Category: TRUE.com

Love Knows No Borders

Posted on February 20, 2007

Couple_parisMEDIA POST — Feb 19 — France has the highest proportion of Internet users visiting online personals sites. ComScore Networks recently reported that 22% of French Internet users, age 15+, visited online personals sites in December 2006, followed by the British with 20%, and the Americans with 13%. Interestingly, usage of dating sites seems to peak in the summer months in each country; July in the U.K. and U.S. and September in France.

Top Personals Sites in the U.K. (Visitors Age 15+ December 2006 Home and Work Locations)
Total Web Users in U.K. (Age 15+):  29,788,000
Personals Category Total:  5,836,000
DatingDirect – 1,427,000
LoopyLove – 960,000
GirlsDateForFree – 618,000
Match.com Sites -  510,000
Interrodate.co.uk – 452,000

Top Personals Sites in France (Visitors Age 15+ December 2006 Home and Work Locations)
Total Web Users in France (Age 15+):  24,409,000
Personals Category Total:  5,317,000
Meetic -  2,258,000
Easyrencontre -  724,000
CapFriends.fr – 369,000
2Become1-fr.com – 337,000
MSN Dating & Personals -  299,000

Top Personals Sites in the U.S. (Visitors Age 15+ December 2006 Home and Work Locations)
Total Web Users in the U.S. (Age 15+):  152,350,000
Personals Category Total:  20,555,000
Yahoo! Personals -  4,153,000
Match.com Sites** -  3,970,000
TRUE – 3,086,000
Spark Networks -  2,504,000
Singlesnet – 2,173,000

The full article was originally published at Center For Media Research, but is no longer available.

Love Knows No Borders

Posted on February 20, 2007

Couple_parisMEDIA POST — Feb 19 — France has the highest proportion of Internet users visiting online personals sites. ComScore Networks recently reported that 22% of French Internet users, age 15+, visited online personals sites in December 2006, followed by the British with 20%, and the Americans with 13%. Interestingly, usage of dating sites seems to peak in the summer months in each country; July in the U.K. and U.S. and September in France.

Top Personals Sites in the U.K. (Visitors Age 15+ December 2006 Home and Work Locations)
Total Web Users in U.K. (Age 15+):  29,788,000
Personals Category Total:  5,836,000
DatingDirect – 1,427,000
LoopyLove – 960,000
GirlsDateForFree – 618,000
Match.com Sites -  510,000
Interrodate.co.uk – 452,000

Top Personals Sites in France (Visitors Age 15+ December 2006 Home and Work Locations)
Total Web Users in France (Age 15+):  24,409,000
Personals Category Total:  5,317,000
Meetic -  2,258,000
Easyrencontre -  724,000
CapFriends.fr – 369,000
2Become1-fr.com – 337,000
MSN Dating & Personals -  299,000

Top Personals Sites in the U.S. (Visitors Age 15+ December 2006 Home and Work Locations)
Total Web Users in the U.S. (Age 15+):  152,350,000
Personals Category Total:  20,555,000
Yahoo! Personals -  4,153,000
Match.com Sites** -  3,970,000
TRUE – 3,086,000
Spark Networks -  2,504,000
Singlesnet – 2,173,000

The full article was originally published at Center For Media Research, but is no longer available.

Which Dating Sites Convert the Best?

Posted on January 3, 2007

OPW — Jan 2 — Online Personals Watch is for online personals marketing managers and executives to stay ahead of the news, and for the press to research the industry. It's not really designed for end users. Having said that, I make a few bucks from affiliate text links. $5k last year. Not too shabby. I thought I'd share the conversion numbers with you, for open discussion. I'm listing companies with which I had more than 1000 click throughs. I'm told affiliates will usually send an affiliate program 300 clicks before drawing initial conclusions on conversions. Here's the rankings drawn from stats for January 1st 2005, through December 25th 2006.  I'll redo them for a smaller date range later this quarter. 

 

 
Dating site Affiliate System Total Commission Total Uniques Income per Unique
#1 PerfectMatch Commission Junction   $899 2567    35c
#2 SexSearch In House   $1,580 4690    34c
#3 TRUE Commission Junction*   $1,459 5626    26c
#4 AdultFriendFinder In House   $1,523 6144    25c
#5 Yahoo Personals Commission Junction   $1,595 6780    24c
#6 eHarmony Commission Junction   $502 3536    14.2c
#7 American Singles Commission Junction   $285 3591    7.9c
#8 Match Link Share**   $503 4887    7.7c
#9 Cupid Direct Track   $210 3334    5c
#10 Joint: Webdate
and Love Access		 Both In House   $0 2923/1916    0c

  * I switched out to TRUE under Primaryads.com and they are paying out a little better.
** I've not had a good experience with LinkShare.

