Looking for Your Type?
Mark Brooks: Community Connect (Blackplanet.com, Asianavenue.com, Migente.com), Friendfinder, and Spark are the niche dating leaders in terms of overall revenues.
Must Love Dogs, Buddha, Caves
DENVER POST -- Feb 28 -- "There are certainly more niche sites coming online, because I seem to hear about more wackier new ones every day," says Nate Elliott, an online personals analyst with Jupiter Research. Some offer bells and whistles such as the video chat and mobile dating technology available at webdate.com. Others like adultfriendfinder.com brazenly tackle subjects such as casual sex encounters and fetishes. Everybody has his or her "thing," whether it's a passion for Catholicism, a love of dogs or spelunking. The niche dating concept hinges on the idea that if you find someone with that same thing, you'll be more likely to foster a stronger connection. Cowboydating.com, Geek2Geek, SingleParentsMingle.com, BlackPlanet.com. Datemypet.com receives 50,000 visitors a month. "Niche dating is a solid model right now because [each site] has branding that's appealing," says Mark Brooks, editor of onlinepersonalswatch.com. "But what you give up is more choice available on the larger, general-use sites. You've just gone from a pool of millions with everything under the sun, every age, every demographic to a pool of thousands." Larger general-use sites are updating search engines to allow users to pinpoint must-haves in their profiles. Match, Yahoo Personals and eHarmony together account for more than 50 percent of all online dating traffic. FULL ARTICLE @ DENVER POST
JupiterResearch Finds Rising Prices Keep New Subscribers Away from Online Dating
JUPITER RESEARCH PRESS RELEASE -- Feb 8 -- According to a new report entitled: "Online Dating in 2006: Pricing Strategies to Drive Subscriber Growth" authored by JupiterResearch Analyst Nate Elliott, industry growth in the last twelve months has been driven by higher monthly fees rather than an increasing number of subscribers. A January 2006 JupiterResearch consumer survey found that 5% of Internet users paid for online dating subscriptions in the last year, down slightly from 6% in 2005. Industry-wide user conversion rates fell for the first time since JupiterResearch began tracking that metric. "Although online dating revenues continue to grow, rising prices have kept a large number of users from converting to paid subscribers. The report also concludes that social networking sites pose little threat to the online dating industry. RELEASE @ JUPITER MEDIA
The Five-Year Itch
NEWSWEEK -- Feb 27 -- Feb. 27, 2006 issue - Mark Brooks, editor of consumer watchdog Online Personals Watch, says the industry stands at a crossroads. "I keep hearing that the industry is slumping," Brooks says. "No, it isn't, but we have got to get our act together." Online dating in the U.S. has reached what Jupiter Research analyst Nate Elliott calls "a point of critical mass."Last year the number of users posting online personals fell "marginally," according to Jupiter, and revenue growth is expected to drop to just 6% this year, down from 77% in 2003. The total U.S. market is now worth $521 million. (In comparison, online gambling sites took in an estimated $10 billion in worldwide revenue last year. Porn sites took in $2 billion in the U.S.) The European market is still growing in high double-digit rates. One reason for the slowdown is that the curiosity factor has worn off. Heather Hopkins, director of research for Hitwise UK says the sites are now focused more on getting current visitors to sign on as paying customers. This love slump is a bit of mystery. Indeed, it may be just a lull. Brooks predicts that the industry will see "a huge upswing" as sites add new services like Web-camera dates, help arranging dream dates and psychological profiling that attempts to find you a soulmate, not just a hunk with the right hobbies and salary profile. Others say the industry needs to move beyond just dating. Bill Tancer, Hitwise GM global research, says e-dating is following the normal trajectory of Internet businesses. "There is an environment of hypercompetition where markets are born, grow, plateau and decline, [but] it's not that the activity itself is going to go away." Instead, he predicts, dating sites will evolve into broader forums for social networking. There are signs this is already happening. Meetic is offering a mobile-phone network called Superlol, allowing users to form groups around common friends and interests.
