|
|
Monthly Archives
This page will redirect you to the new home of Online Dating Insider in 10 seconds.
« October 2004 |
Main
| December 2004 »
November 30, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
The International Association of Dating Website has launched their website. Take a moment to register yourself or your company today and make your voice heard on important legislation affecting the online dating industry.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to provide a forum for members to network, provide positive PR for the online dating industry, provide important information for members, serve as an advocate to Congress, etc. for the dating industry.
- To enable dating websites to network with one another.
- Provide a Code of Ethics for the online dating industry.
- Promote the online dating industry in a favorable light to the news media.
- Serve as an advocate for the online industry before the U.S. Congress, State Legislatures, foreign governemtns, etc.
Rich Gosse, IADW Founder:
We invite all of you to join the International Association of Dating Websites, free of charge. Join IADW now and be a part of the world's first Dating Association. Stay current with important news regarding the online dating industry, network with other site owners,You can join on our website at www.iadw.com.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: partnerships
Posted by Dave Evans
When I logged into Yahoo! Personals today I was greeted with an interstitial page asking me if I wanted to include my Personality & Love Style Test results in my profile today. Recently I wrote about Yahoo! partnering with WeAttract and wondering when your test results would be integrated with your profile, and that time is here.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
Posted by Dave Evans
I keep hearing that 30% of the visitors to dating sites are married and it looks like Hollywood heard that too. The Ashley Madison Agency is the basis for a new reality TV program to be produced by two Hollywood heavy-hitters. The program focuses on The Ashley Madison Agency, a real life matchmaking service that caters to attached people seeking extramarital affairs and will delve into why people stray, profiling actual members and following them as they make connections, play trysts and go on dates.
A show about husbands and wives cheating and lying to their spouses, brilliant!
Link
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
Posted by Dave Evans
Friendster and eHarmony announced an exclusive partnership to bring scientific matchmaking to Friendster's rapidly growing community. As part of the agreement, the companies will jointly launch a co-branded matching service that will combine eHarmony's patented Compatibility Matching System with Friendster's 13-million member community to help Friendster members find love and long-term relationships.
Scott Sassa, President and CEO, Friendster:
We have a great deal of synergy with eHarmony. We provide a network for meeting new friends, dates or business partners with shared interests, while eHarmony provides the safest possible environment to explore deeper compatibility and cultivate serious, long-term romantic relationships. Both companies have built leading online services -- from the ground up -- and we are firmly committed to this partnership to offer our users additional opportunities beyond their circle of friends.
Friendster raised $13 million a year ago and management has been under pressure to figure out how to monetize their members, which skews towards casual daters from the younger crowd. Membership soared as the viral aspect of inviting everyone in your address-book into your circle of friends took off, and now they're stuck with millions of members who don't want to pay for anything. On the other hand, eHarmony draws the older, and according to some industry insiders, religious, demographic willing to pay premium prices to meet their mate.
To make this deal work, eHarmony will have to come up with a value proposition that makes sense to a demographic they have no experience targeting. Reduced pricing, re-branding and a new marketing campaign will be required to get the attention of the younger crowd. The details of the exclusive partnership are not known at this time. It will be interesting to see how the integration proceedes.
Link
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | eharmony
Posted by Dave Evans
U.S. consumers spent $853 million on online content in the first half of 2004, led by growth in entertainment content -- a 14 percent increase in spending over the same period last year, according to the Paid Content U.S. Market Spending Report, conducted by comScore Networks.
Entertainment/lifestyles -- the fastest growing category -- overtook business/investment content as the second largest paid content category, driven largely by growth in online music spending. Spending in the entertainment category grew to $182.8 million in the first half of 2004, a 78.3 percent increase over the same period last year.
Personals/dating held its position as the leading paid content category, with U.S. consumers spending $227.9 million in the first half of 2004. Spending in the business/investment category dropped 8 percent to third place, with $154.9 million this year from $168.5 million in the first half of 2003. Both of these categories have seen slight declines in each of the last three quarters since peaking in Q3 2003.