All the sites pay out slightly differently.  Where I had an option, I opted to be paid by % of revenue generated. I've focused on Dollars per Unique for this comparison.  If you want the full spreadsheet, email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com and I'll send you the stats including the number of registrants, paying members, revenue and additional ratios. Your comments please…

Which Dating Sites Convert the Best?

Posted on January 3, 2007

OPW — Jan 2 — Online Personals Watch is for online personals marketing managers and executives to stay ahead of the news, and for the press to research the industry. It's not really designed for end users. Having said that, I make a few bucks from affiliate text links. $5k last year. Not too shabby. I thought I'd share the conversion numbers with you, for open discussion. I'm listing companies with which I had more than 1000 click throughs. I'm told affiliates will usually send an affiliate program 300 clicks before drawing initial conclusions on conversions. Here's the rankings drawn from stats for January 1st 2005, through December 25th 2006.  I'll redo them for a smaller date range later this quarter. 

 

 
Dating site Affiliate System Total Commission Total Uniques Income per Unique
#1 PerfectMatch Commission Junction   $899 2567    35c
#2 SexSearch In House   $1,580 4690    34c
#3 TRUE Commission Junction*   $1,459 5626    26c
#4 AdultFriendFinder In House   $1,523 6144    25c
#5 Yahoo Personals Commission Junction   $1,595 6780    24c
#6 eHarmony Commission Junction   $502 3536    14.2c
#7 American Singles Commission Junction   $285 3591    7.9c
#8 Match Link Share**   $503 4887    7.7c
#9 Cupid Direct Track   $210 3334    5c
#10 Joint: Webdate
and Love Access		 Both In House   $0 2923/1916    0c

  * I switched out to TRUE under Primaryads.com and they are paying out a little better.
** I've not had a good experience with LinkShare.

All the sites pay out slightly differently.  Where I had an option, I opted to be paid by % of revenue generated. I've focused on Dollars per Unique for this comparison.  If you want the full spreadsheet, email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com and I'll send you the stats including the number of registrants, paying members, revenue and additional ratios. Your comments please…

The Real Top Dating Sites

Posted on December 29, 2006

COMPETE — Dec 28 — Ranking online dating sites purely on visitor traffic is flawed; membership is a prerequisite to use the services, and member activity is the foundation of successful matchmaking. Looking at how members use a site gives a clearer picture of the online dating landscape, and changes rankings dramatically. Member visits start to reveal actual engagement.

Yahoo Personals grabbed the top rank. While TRUE placed 2nd in visitors, its 8th rank in member logins indicates that much of this traffic came from TRUE's intense advertising efforts on youth oriented social networking sites. In addition True members represented a mere 8% of total visitors. Plentyoffish.com showed that free services can be successful; 9th in terms of visitors, the site leapt to 5th in member interaction. More importantly, it was one of 5 sites with more than 10 million member visits, putting it in a class with much higher trafficked sites and besting its next competitor by a multiple of 2x.

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

The Real Top Dating Sites

Posted on December 29, 2006

COMPETE — Dec 28 — Ranking online dating sites purely on visitor traffic is flawed; membership is a prerequisite to use the services, and member activity is the foundation of successful matchmaking. Looking at how members use a site gives a clearer picture of the online dating landscape, and changes rankings dramatically. Member visits start to reveal actual engagement.

Yahoo Personals grabbed the top rank. While TRUE placed 2nd in visitors, its 8th rank in member logins indicates that much of this traffic came from TRUE's intense advertising efforts on youth oriented social networking sites. In addition True members represented a mere 8% of total visitors. Plentyoffish.com showed that free services can be successful; 9th in terms of visitors, the site leapt to 5th in member interaction. More importantly, it was one of 5 sites with more than 10 million member visits, putting it in a class with much higher trafficked sites and besting its next competitor by a multiple of 2x.

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

Your Best Bets on Finding e-Love

Posted on December 7, 2006

EloveCOURIER NEWS — Dec 7 — Of the five sites surveyed — AmericanSingles, eHarmony, Match.com, True and Yahoo Personals — only True checks backgrounds of applicants. Three sites — eHarmony, True and Yahoo Personals — offer a compatibility test, which they use to try to pair members based on far more than likes and dislikes. At eHarmony, you can be deemed unmatchable, and rejected.  You can peek into each of the five sites before opening your wallet. All of them offer advice. One-month subscriptions range from $25 (Yahoo Personals) to $60 (eHarmony). Our staffer had a few complaints. She asked for a man within five years of her age, but got a reply from a Match.com member 20 years her senior. (His profile described his favorite oily massage.) She looked for matches at AmericanSingles and found two with different ages, user names and profiles — but the same photo. 