Mark Brooks: Reporters are writing about the demise of the online dating industry, which is very unfortunate. I believe we are, indeed, at a turning point. To get to 'online personals 2.0' we need to add services and refine our sites to help put people in front of people more quickly, in greater numbers and with better matches. (i) Personality profiling holds high promise, but needs more research. Profiling companies should embrace academic resources and share data with them. Let's lose the 'magic box' approach. Users are becoming more sophisticated and want to know how personality profiling works. Let's tell them. And, if you're going to offer personality profiling, show matches what potential failure modes/conflicts their relationship might be susceptible to, and educate them on how they might communicate and deal with those conflicts. (ii) Add events. They're a pain to coordinate, but are a great way for people to meet and have some instant gratification. They can buy a ticket and meet a roomful of singles immediately. Then they can go and check the profiles of the people they have chemistry with to see if they are a match on preferences such as 'want kids?' (iii) Improve safety. Let's advise users more clearly. They should: 1. not share contact info, 2. meet in a public place, 3. let someone know where they are going and call in to them after one hour. Background checks are a long way from being foolproof, but are better than nothing, and worth considering. (iv) Remove dead and unresponsive profiles, or at least indicate they are unlikely to respond. Anyone who has not logged in or has not responded to a message for 4 weeks should not be listed as a live profile. Let's set expectations realistically. It's good for the industry in the long haul. (v) Consider adding/partnering with matchmaking services for the users who have money, but are time starved. People are paying $50 a month for profiling sites (i.e. eHarmony.com, TRUE.com, PerfectMatch.com) because they have money and want some handholding. Let's up the ante. (vi) Improve search. A friend of mine is Indian. He only wants to meet women who are interested in Indian guys. He'd like reverse search please. Niche sites are popping up for every imaginable preference. Generic sites need to broaden search criteria and functionality or have the niches further incur on their membership revenues. (vii) Add content. Do you know your audience? Really? Then engage them with targeted, mind blowing content that lights their fires, educates and keeps them hooked on your site. Match partnered with Dr Phil. Community Connect, Gay.com and Nerve.com know content. Guide, engage and captivate your users. (viii) Find targeted advertising partners. Find offers with top level brands to improve your brand. Yahoo + Starbucks. There's some great branding affinity there. Brand = Trust. Advertising on online dating sites doesn't tend to bring in much money, but it CAN improve your brand trust and capital if you find the right partners and negotiate suitable offers. Extend your brand into the real world.
Online dating is not taking a downturn. $516 million U.S. online dating industry revenue for 2005 barely scratches the surface of the market potential. Industry revenues are growing. We have a nation of lovelorn singles poised and pleading for guidance and assistance. The integrity of our sites can be improved, insofar as how we deliver on our core promise of putting people in front of people. Observe the real world, bottle the best of what you see, improve on it. The online personals world has improved on the real world in the past by offering better search (i.e. asking the important questions up front), offering multiple modes of convenient communication (i.e. email, IM, chat), and through profiling for compatible matches (i.e. asking more than just a few questions...). Your comments please...
The Growth of Gay Online Dating
THE INDEPENDENT ONLINE -- Feb 19 -- Gaydar has 3.5 million members globally. The UK is by far its biggest market, with a total of almost one million members. Most are in big towns and cities, especially London, Manchester and Brighton. Most members are between 25 and 34. There are leather queens in LA, sugar daddies in Shanghai, and, at every point of the compass, married men seeking "discreet meets". When Freud talked about "polymorphous perversity" he foresaw Gaydar. The site caters for any and every preference. Specialised chatrooms include chastity, chubbychasers, Eurovision, hypnosis, kilts and scallies. There is plenty to amuse and arouse, much to disgust, but absolutely nothing illegal. Gaydar membership is £60 a year. This year, Europeans will spend £157m on online dating. They will spend £291m on "adult content." Go figure. Sex is what's really getting us online in such record numbers. "Most of the big dating sites claim to be about actual dating aiming at actual relationships," says Nate Elliott of Jupiter Research. "Sites like Match.com and Datingdirect say they want people to meet and fall in love. Users say that friendship is their main goal, not physical intimacy." The current advertising campaign for Match.com is the UK's biggest online dating promotion. Slogan: "We guarantee you'll find someone special within six months." Gaydar's homepage features pictures of semi-naked men beckoning you to log on. Slogan: "What you want, when you want it." "People definitely lie about what they're looking for," says Dr Monica Whitty, social psychologist at Queen's University and co-author of Cyberspace Romance: the Psychology of Online Dating. "Often women will try to attract more men by claiming they're only after a casual relationship. Men will do the opposite. Both sexes are playing a game." Gaydar makes ~£1 million a year in the UK alone. Q Soft Consulting, currently employs a total of 40 people and owns, among other products, Gaydarradio and Gaydartravel. Today Gaydar has more than three million members, while Match.com has just 500,000 gay members. Gaydargirls.com launches next month. Already 140,000 gay women have signed up. In December 2005, Gaydar accounted for more than half of all gay website visits. FULL ARTICLE @ THE INDEPENDENT
Mark Brooks: Fascinating insight on the gay and casual dating market. Sexsearch and Adult Friend Finder are the leading adult dating sites in the USA. They fly under the wire because the personals rankings don't include them because of their adult content. I never see them mentioned in the press. The press don't want to talk about them, the analysts don't include them...but the people are voting for them in droves. We're in the business of love, which means we're also in the sex business. Better matches > more love > more sex, and the freedom to express one's sexual preferences are paramount for the success of prosperity of this industry.
