BUSINESS INSIDER – June 5 – Match.com, Zoosk and eHarmony advertise heavily on Facebook. However Facebook doesn't allow smaller, niche dating sites to advertise. "It's impossible to gain traction as a new dating site today without access to Facebook ads", says CEO of a dating site who has $500K to spend on ads, but Facebook declines to take his money. Facebook first activated a ban on small dating sites back in January. Facebook was going to revisit the policy after Valentine's Day but has since decided to extend the ban.
Category: Reporters – Jim Edwards
Brandon Wade, A Never-Been-Kissed Nerd, Built A ‘Sugar Baby’ Empire
BUSINESS INSIDER – Mar 27 – Brandon Wade has built SeekingArrangement.com, a dating site for "generous" men who are OK with paying for dates, and the women who are happy to accept the money. He's also a master of PR and word-of-mouth marketing. Last September Wade started Carrot Dating, a mobile app that requires men to offer bribes to women for dates. "In the very beginning I was a very lonely, shy and socially inept child", said Wade. "My mother told me to study very hard so I would be successful and rich which would make dating easier."
by Jim Edwards
See full article at Business Insider
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Facebook Is Blocking Dating Ads Until Valentine’s Day
BUSINESS INSIDER – Jan 19 – Facebook has temporarily blocked some dating sites from advertising if they are new to Facebook. Dating sites won't be able to advertise on FB until after Valentine's Day. Kyle McGinnis, the CEO of HiDine, says his ads ran for months on FB and were only recently bumped from the site. He believes Facebook is biased in favor of bigger dating sites with larger ad budgets.
by Jim Edwards
See full article at Business Insider
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Android Phones Are Used As Dumbphones
BUSINESS INSIDER – Jan 3 – Google's mobile users outnumber Apple's all over the place (80% of all smartphone users are Android owners), but Apple users are the ones spending all the money. iOS users spent $93.94 per order, twice that of Android users, who spent ~$48.10. It looks like Android people use their phones for calling, texting and playing Bejeweled. They ain't shopping.
by Jim Edwards
See full article at Business Insider
Mark Brooks: Android or iPhone? Where are you seeing best results for your dating app? Please comment.
People Will Pay for Sex But Not for Love
BNET – June 10 – 17 of FriendFinder Networks' 22 brands are targeted at a general audience. Most are dating sites, but they offer non-racy relationships, such as BigChurch.com for Christians and Slim.com for dieters. Some of those businesses have audiences that are far greater than FFN’s best-known brands. AsiaFriendfinder and Amigos.com both have more registrants historically than Alt.com, the kinky dating site; and BigChurch and Senior Friendfinder have more than Bondage.com. The 800lb gorilla in FFN’s business is AdultFriendFinder with 224M registrants since inception. Revenues from the adult businesses dwarf those of the general audience. In Q1 2011, FFN had $83M in total sales, and $55M of that came from its adult sites. Only $3M came from the 17 general audience businesses.
At FriendFinder, Models Make More Than The Company
BNET – May 19 - The stock of FriendFinder Networks (FFN) tanked following its IPO, sinking from $10 at its opening a few days ago to $5.85 at yesterday’s close. The company announced a revenue decline of 3.1% to $83.5M in Q1 2011. ~22% of FFN’s revenues from from a “live models” business, in which consumers can watch performers, er, “perform” on webcams. Commissions to models and their studios are 32.2 % of those revenues. Some rough math shows that the models and their studios collectively received ~$24.5M in commissions from FFN last year. The company, by contrast, lost $43.1M.