MEDIA WEEK – Zoosk has appointed MediaCom to its multimillion-pound account after a three-way competitive pitch against undisclosed agencies. Activity for the brand will be mainly television-based, with Zoosk estimated to spend £2m in the UK. The activity in the UK is the first time the Zoosk brand has been seen outside the US and Canada, where the dating service has based most of its advertising until now.
by Mark Banham
See full article at Media Week
TECH CRUNCH – Mar 13 – JDate has filed a patent lawsuit against 2RedBeans, Zoosk, and OKCupid. JDate alleges that all three companies are infringing the same patent, which states that Sparks Networks (JDate’s parent company) has invented a method or apparatus for automating the process of confidentially determining whether people feel mutual attraction or have mutual interests. JDate has a patent on detecting secret crushes. The suit calls out OkCupid’s QuickMatch, Zoosk’s Scientific Matching Service, and 2RedBean’s Secret Admire function as infringing JDate-owned patent # 5,950,200, titled “Method and Apparatus for Detection Of Reciprocal Interests or Feelings And Subsequent Notification.” Spark Networks wants the three companies to pay damages to JDate for the infringement.
by Leena Rao
See full article at Tech Crunch
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TECH CRUNCH – Feb 8 – That’s up from $20M in revenue in 2009. Zoosk says that sales growth was driven primarily by sales of its premium subscriptions, which are offered in 60 different countries around the world. International expansion is a big area of growth for the dating site, which has support for 25 different languages and has started a global advertising campaign. Launched in late 2007, Zoosk has raised $40.5M in new funding, and rolled out a proprietary matching technology, which has suggested more than 700M matches since it was first launched in September 2010. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
PRESS RELEASE – Jan 13 – Zoosk's survey showed three out of four (73%) singles are hopeful that they will find love in 2011. This poll showed that UK singles are not shy in coming forward. 51% of single women and 44% of single men admitted sending saucy pictures of themselves to others. And of those who haven’t, ~30% said they wouldn’t rule it out. The survey also discovered that we prefer text to email, IM, or Twitter, with 50% of women and 35% of men choosing this form of communication. FULL ARTICLE @ SOURCEWIRE
ECONOMIST – Dec 29 – The new year can be an unhappy time but it is a golden opportunity for dating sites, as singles are hoping to find romance—ideally before February 14th. “The period between New Year’s Day and Valentine’s Day is our busiest six weeks of the year,” explains Sam Yagan, from OkCupid. Once seen as the last resort for a bunch of lonely geeks, online-dating services have gradually shed much of the stigma formerly associated with them. ComScore says Match.com and Zoosk saw 4.6M and 4.8M unique visitors respectively in November 2010. Deepak Kamra of Canaan Partners, an American VC firm that has backed Zoosk and BharatMatrimony, estimates that the industry’s revenues now amount to $3 billion-4 billion a year. The online-dating world has also spawned thousands of niche ones. Then there is the fuss over sites such as Illicit Encounters and Ashley Madison, which match people seeking partners for extramarital affairs. But to blame the service for infidelity is to confuse cause and effect. FULL ARTICLE @ ECONOMIST
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EXAMINER – Dec 28 - Zoosk, a dating site that uses major social networks to find a date, has a new banned commercial. The new commercial was set to air in Europe, yet it was banned. The reason for the ban might be that the commercial is too violent. The man is stretching for a dart throw in a bar, looking to impress. After the perfect ninja call, the dart goes flying into the chest of another dude who appears dead at the end of the shot.
The full article was originally published at Examiner, but is no longer available.
WASHINGTON POST – Dec 5 - In theory, Facebook should be a mecca for singles looking to connect. Nick O'Neill, founder of All Facebook, a Web site that watches trends on the network, believes Facebook-based dating services are bound for the digital graveyard. Some of them will eventually become viable competitors to Match.com. The companies leading the way, he said, use Facebook to attract users while maintaining their privacy. Zoosk, for instance, lets people sign up for the service through Facebook and other networks. The company has attracted ~$40 million in venture capital and claims to have~50M registered users. AreYouInterested.com is adding ~50K users a day. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST
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OPW – Nov 10 – I started my tour by jetting off to London to keynote at the White Label Dating / Global Personals annual partner conference. It was fascinating getting the inside-track on the company, attending their two day conference. They've had a tough year beating off scammers, and then elevating their conversion factors to new highs. They've done some especially innovative work turning their customer service department into a profit center. Next, Toronto, to meet with Justin and Annabelle of Fastlife.com. I paid Noel at Avid Life Media. The Toronto IDEA soiree went very well. In L.A. a visit with Spark Networks, and then eHarmony to meet the CEO and tour the eHarmony Labs. Absolutely fascinating! Its so nice to see some true primary research coming from an internet matchmaking company. I ran a little IDEA soiree in L.A. A quick trip to Palm Springs next, to pay Conciant a visit. They have an interesting offering in the works for idating companies. San Francisco next, to visit Zoosk. I first met Jeff at iDate Miami 2004. He was one of the best speakers the conference has ever had the pleasure of hosting. In Dallas, Mandy is driving Match.com to new heights. $106 million last quarter. I caught up with Trish from TRUE. It will be a nice acquisition target in a year or so. – Mark Brooks
Q: How are you managing your company from Malta?