The Mythology of 21st-century Dating
CNN -- Feb 13 -- According to Jupiter Research, more than 17 million people viewed online personals last year, and about 2.5 million paid for them. (It's usually free to browse; the money kicks in when you want to connect with someone.) There are several major sites to choose from, including Match.com, eHarmony, Yahoo! and the aptly named Plentyoffish.com. As part of a CNN Radio special, CNN Headline News anchor Erica Hill and I hosted a radio show discussing online dating PODCAST. FULL ARTICLE @ CNN INTERNATIONAL
Looking for Love in all the Possible Places
NY TIMES -- Feb 13 -- Last year, almost a quarter of online daters seeking serious relationships or marriage held paid subscriptions on more than one dating site - more than double the comparable rate among Internet daters in general. Serious daters are also more likely to go from browsing to paying at a site, and to keep their subscriptions longer, according to Jupiter Research. "This is a really attractive market, who will pay high prices to lots of different players at the same time," said Nate Elliott of Jupiter. "They want to find someone, and actually don't seem to be very price-sensitive. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES
www.findlovehere.com
NEWSWEEK -- Feb 20 issue -- According to JupiterResearch, 15% of Internet users between the ages of 45 and 54 browsed dating sites last year. The number of baby boomers visiting Lavalife has grown 39% over the last three years. At Match the 50-and-older crowd is the fastest-growing segment. SciConnect.com; 60% of its science nerds are 40-59. PerfectMatch.com; 63% 35-60. PrimeSingles.net is a 50-plus site whose membership grew 39% in 2005. FULL ARTICLE @ MSNBC.COM
Dating Sites now Attracting Mainstream Singles
Mark Brooks: There are two kinds of internet dating users. 1. Those that are happy and met someone special. 2. This that are not happy, and did not meet someone special. ...My concern is, people don't realise the amount of time and effort it takes to meet someone through online dating. It's a far superior medium for discerning good potential matches, but it still takes considerable time and effort.
Online Dating Population Flat
RED HERRING -- Feb 10 -- JupiterResearch said, "it’s not clear where daters are looking for mates but it doesn’t seem online social networking communities pose a significant threat." A mere 14% of online daters not subscribing to a service reported using social networking sites. Yahoo is the top dating site on the web, according to 19% of participants in a survey conducted by GMI Poll. Match.com comes in second, with 14%, followed by eHarmony.com, with 5%. Among the prospective daters, 42% report success when using the sites.
India’s Internet Population Explosion
RED HERRING -- Feb 10 -- The number of Indians getting online continues to swell, according to the Internet & Mobile Association of India. By the end of 2005, the number of Internet users in the country hit 38.5 million, up 54% from 25 million in 2004. FULL ARTICLE @ RED HERRING
Love on the Web
BBC NEWS -- Feb 2 -- There are 12 million unattached people in Britain. Since the 1960s, the number of people with no-one to go home to has quadrupled. Two thirds of single people looking for love have signed up to dating agencies. Nate Elliot, an analyst with JupiterResearch explains "the sites give people an opportunity to see a lot of other singles in an environment that's very comfortable for them. "There's not a lot of risk and there's not a lot of stress involved in browsing profiles from home." Upmarket conventional agencies are riding high too. Far from being wiped out by the web the internet's actually brought dating into people's homes and it's taken away a lot of the taboo. Offline agencies cater to a much more select clientele. FULL ARTICLE @ BBC NEWS
Mark Brooks: Great Expectations, Together Dating/The Right One and It's Just Lunch are the biggest national matchmaking organizations in Great Britain.