The declines in personals/dating reverse a two and a half year period of rapid category growth, signaling a maturing of the market and a normalizing after a period of intense publicity, according to the report. Approximately 16.8 million U.S. consumers paid for content in the second quarter, up from 16.0 million in the year-ago period. The report found that the growth in paid content revenue is based on the addition of new content buyers rather than any change in dollars spent per consumer.
The report is chock-full of interesting facts about the industry and definitely required reading.
Comments (2)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance
Posted by Dave Evans
Hundreds have submitted a mobile video profile to win a place at the world's first video mobile dating event. The top 100 meet their match on 30 November at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). Hundreds of hopefuls submitted their profiles, and special booths were set up in a major London department store for two weeks where expert tips were given on how to visually improve their chances. The 100 most popular contestants voted by the public will gather at the ICA in separate rooms and "meet" by phone. The event, organised by the 3G network, 3, could catch on as the trend for unusual dating events, like speed dating, continues. "It's the beginning of the end of the blind date as we know it," said Graeme Oxby, 3's marketing director. The response has been so promising that 3 says it is planning to launch a proper commercial dating service soon.
Link
Comments (3)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Technology
November 29, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
For those of you you haven't registered, SITRACon II is this Wed-Fri in Hollywood, Florida. I'll be blogging the event, with a full write-up next week. Send me an email if you are attending and want to meet by the pool to discuss your company or service.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Events
Posted by Dave Evans
Entrepreneur Ong Peng Tsin is at it again. In 1993, he started Electric Classifieds, the creator of Match.com. The man responsible for one of the world's most successful matchmaking agencies is into his third start-up, Encentuate. This time, he is placing his bets on the contradictory premise of giving employees access to corporate data in a secure yet simple way. Previous coverage of Peng here and here.
Link
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
November 27, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Lemontonic sent out a press release stating that they have 600 new members a day and made $7,000 last quarter. Lemontonic recently crossed the 90,000 member threshold and will shortly complete its first month of paid service. Operating costs for the quarter ended September 30, 2004 increased to $2,066,385 from $82,052 in the same period in 2003 due to the costs related to developing the application and web service, brand development and customer acquisition costs, and website costs including hosting and ad serving.
The Lemontonic members use Microsoft's Instant Messenger technology to communicate with each other, similar to how AOL's Love.com leverages AOL Instant Messenger.
Lemontonic is looking for an additional $5 million to stay afloat, thats a lot of lemonade for a company in it's first month of paid subscriptions. I wonder how much of that will go to Microsoft as opposed to marketing costs.
Comments (0)
| Category: Finance
Posted by Dave Evans
I belong to several dating site affiliate programs. The extra beer money is great, and more importantly, I've found that dating sites that are good at managing relationships with their affiliates usually have an effective marketing strategy in place.
Many large dating sites have lackluster affiliate programs. Outdated revenue share numbers and incorrect contact information drive me crazy, and most services fail Affiliate Marketing 101 by not even sending out a monthly email telling me about my performance and offering ways to help me make more money.
This week, Yahoo! bucks the trend with seasonal Affiliate incentives. Yahoo! affiliates who generate 3 subscriptions in December earn a $75 bonus. Generate at least 30 subscriptions in a calendar month and they'll pay an extra 75% per subscription. Affiliates can earn up to $70 per subscription on top of the December bonus.
What is your company doing to bring in new affiliates and keep existing ones happy? Where are the special holiday ads and text links? Do all your ads have too much flashy bling-bling or do you go the extra mile and give your affiliate lots of choices between static, (tastefully) animated and compelling, call-to-action text links? Keep your affiliates happy this holiday season. Take care of them and they'll take care of you.
Comments (0)
| Category: Finance | Marketing
November 24, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Plucked from the blog headlines, Cupid.com a leading online dating service, today announced its acquisition of PreDating, America's largest speed dating company. This just crossed the wires so details are thin, more to come.
Comments (0)
| Category: Finance
November 23, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Details about MatchNet from Alyce Lomax at the Motley Fool:
Since 1999, MatchNet's sales have grown 460% to $36.9 million, mirroring the upward trajectory of online dating. Last year, its net revenues increased 125%, with a 61% increase in "active members" and a 138% boost in paying subscribers.