A: 3 years ago I took a trip to Shanghai. There was an Internet dating conference in Shanghai, and I decided to stay there for 2 months. And business grew. I learned that my clients did not care where I was based as long as the work got done. I brought 15 people onto my team.
Q: What exactly do you do when you consult online personal sites?
A: We help Internet dating companies make more money. And also companies that want to talk to them. We do PR, business development, and strategic advisement.
Q: Can you tell people a little more about the blog?
A: In 2004, when I was working with FriendFinder, I noticed that I was getting great snippets of information from the press. And I consistently didn't have time to read all of the articles. So I thought it would be nice if somebody could summarize and extract the best intelligence out of what the press were writing about. So in June of 2004, I started OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. The idea is that we condense three hours of reading into three minutes of reading a day. In January of 2005, I had three jobs offers on the table, so I decided to take all three. And that is how Courtland Brooks started. At a point from there, I knew a lot of people that I thought could do a better job than me. So, I hired them.
Q: Is there still money in the dating world? It seems to me like most people either go to one of the top sites or they go to Facebook.
A: The reason dating sites have a future is because it's one thing to be single and another to be single and available. And it's even another thing to be single and available and looking. You don't find that on Facebook. Yes, you can find people that say they are single. But are they really single? Are they dating? Are they really available?
Q: But Markus at PlentyofFish has blogged that social networks are taking customers away from dating sites.
A: Yes. It is taking attention. But people want a more focused experience. There are two surprises that we have had in the dating industry. The first one is that social networking didn't kill the dating industry. And the second one is that Internet dating didn't kill the matchmaking industry.
Q: What about the idea that there are already enough established players out there that it is really hard to come in with a new site?
A: It is. Without a doubt.There are thousands of Internet dating services. I rather think it is like starting a restaurant. It's not that difficult, you would think, to start a restaurant. But there's a lot more moving pieces that go into building a successful restaurant than meets the eye. And the same with Internet dating.
Q: Let's say Casey Allen, who I see here in the audience, decides that he is going to start an online dating site. What's the first thing that you'd recommend that he do?
A: First question is, is he a marketer or a technologist? If Casey is a marketer then he should go down the white labeling route and use a service like White Label Dating, DatingFactory.com or EasyDate.
Q: What if Casey Allen happens to be a technologist and he can code something up? What would you advise him at that point?
A: There are two extra routes that he can take. Number one is to use an off the shelf software like BoonEx and another option is use a programming outfit that has already built dating sites in the past.
Q: How do you bring people into a site today?
A: All of the major dating sites spend a lot of money on PPC. So, Overture and AdWords are an absolute mainstay of the industry. PlentyofFish is a wonderful place to run ads. If you can pay an extra 50 cents to a network, then you can get 10 times more traffic. Commission Junction and ShareASale have a good reputation.
Q: What else brings people in?
A: SEO. Also I'm a big fan of affiliates. The problem with affiliates, by the way, is there are rogue affiliates that will send junk traffic. The only way to deal with them is you've got to understand their position. They want to make money. And affiliates tend to be short-term based. They don't care too much about the brand, because they will just switch out to a different brand. So, the only way to really manage rogue affiliates is by laying down guidelines.
Q: We talked about how to get people in the door. What about getting them to multiply? By multiply, we mean viral marketing, getting them to bring their friends..
A: Let's start with Zoosk. They are one of the great, recent, success stories. On a typical dating site, you sign up. You've got to put in all your information. With a Facebook based social dating site such as Zoosk, some of that information can be sucked over. And so that really improves the initial conversions and efficiency. Plus, you know, the kinds of people that are on Facebook are going to be a little bit more social. When people talk about a good or a bad experience they think of as Internet dating. They don't tend to think of it so much as, it's Zoosk. It's Match.com. It's FriendFinder or Fling or whatever. I think the industry as a whole needs to make sure that they have a good experience. That means not allowing scammers. Scammers are actually very good for short-term conversions, funnily enough.
Q: How is that?
A: Because they are very active about communicating with people and getting them to convert.
Q: Do you have a sense of what percentage of sales these scammers are responsible for?
A: I don't know. I think for some sites, it is quite significant. For sites of integrity, it is very small, because they kick them off.
Q: What else do people do to multiply?
A: I am a big fan of success stories. ChristianCafe.com is very good with success stories. So is Match.com and PlentyOfFish.com. Now, there is a bit more to be said for social media these days and mobile.
Q: Can you give me an example of one company that's doing social well and how they are doing it, and then one company in mobile and how they are doing mobile well?
A: PlentyofFish does well as a social dating site in and of itself. In terms of social media, well, actually, Zoosk is a good example. They have had some music videos that have been featured, and so has PlentyofFish. PlentyofFish has been in a video on Lady Gaga. So, that's quite a new thing for the industry. I think OKCupid has the best blog in the industry. Again, they have got material that is extremely compelling, extremely interesting. And so they are getting the press talking about it.
FULL ARTICLE @ MIXERGY
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MARKET WATCH – Jun 15 - Quepasa Corporation, owner of Quepasa.com, an online social network targeting the Latino community, completed its implementation of the Zoosk dating service within the social network. The objective of the partnership is to extend the Zoosk community across the countries of Latin America by promoting and monetizing the Zoosk offering to the users of Quepasa.com.
The full article was originally published at Market Watch, but is no longer available.