Microsoft Tests Classifieds Service
ZDNET NEWS -- Nov 29 -- Microsoft is developing a free online service that will let people list items for sale, events and other classifieds-type of information that can be shared either with groups of friends or anyone over the Internet, the company said Tuesday. The service, code-named Fremont, has been in internal testing at Microsoft for about a week and a half. It will be a free listing service, with a bunch of twists to make it very unique, such as integration with social networks, in particular integration with MSN Messenger. Ads relevant to the listing will appear alongside the search results. The U.S. online classifieds advertising market is forecast to grow from $2.6 billion this year to $4.1 billion in 2010, according to JupiterResearch. FULL ARTICLE @ ZD NET NEWS
Online Dating Feeling Less Attractive
CNN MONEY -- Aug 18 -- Online dating has shrugged off its social stigma and emerged as a mainstream means for singles to find that special someone. The U.S. online dating industry is expected to climb 9% year-over-year with revenues of $516 million in 2005, said Nate Elliott, an analyst at Jupiter Research. That's slower than the 19% growth in 2004. And 77% in 2003. There are currently nearly 1,000 dating Web sites, said Bill Tancer of Hitwise, and one out of every 100 people logging on to the internet visits an online dating site. Niche sites are popular. Social networking sites have become increasingly popular among the young. That's giving traditional online dating sites a run for their money, said John Tinker, research analyst at ThinkEquity Partners. The Big 3 online dating sites -- Yahoo! Personals, Match.com and EHarmony.com will have to tweak their business models and create new innovative products to grow revenue. One place to look is advertising. Date.com's CEO Meir Strahlberg said that advertising revenues have doubled in the past few months to 10% of total revenue. "There are 86 million single adults who control annual spending of $1.6 trillion," Strahlberg said. "Online dating sites reach about 30 percent of that market currently." Date.com can target an advertiser's products to almost any demographic based on user profiles. Yahoo! Personals general manager Lorna Borenstein said, "today's online daters are increasingly sophisticated. You can't just increase offerings; you have to help singles figure out their relationship goals and offer tools to help them find their version of success, whatever that might be." FULL ARTICLE @ CNN MONEY
Mark Brooks: Hot future trends; 1. targeted advertising on online dating sites. 2. personality profiling.
TheDateZone.com Brings Interactive Dating to Mobile Phones
BUSINESS WIRE -- Aug 1 -- SmartVideo Technologies today announced that it has entered into a revenue sharing agreement with TheDateZone.com to bring the world of interactive online dating to mobile devices. TheDateZone.com is a Web based dating service that gives men and women the ability to meet and communicate with each other in a safe, controlled environment. Unique to TheDateZone.com is its ability for subscribers to audio and video conference not only from Internet to Internet but from phone to phone and from Internet to phone to anyone, anywhere in the world! ComScore revealed that personals Websites attract 30 million visitors a month in the U.S. alone. Jupiter Research predicts that online dating is expected to grow by 60% by 2008. RELEASE @ YAHOO
Mark Brooks: Mark Thompson, CEO of weAttract.com, said, "jump ahead 10 years, and it will all be video-based." Webdate.com has the nicest implementation of live video chat in the industry and are coining the term 'webdating' for online video dating.
Dating Sites Rekindle the Flame
-- July 29 -- Seeking someone who's a "giver," a "rebel" or an "observer"? Yahoo Personals now lets you search for them. Dying to know if Ms. Right is a philanderer or a felon? True will run a background check. Online-dating sites raked in $473 million from American customers in 2004, according to JupiterResearch, which expects revenue to reach $516 million this year. At the same time, it's becoming more expensive for dating sites to advertise online and woo enough new customers to create a viable site, said Mark Brooks, an industry consultant who blogs about the business. "We're going through the big squeeze," he said, "One in which consolidation looms and innovation is key to survival." True, for one, allows so-called "bidirectional blocking": Users can block other members forever and decide who can peruse their own ads. "Basically," said True chief psychologist Jim Houran, "you're really empowering clients." Big deal, sniffs Nate Elliott, an analyst with JupiterResearch. The bells and whistles "don't really matter to customers," he said. "If you give them a large number of photos and profiles, they're happy. Beyond that, it's all incremental." Niche marketing sites include BlackPeopleMeet.com, Christian Mingle and BBWHarmony (BBW stands for "big beautiful women"), along with "adult" sites for the instant-gratification crowd. The quickie-oriented sites are growing rapidly, but "they've flown under the radar," said Brooks. Mark Thompson, CEO of weAttract.com, thinks short video clips are the future. "Jump ahead 10 years, and it will all be video-based." FULL ARTICLE @ WIRED NEWS
DatingDirect.com Signs Two-Year Deal With AOL
REVOLUTION MAG -- May 20 - AOL has signed a two-year deal with DatingDirect.com to provide its members with access to the UK's biggest online dating agency. DatingDirect has other deals with sites including iVillage.co.uk and ITV.com, and has more than 2m members in the UK. It is ranked by Nielsen//NetRatings as the largest personals site in the UK in terms of monthly unique users, ahead of Meetic.co.uk and uDate.com. Research compiled by Jupiter shows that the Western European dating markets will be worth €117m (£80m) by 2007. The UK online dating market is particularly showing rapid growth, currently worth £11.7m and is estimated by Jupiter to grow to £47m by 2008. DatingDirect was founded in 1999. As well as hosting white-label dating services for other websites and its own branded website, it runs offline dating events, which it sees as a way of raising brand awareness. FULL ARTICLE @ REVOLUTION MAGAZINE
Mark Brooks: Dating Direct is pulling ahead in the UK market it would seem. It's tough to compete with sites that know how to do good deals.