Privacy peeves. Policies varied. Match.com may share personal information with other companies whose names are displayed on the site. True has been certified for privacy and security protection by more than one independent group. Profile may remain active and viewable on these sites until you notify customer service to remove it permanently.

If Internet dating gives you pause, try True, whose screening of members and customer-friendly privacy policy make it especially reassuring. If you favor matches close to handpicked, eHarmony is a good bet.  If you just want the basics, try Match.com or Yahoo Personals, which have a simple, well-organized setup.

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

Your Best Bets on Finding e-Love

Posted on December 7, 2006

EloveCOURIER NEWS — Dec 7 — Of the five sites surveyed — AmericanSingles, eHarmony, Match.com, True and Yahoo Personals — only True checks backgrounds of applicants. Three sites — eHarmony, True and Yahoo Personals — offer a compatibility test, which they use to try to pair members based on far more than likes and dislikes. At eHarmony, you can be deemed unmatchable, and rejected.  You can peek into each of the five sites before opening your wallet. All of them offer advice. One-month subscriptions range from $25 (Yahoo Personals) to $60 (eHarmony). Our staffer had a few complaints. She asked for a man within five years of her age, but got a reply from a Match.com member 20 years her senior. (His profile described his favorite oily massage.) She looked for matches at AmericanSingles and found two with different ages, user names and profiles — but the same photo. 

Privacy peeves. Policies varied. Match.com may share personal information with other companies whose names are displayed on the site. True has been certified for privacy and security protection by more than one independent group. Profile may remain active and viewable on these sites until you notify customer service to remove it permanently.

If Internet dating gives you pause, try True, whose screening of members and customer-friendly privacy policy make it especially reassuring. If you favor matches close to handpicked, eHarmony is a good bet.  If you just want the basics, try Match.com or Yahoo Personals, which have a simple, well-organized setup.

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

Dating Websites Can Miss Criminals

Posted on October 19, 2006

True_1_6KUTV — Oct 18 — TRUE promises safer relationships through background checks but admits that sex offenders and convicted felons can still make their way into the site. Convicted child molester and registered sex offendor, Robert Wells, registered on the site. “If we find [a member has] a felony conviction, we're going to turn [them] in for wire fraud,” said CEO Herb Vest. TRUE uses a criminal screening company called "Rapsheets," which has  ~94% of U.S. felony convictions,” said Vest.
He says Wells lives in a country that does not provide criminal data to certain companies. A quick search on the government-funded national sex offender registry – and we found Robert Wells. Vest says the sex offender registry isn't commercially feasible to use. Rapsheets performs thousands of background checks instantaneously. “There's no database, there's nothing I could do to possibly get all of the convicted felons,” said Vest. TRUE will debut a new, more thorough data provider early next year which should nab 96% of criminals.

Mark Brooks: TRUE is doing the best it can with the services currently available. If other major dating sites had offered background checks perhaps the rate of improvement would have been faster.  Rapsheets offers affordable, value background checks. They're not 100%, but they're better than nothing. Other, more thorough, services exist but are cost prohibitive. The arguments from other sites against bg checks goes as follows. We don't offer bg checks because: 1. They're way short of being foolproof (and fairly pricey), 2. Most felony charges are talked down to misdemeanors and misdemeanors are way more difficult to search for, 3. Users can lie about their identity which renders the background checks useless. TRUE states on their home page "If you are a convicted criminal, be aware that you could be guilty of fraud and subject to civil and criminal penalties."  That's more compelling.  That's where the teeth are in TRUE safety offerings.

fyi, TRUE's business development team made their background checking system available to other dating sites several months ago. Noone has taken them up on it yet. Enabling their system on other dating sites would undermine their differentiation but proves they are more committed to the cause of safety than they are given credit for. Checks would be ~$5 each using the Rapsheet system.

Internet User Admits ‘web-rage’

Posted on October 18, 2006

WebrageBBC NEWS — Oct 17 — An internet user has been found guilty of what police said was Britain's first "web-rage" attack. The pair met in an internet chatroom called Islam 10 (Yahoo). Both had an interest in the Muslim faith but exchanges soured after Gibbons accused Mr Jones of spreading rumours about him. Gibbons traced Jones to his home using personal details about himself that he had put online. A fight broke out. Essex Police said the case demonstrates the importance of protecting one's identity on the internet.

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

Mark Brooks: TRUE has been raising awareness of the risks associated with internet dating. MySpace has been in the news constantly on the subject. The internet is still safer than meeting people randomly in the real world. Users should, however, not share contact information such as address and telephone numbers. I'm working on Vumber and we'll release a simple 'throw away number' telephone service for singles at the internet dating convention in January.