However, MatchNet also disclosed a sharply wider net loss for the year -- $10.9 million, or $0.57 per share, from a loss of $0.5 million, or $0.03 per share the year before. Revenue per subscriber decreased by 17%, while subscriber churn increased by a few percentage points.
The company's swelling expenses are largely a result of increased marketing costs -- up 233% last year -- because of competition. Partial justification for the IPO was to fund additional marketing and advertising.
Then there was the little disclosure that MatchNet's co-chairmen received 265% bonus increases in 2003, giving each a $1.4 million payout -- in my opinion, overly lavish compensation for a company poised to drum up public funds.
An IPO withdrawn just eight days after filing gave me the creeps. MatchNet's press announcement also disclosed the resignation of CEO Todd Tappin (formerly of Overture and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS)), who has been on board since only February, and the fact that it now plans to cut 40 positions to trim costs.
Comments (0)
| Category: Finance
Posted by Dave Evans
Gawker has more insider info on the cuts at SpringStreet. Insiders (probably management) are arguing over the validity of these statements:
SpringStreet is operating with just 8 people. Most of the technology and customer service team has been let go. Only 2 people remain in each department. One programmer is left to support over 80 partner sites. Two of the possible buyers are LavaLife and 180 Solutions (a spyware company who intend on using SSN as a distribution point). 180 Solutions offered 2 million.
Comments (0)
| Category: Rumors
Posted by Dave Evans
Just a month after Daum Communications bought Lycos, Matchmaker is on the block. No details about the asking price yet. I posted a timeline of events leading up to the Daum acquisition here. Daum plans to introduce blog-based social software service with more bells and whistles using Lycos platform and its user base.
Comments (0)
| Category: Finance | Rumors
Posted by Dave Evans
Number two on the Entrepreneur list of hot trends is Feeder Businesses:
"Eat off the big guys' plate. Trend agency Trendwatching.com coined the term "feeder business" for companies that feed off giants like Amazon or eBay. Instead of trying to compete with Match.com (so the feeder mind-set goes), why not start a business to help Match.com's clients write better online ads, take "glamour photos," or make sure that potential Mr. Right really is who he says he is? Other thriving feeder industries include eBay drop-off stores and eBay software. Chew on this: How could you feed off Google? Starbucks? Wal-Mart?"
Comments (0)
| Category: Marketing
Posted by Dave Evans
Guinness World Records officially recognises Match.com as the largest online dating site in the world. More than 42 million singles globally have registered with Match.com since its launch in 1995 and worldwide there are now over 15 million members using the service. In the UK alone over 1.2 million singles are using Match.com to help them find love, with nearly 50,000 singles registering with Match.com each month.
Link
Comments (0)
| Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
A US matchmaking service has been ordered to pay financial damages for introducing a Ukrainian woman to a future husband whom she says beat her. A federal jury in Baltimore awarded Nataliya Fox more than $430,000 after she sued Encounters International (EI) for negligence. EI specialises in matchmaking women from the former Soviet Union with North American men online.
Link
Comments (0)
| Category: Legal | Safety
Posted by Dave Evans
The JDate ad, a 30-second animated spot, runs once an hour for 18 hours a day on the JumboTron screen above ABC's "Good Morning America" window at 44th Street and Broadway in Times Square. The current initiative--which will run through early December, then again from Dec. 20 until Feb. 11--is the first traditional ad campaign for the site, said company spokesman Jonathan Cutler. JDate is also running a print campaign in New York magazine. The campaign, produced in conjunction with Outdoor Television Network and Blink Multimedia, will run only in New York City, where JDate has "a significant member base," said Cutler. MatchNet's move came just two days after Yahoo! debuted its own upgraded personals service, "Personals Premier."
MatchNet's American Singles is the third most popular online dating service, with 6.21 percent of the market, behind Yahoo! Personals, which has 20.94 percent of the market and Match.com, with 7.26 percent, according to research firm Hitwise. MatchNet's JDate was the 20th most popular dating service, according to Hitwise.
Link
Comments (0)
| Category: Dating Site | Marketing
November 21, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Online advertising and marketing agency Range Online Media has tapped Ray White, a former senior executive at Match.com, Verizon and GTE, to be its chief operating officer. Range, founded in 2001, has worked on behalf of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Pier 1 Imports, Travelocity, CompUSA, Toshiba America, and Epson, among other companies.