Online Dating Rekindling Love
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE -- Feb 14 -- "A lot of services said, 'Hey, put in your $25, pull the handle and get your partner,' " said Joe Cohen, chief operating officer for Match.com, a leading online personals site. "It's not that simple. "People were turned off because expectations were raised so high," he added. "Web sites could only under-deliver." To revitalize the industry, some dating Web sites are refocusing on users who want serious relationships. "This market is saturated," said Nate Elliot, an analyst for Jupiter Research. "You have all the online dating sites you're ever going to need." Lorna Borenstein, vice president and general manager of Yahoo Personals, said her business hasn't slowed, as some other companies' has. She attributes the continued growth to Yahoo's giant reach and several new features in the personals area. FULL ARTICLE @ YAHOO
Mark Brooks: New/startup online personals companies should either shoot for a very targeted niche, or secure $5 million+ of marketing funding.
Love Growing Strong On Web
USA TODAY -- Feb 14 -- The industry has grown so fast that Hitwise foresees a shakeout. Says Mark Brooks, who runs Online Personals Watch, "I think we're moving into the first stages of maturity." So companies are trying, like the most desperate bachelor in the bar, to stand out. Those who market love on the Internet are increasingly wooing customers by giving personality and compatibility tests. For the strongest players, the cyberspace dating game remains lucrative. In December, for instance, eHarmony attracted $110 million from two venture-capital firms. "What kind of metrics must eHarmony have shown the VCs to get $110 million?" asks Brooks. JupiterResearch says online-dating revenue hit $473 million in 2004, up from $396 million in 2003. <On background checks>..."That's a solution looking for a problem," complains Jim Safka, the new CEO of rival Match.com. But some competitors grudgingly admire the marketing strategy. "It was brilliant," says Nelson Rodriguez, CEO of LifeAccess.com. "You try to legislate into law your business model." True's CEO Herb Vest warns: "If a person is married or a criminal, they best go somewhere else." True says it intends to prosecute married people who masquerade as singles. "We don't think of ourselves as an online-dating service," says Greg Forgatch, CEO of eHarmony. "We're all about helping people get married and get married well." Yahoo has launched Personals Premier, a $35-a-month service with advanced searching and matchmaking and a personality test. IMatchup.com has unveiled a handwriting-analysis feature. Niche sites proliferate. "I'm not promoting Cupid.com anymore; I'm pitching DesMoines.Cupid.com," says Cupid.com CEO Eric Straus. FULL ARTICLE @ YAHOO
JupiterResearch Reports the Number of Users Visiting Online Personals Sites Falling
BUSINESS WIRE -- Feb 9 -- "Online Dating: Serious Daters Offer Salve For Slowing Growth" is based on a survey of over 2,300 online adults, and also includes JupiterResearch's forecast for the growth of the online personals market. The report finds that 33% fewer consumers are browsing online personals today than one year ago, causing the industry growth to slow considerably. "The industry grew by 73% in 2002 and 77% in 2003. But in 2004, as the number of users actually started to decline, the market grew by only 19%. In 2005, the industry will grow by just 9%, to $516 million." With fewer users browsing online personals, dating sites have focused on increasing conversions. "Serious daters present an attractive opportunity for personals sites. These users convert 20% more often, are twice as likely to purchase long-term subscriptions and pay up to twice as much per month as casual daters," stated Elliott. For additional information on the online personals report or visit www.jupiterresearch.com or contact Kieran Kelly at 1-800-481-1212. FULL PRESS RELEASE @ YAHOO