaking service in San Francisco in 2004, and then expanded the service online – myPartner.com — to a national audience last year. "We discovered there was no space for gay men looking for a serious relationship on the web", he says. To compete with the big guys, Sam Yagan, co-founder of free dating site, OKCupid.com, offers users the ability to craft their own personality quizzes, or choose from 30,000 others. The idea behind the quizzes is that users will share them with their friends who, in turn, may sign up for the service.

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

The Hottest Trends In Online Dating

Posted on February 10, 2008

Mark NETWORK WORLD — Feb 7 — No one knows online dating better than Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. Brooks is a modern-day Cyrano — he's a consultant to many of the Web's largest online dating sites as well as traditional matchmaking services. Network World interviewed Brooks about the hottest trends in online dating.

Q:How many online dating services are there?
MB: Hitwise has estimated there are 800-plus. I think that's about right for the U.S. A lot of them are affiliate sites that are driving traffic to the main dating sites.

Q: How has online dating affected traditional matchmaking services?
MB: Internet dating has warmed an entire generation of users to the prospect of getting help in dating and paying for that help.

Q: What new technologies are you are seeing in online dating?
MB: One of the biggest innovations is avatar-based instant messaging. One site that's pioneering the use of avatars is OmniDate.com. Another emerging technology is iovation, which helps online dating sites battle fraud. With iovation's Reputation Manager, one dating site can flag a person as abusive and throw them out and then let other sites in the online dating community know about it.

Q: How has online dating technology changed in recent years?
MB: Actually, online dating is in about the same place that it has been in for the last three years. One of the things I'd like to see is more technology being applied to personality profiling. In this area there are four companies worth mentioning: Perfectmatch.com; eHarmony.com; Chemistry.com; and True.com.

Q: Have social networkings like Facebook and MySpace cut into online dating traffic?
MB: The numbers show that less people are coming to Internet dating sites. According to ComScore the number of people who came to Internet dating sites in December 2007 was down 10% over the prior year. But I don't think it's the end of online dating. I think the lookilous have gone away.

Q:What are the hottest trends in online dating?
MB: One is the rise in Baby Boomers and also rise of free dating sites, such as Plentyoffish.com, DateHookup.com, OkCupid.com, Matchdoctor.com, Bookofmatches.com, Smooch.com and CrazyBlindDate.com.

Q: What do you see as the future of online dating?
MB: It's difficult to enter the market and be a large generic dating site at this stage. The only thing you can build today is a niche dating site, and even niches are hard to build. That's why we're seeing the rise of a bunch of companies that offer white-label dating services. One of these companies is Whitelabeldating.com.

Full article @ NetworkWorld

The Power Of One

Posted on February 9, 2008

Plentyoffish_logo MARY GARDNER — Feb 8 — Last week I had the distinct pleasure of attending then Social Networking Conference in Miami and met Markus Frind who makes about $10 million a year off of his free site PlentyofFish.com with one employee. I was interested how one person could achieve such dramatic results. He ultimately listened to his gut instinct. He said programmers like bells and whistles, but the average person just wants it to work. That's all they care about! He doesn't try to make it look good. He just wants it to be great at allowing people to meet. FULL ARTICLE @ MARY GARDNER BLOG

How Do I Catch A Valentine?

Posted on February 6, 2008

Valentine_gift_valentines_day_gifts CHICAGO TRIBUNE — Feb 5 — Fewer people are checking out online dating sites. According to Comscore, the number of visits in December dropped by 10% to 20.2 million Americans, compared with December 2006 figures. "There are fewer people, but they're more serious," says Mark Brooks, who provides marketing and other services for online dating sites. "The revenues continue to climb because the looky-loos have gone away; they can't get much service without paying a subscription to a Web dating service."  "Paid online dating should grow from about $890 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.9 billion in 2012," says David Card, of Jupiter Research. The average monthly subscription is now $25 a month, up $20 a month from a few years ago, but more free sites might start popping up, thanks to the skyrocketing popularity of PlentyofFish. Plentyoffish.com is free and among the most visited Web sites — not just dating sites — in Canada and the U.S. Many so-called niche dating sites are growing, Farmersonly.com attracts those who like the agricultural way of life, while gk2gk.com appeals to self-described geeks. MyPartner.com welcomes gays and lesbians.

Hookups Get More Random, With Jangl On PlentyofFish

Posted on January 31, 2008

Janglplentyoffish_loga_2 MASHABLE — Jan 31 — The very successful , "no-gimmicks" dating site run by one man in his apartment is not known for its great user interface design, or even for its feature set. So it's a noteworthy thing when we find out that PlentyofFish is the latest to integrate Jangl VoIP services in order to offer click-to-call options for its dating users. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

Jangl Powering Anonymous Phone Sex On PlentyOfFish

Posted on January 31, 2008

Janglplentyoffish_loga TECH CRUNCH — Jan 31 — When it comes to connecting with new friends safely and privately, Jangl fits the bill. The "Social Communications Widget" lets you make calls, send SMSs, and leave voice mails without exposing anyone's phone number through a simple widget. Now they've forged a deal to be featured on the maverick of dating sites, PlentyOfFish. PlentyOfFish is like every other dating site you've heard of, but free. Free has actually paid off pretty well for founder Markus Frind, who runs the site from his Vancouver apartment and takes in over $10 million a year in advertising. Comscore ranked the site the number one dating site in December 2007, with an average of 1.3 billion page views a month (70,000 sessions and 3 million page views an hour). FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

Jangl Partners with Plentyoffish.com

Posted on January 31, 2008

Janglplentyoffish_loga_2 PRESS RELEASE — Jan 31 –  Jangl, the company connecting millions of online profiles and mobile phones, safely and privately, has teamed with the world's largest free online dating site, Plentyoffish.com, to let online daters get to know each other via text messages, phone calls and voicemail — all without sharing their real numbers. In less than 15 months, Jangl® has teamed with popular social web communities like Facebook, Bebo, Match.com, Friendster, AdultFriendFinder, Tagged and Fubar. Plentyoffish.com has witnessed extraordinary recent growth, serving 1.2 billion page views in December 2007 alone. According to comScore Media Metrix, it is the most visited dating site in the U.K. and Canada, and the second most visited in the U.S.

The full article was originally published at AD-HOC News, but is no longer available.