Link
Comments (0)
| Category: Jobs
November 17, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
From Brand Republic:
Yahoo! Europe will have features such as Messenger, its toolbar and personals service pre-installed on all Sony Vaio notebooks and desktops in a new deal with the electronics giant.
People buying Sony computers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain will find the Yahoo! services already installed when they boot them up for the first time. Yahoo! hopes that it will introduce its products to millions of people using Sony Vaio computers.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Technology
Posted by Dave Evans
Looks like Yahoo! is taking eHarmony seriously.
Yahoo Inc. late Tuesday launched Personals Premier, a premium online dating service aimed at attracting serious relationship seekers with deeper pockets. The move challenges eHarmony, a popular online dating site that picks potential "soul mates" for its subscribers based on results from a lengthy personality test. Yahoo's new premium service costs $34.95 a month and features searching and matching technology that uses results from new relationship and personality tests. Yahoo's existing personals service costs $19.95 per month.
The higher-priced offering comes at a time when growth in spending on online dating is slowing. Personals remain the largest paid online-content category in the U.S., excluding pornography and gambling, with U.S. consumers spending $227.9 million in the first half of 2004, according to the Online Publishers Association. Although spending in the period was up 6.4% from the first half of 2003, it has declined sequentially for three quarters in a marked reversal from two and a half years of rapid growth.
Yahoo operates the No. 1 personals site with 6.2 million users in October, according to research firm comScore Networks Inc.
Link. Another link to Smartmoney.com.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
Posted by Dave Evans
From the Motley Fool:
Gannett Co., Inc. (GCI), a leading international news and information company, and eHarmony, the Internet's premier relationship service, today announced a partnership to launch branded online personals for USA TODAY and Gannett's daily newspapers. eHarmony's patented Compatibility Matching System(TM) will power personals for Gannett's award-winning news and information sites including USATODAY.com, a national news site with more than 8 million unique visitors each month. The partnership enables millions of online visitors to Gannett's newspaper websites, such as AZCentral.com, DetNews.com, and IndyStar.com, to experience true compatibility with the click of a mouse.
Greg Forgatch, eHarmony's CEO :
When two customer-focused market leaders join forces, the real winners are millions of customers. We expect our relationship to offer benefits to both companies, as the reach of our Compatibility Matching System expands to Gannett's impressive readership.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
Posted by Dave Evans
Match.com, already embedded in 32 countries with 15 million active members, is offering a virtual solution for the maritally challenged in the world's second-largest economy.
Chief Operating Officer Joe Cohen:
Of our members, 80 percent said they're looking for a serious relationship or marriage. 400,000 test members, mainly in their late 20s and early 30s, had signed up for the Japanese service, which costs 3,200 yen (16.50 pounds) monthly to contact other posted lovelorn.
Cohen estimated Japan's online matching business will exceed $200 million (108 million pounds) in total revenues in four years.
Link
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Finance
Posted by Dave Evans
Buried in the press release about Mark Brooks joining Cupid.com is this interesting tidbit:
Cupid.com expects to announce a significant acquisition very shortly. This acquisition will further Cupid.com's promise of uniting local singles in the real world.
Sources close to Cupid are mum on the details.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Finance
Posted by Dave Evans
Online personals guru and marketing consultant Mark Brooks has joined Cupid.com, Inc. as VP Marketing & Business Development.
Link to Marks blog Onlinepersonalswatch and press release announcement.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Jobs
Posted by Dave Evans
From ClickZ:
Personals/dating held its position as the leading paid content category, with U.S. consumers spending $227.9 million in the first half of 2004. Spending in the business/investment category dropped 8 percent to third place, with $154.9 million this year from $168.5 million in the first half of 2003. Both of these categories have seen slight declines in each of the last three quarters since peaking in Q3 2003. The declines in personals/dating reverse a two and a half year period of rapid category growth, signaling a maturing of the market and a normalizing after a period of intense publicity, according to the report.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance
Posted by Dave Evans
"Great things are happening at Match.com", at least that's what the copy of their latest email update says. Match is touting their email management features that "you may have missed." If they're smart they will offer a forwarding feature so people can download their mail to their regular email box. They show a forwarding Icon yet I don't see any evidence of it in the live site.
Comments (1)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
Posted by Dave Evans
Looks like the service is free until 1/31/05.
The Yahoo! Personals Premier Guest List trial period is only open until January 31, 2005 at 11:59 PM PST. While you're on the Guest List, you'll have full access to all of the advanced searching and matching features of Yahoo! Personals Premier. Your access to these tools will be discontinued at the end of the trial period unless you choose to become a full Yahoo! Personals Premier subscriber.
Link
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
Posted by Dave Evans
Lorna Borenstein, a former eBay Inc. (EBAY) executive, is now vice president and general manager of Yahoo Personals. She replaces Katie Burke Mitic.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Jobs
Posted by Dave Evans
I've been AFK for a few days and just now catching up on the great links that people have been sending in.
In a sign of trouble in the online dating business, personals company Spring Street Networks has reduced its staff by almost half to 12 employees to stem losses, says Chairman Rufus Griscom.
The board has also removed chief executive Louis Kanganis. Spring Street runs personals for The Village Voice. Mr. Griscom wouldn't comment on speculation that the company is up for sale.
Link
Comments (1)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Jobs
November 10, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Wal-Mart is promoting dating at stores in Germany. Customers are greeted with a glass of wine, a personal profile is filled out and a photo is taken and posted on a bulletin board. Then you walk around with a shopping cart with a bright-red bow on it and try to meet someone in the guns and ammo section. Friday night is singles night at the store, and the event plays out regularly at many of the 91 other German Wal-Marts. The events have increased Friday night sales 25% and Wal-Mart has trademarked the name "Singles Shopping" to deter copycats.
This is similar to the Wednesday night singles night that Lavalife is sponsoring at Loews. Wal-Mart. At the moment, Wal-Mart has no plans to have Singles Shopping nights in its U.S. stores.
Tip of the hat to Arul Sundaram for bringing this to my attention.
Link (reg. req'd).
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Events | Dating Site
November 9, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
In case you don't know, the phrase "jumping the shark" is the exact time when a television show has become cliched and passe. For the series Happy Days, it was when Fonzie jumped his motorcycle over a shark tank. This press release could conceivably be the shark-jumping indicator for the online dating industry.
"Reality TV Meets Online Matchmaking. Now You Can Post Your Request For A Date With Your Favorite Reality TV Personality. Is This Person Hot Enough for a Date With a Reality TV Star?"
Call it a new spin on Hotornot, this service will lighten you Paypal wallet by $10 and you might get a date with a reality TV star. They even have Instructions For Reality TV Personalities. Just one thing, there is only one person listed so far.
Link
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
November 8, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Vertrue Incorporated (Nasdaq: VTRU), a leading marketing solutions company, announced today that its Board of Directors has authorized a self-tender offer for up to 500,000 shares of its common stock, which represents approximately 5 percent of its outstanding shares. The tender offer will be in the form of a "modified Dutch auction tender offer" in which stockholders will be given the opportunity to sell part or all of their shares to the Company at a price of not less than $30.00 per share and not more than $35.00 per share. This price range represents a 5.9 percent discount to a 9.8 percent premium when compared to the November 5, 2004 closing price of $31.874 per share. Based upon the minimum and maximum offering prices specified in the offer, the aggregate purchase price, if 500,000 shares are purchased, would range from $15.0 million to $17.5 million.
Link
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance
Posted by Dave Evans
I'm hearing a lot about mixing singles events and sports marketing. In fact, L.A. Sports and Entertainment Commission has backed a "Singles Night" for the opener of the WTA Tour Championships at Staples Center on Wednesday. The NBA's Washington Wizards are doing their own singles party, also Wednesday, for $50. This one includes in-game "speed dating" and a postgame party.
Link
Comments (1)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Marketing
Posted by Dave Evans
Following it's acquisition of Landmat, Enpocket (previous mention) has raised 9.5 million in a Series C round of financing. The financing was led by new investor Straumur Investment Bank and its subsidiary Bru Venture Capital, with all of Enpocket’s existing investors including Nokia Venture Partners, GrandBanks Capital and Dolphin Equity Partners also participating.
The new funding round will be used to expand the company’s sales and marketing initiatives across the Americas, Europe and Asia. Funds will also be used to support Enpocket’s ongoing acquisition of key technologies and products. Enpocket recently merged with Landmat, and had previously acquired SkyGo, an early leader in mobile internet ad serving technologies and Mobicus, an innovator in the development of mobile messaging software.
Enpocket has also announced that Peter Larsen, previously Enpocket’s Managing Director for Europe Middle East & Africa, has been promoted to Chief Executive Officer.
Link
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance
November 7, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
It's about time a an easy-to-understand metric was put in place to measure industry performance. ComScore gave a good presentation at SITRAS this summer which touched on the idea that we should be observing the interrelationship between several critical metrics to measure performance. How do you measure the top 10 sites? By monthly visitors, paying members or total profiles posted? How do we compare a site with lots of eyeballs and ad sales revenue with a site with fewer paid members? What about smaller sites with much higher customer satisfaction ratings? The ideal blend of metrics remains to be seen, at least until customer satisfaction ratings are taken into consideration.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
Match.com has lost its lead in the $500 million domestic online personals business. Match wooed 7.4 million visitors in September 2003, compared with Yahoo! Personal's 6 million. This past September, Match.com had 3.9 million visitors, compared with Yahoo!'s 6.6 million. In September, IAC chieftan replaced Match.com's CEO and cut 30 jobs, or 10% of its workforce. He also discontinued unprofitable services, such as dating advisers. Obviously there are several ways to measure the top 10 dating sites, amount of visitors being just one.
Link
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
November 5, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
In response to recent initiatives to regulate online dating, relationship, and social networking services, the Singles Industry Trade Association (SITRAS) is gathering to assess the proposed legislation and the issues and implications it presents.
Robert Dombkowski, Chairman of SITRAS:
“It is not in the best interest of any industry for one company to seek to impose legislation that effects the entire industry Any attempts to effect such legislation without collective consultation with and input from the established leaders in the industry should be automatically dismissed. One company cannot represent the voice of an industry, nor its consumers. Issues such as government regulation demand careful consideration and collaboration on a comprehensive industry position. Anything less should be viewed as being overreaching at best and, at worst, self-serving.”
In response to various activities around the country, SITRAS has put industry regulation front and center for SITRACon II, the Singles Industry Trade Conference and Exhibition taking place December 1-3, 2004 in Hollywood, FL (see www.SITRAS.com for details).
SITRACon II includes an interactive session of executives from the background check industry and a session of executives from the online dating industry. Additionally, SITRAS is launching its Regulatory Committee with an open session on December 3rd. The SITRAS Regulatory Committee will undertake careful review of all regulatory initiatives and formulate a collective position on any and all such efforts.
SITRAS and SITRACon II are open to all companies who are directly or indirectly interested in the Singles Industry. Interested parties can contact SITRAS directly by calling 1-877-4 SITRAS or via email at info@SITRAS.com.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Events | Legal
Posted by Dave Evans
eHarmoney is offering a a 12-part CD series featuring online self-assessments called Finding the Love of your Life. Pricing is $14.95 a month for 12 months or $179.95. Certain dating sites are currently exploring the infomercial angle to pitch similar concepts. Keep an eye out over the next few months.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | eharmony
Posted by Dave Evans
TouchGraph has a free service where you can enter in the address of a dating site (or any site for that matter), and a Java window pops up displaying the site and all sites that link to/from it. The clustering is fascinating, and it's a lot nicer than pouring over text-only referrer logs.
How a particular site is perceived, it's status, and popularity becomes quite clear from the nature of the sites linking to it. Yahoo! Personals, for example, tends to link to clusters of other Yahoo! properties. Date.com is all over the place, lots of news organizations, european and asian links, which I suspect are affiliates. True.com has links to Careerbuilder and other dating sites. Match.com didn't work, perhaps it's popularity overtaxed the software.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
- 10.1 million members up from 8.5 million a year ago
- 235,000 paying subscribers
- Average revenue per subscriber was $75
- Average subscriber acquisition cost was $41
Revenue in the third quarter of 2004 was $17.1 million, an increase of 8%
compared to $15.8 million for the second quarter of 2004. Compared to the
third quarter of last year, revenue increased 74%, from $9.8 million. The
increase in revenue was primarily due to an increase in subscriptions.
The net loss in the third quarter was $3.0 million, compared to a net loss
of $4.1 million in the second quarter of 2004 and a net loss of $2.7 million
in the third quarter of last year.
On an adjusted EBITDA(3) basis, the loss in the third quarter was
approximately $200,000, compared to a loss of $2.4 million in the second
quarter and a loss of $2.1 million in the third quarter of last year.
In order to provide a more accurate depiction of its membership,
during the first quarter of 2004, the company changed the way it
accounts for active members to include those members who were active
in the 12 months preceding the period end date. Previously, the
company reported members during the subject period regardless of their
last date of activity.
The company also announced several key hires, including Mark Thompson as
chief financial officer, Phil Nelson as chief technology officer, Greg
Liberman as general counsel, and Sherry Willhoite as director of product
development.
The company also announced the appointment of Benjamin Derhy to its board
of directors. Mr. Derhy is a private investor and entrepreneur with a
particular focus on the Internet and consumer products sectors. He replaces
Todd Tappin, who resigned from MatchNet's board in August.
Read the Press release.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance
November 4, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
The Boulder office of San Francisco-based Enlaso is localizing Match.com into 15 languages. While some of Enlaso's projects may be for medical or tech companies, the programmers also get to work with the lighter side of technology.
Yves Lang, V.P sales and marketing at Enlaso's Boulder office:
[from Boulder News] We'll be translating phrases like, 'Send hugs and kisses,'“ Lang said. ”We'll have fun testing this.“
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
Posted by Dave Evans
Personals grew revenue by 3% to $49.7 million, driven primarily by a 9% increase in paid subscribers, partially offset by a decrease in average revenue per subscriber. International subscription growth was strong, with paid subscribers up 68% over the prior year, excluding declines at uDate.
Operating Income Before Amortization declined 54% to $4.5 million and operating income declined 37% to $2.8 million, driven primarily by higher customer acquisition costs and charges relating to the elimination of certain non-core business lines. The company expects Q4 revenue to be flat and operating margins to be adversely impacted versus the prior year due to higher operating expenses including increases in customer acquisition costs.
Link
Comments (0)
| Category: Finance
Posted by Dave Evans
Standard Payments, LLC, the majority-owned merchant services subsidiary of Dallas-based payments services company Transactional Technologies, LLC, has enabled its proprietary JetPay™ real time BIN blocking utility for Beverly Hills, CA-based MatchNet plc.
"The rapid development and deployment of real time BIN blocking for MatchNet is an ideal illustration of our unique business model," said David L. Tepoorten, President of Standard Payments. "We build and manage custom payment acceptance solutions; MatchNet demonstrated a specific need and we acted quickly to provide a solution."
BIN Blocking is a fraud prevention service that permits the establishment of unique business rules to allow or deny by BIN (Bank Identification Number), or by country or by combinations of both. Because the merchant holds liability for fraud-related chargebacks in the card-not-present payments acceptance environment, BIN blocking is a valuable risk mitigation and chargeback reduction tool.
Link
Comments (0)
| Category: Finance
November 3, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Big changes are happening here at Socialpeople. As you read this, I am moving this blog to Corante.com. Corante is a leading news and business intelligence service on technology and science that's read by many of the sector's top entrepreneurs, executives, funders, followers and thinkers. An information service that delivers targeted news coverage of multiple verticals via its website and email newsletters, Corante is also helping to pioneer the emergence of blogging as an influential and important form of reportage, analysis and commentary.
I'm excited to be a part of the Corante network and consulting organization. Stay tuned for more details. Bookmark this page in your browser or Newsreader. Please be patient while we move over all entries and comments.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Rumors
November 1, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Looks like scammers using Webdate to troll for victims to save 'damsels' in distress.
Link
Comments (1)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Rumors
|
|
