PR NEWSWIRE - May 10 - “POF.com is the top site in Brazil after entering the market in September 2011”, says Markus Frind, POF founder and CEO. POF.com reports that ~80K members are actively using POF in Brazil each day, and an increase of 64% in site visits since January 2012. 5.6M Brazilians visit online dating sites each month, and that number is on the rise, according to comScore.
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327 posts categorized "POF"
36% Canadians Have Tried Online Dating
VANCOUVER OBSERVER - May 4 - Canadians have experienced a major increase in online dating popularity over the past few years. With Canadians spending 74 minutes online per day, and 81 minutes a day on mobile aps, it's no surprise that people would turn to the Internet as a dating tool. POF claims a 40%t increase in membership holders over the past two year and 33M registered users. "The fear of initial rejection isn't as great when you don't have to see someone face to face," Rebecca Liu said about her experience with Match.com. Liu explained that she gave online dating a try because of a lack of dating resources in the analog world. Many find workplace romances taboo. Approaching a cute guy or girl at the library is almost more likely to creep people out than get them interested. Dating online is refreshing because it gives you an avenue to meet people outside your daily routines.
by Jessica Kalbfleisch
See full article at Vancouver Observer
POF Passes 100M Weekly Messages, 2 Billion Pageviews/Week
POF BLOG - Messages Exchanged by POF users have grown 67% since Jan 1st to 100M last week. Pageviews are 2 Billion per week, putting POF over 100 Billion Pageviews a Year.
$1.22 Million Funding For TheComplete.me
TECH CRUNCH - Apr 16 - TheComplete.me launched a Facebook app in March that pulls in and analyzes data from Facebook and other social sites to figure out who you might be a good fit with. Led by Brian Bowman, the former VP of product at Match.com, it’s also announcing $1.22M seed round from Intel Capital, psuedo-rival dating site PlentyofFish, the CrunchFund, and a list of prominent angels. The app goes further than Facebook, too. Once you’re logged in, you can also connect with LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Photobucket, Flickr, Foursquare, GoodReads, and Instagram. It then pulls in unique data about you from each service to figure out even richer matches. In private beta testing so far, it has amassed ~1.5M profiles of users and their friends, which is already helping to shape recommendations. At the same time, theComplete.me preserves anonymity. Users only see each others first names initially, and nothing gets posted to Facebook for others to see (unless you manually enable it to do that).
by Eric Eldon
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Operation Match Version 2012
UNLIMITED MAGAZINE - Mar 6 - In 1965 a group of Harvard students started Operation Match that used questionnaires to identify compatible matches. When the students sold it three years later they had received ~1M responses which resulted in a few marriages. Today North America’s dating sites attracts 22M users a month, says online dating industry analyst Mark Brooks. Online daters have upwards of 1,000 dating sites to choose from, aside from industry giants Match, eHarmony, OKCupid and PlentyofFish. "Starting a dating site is like starting a restaurant," Brooks says. "It’s very attractive but there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye."
Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout created HowAboutWe.com in 2009. The site is built around going on "awesome dates," with users able to see a list of date proposals in their immediate area. The company has raised ~$19M. Another site Sparkology is invite-only dating site. Other startups include Soul2Match, which links potential dates based on their photos and facial features, and Luv@FirstTweet, which uses Twitter to match singles. At TheJMom.com, matchmaking is left up to parents.
In a report in the Journal of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team looked closely and critically at the online dating industry. The researchers found that while online dating has great potential to improve meeting potential romantic partners, the exclusive matching formulas many online dating sites claim to have are unsubstantiated and likely little more effective than randomly approaching strangers at a bar. Sites and apps can facilitate face-to-face interactions quickly. Mark Brooks agrees. "I don’t think people want to come home and spend hours and hours tappity-tapping on the keyboard. They want to be in front of people," he says. "Computer-mediated communication is not gratifying enough for the human soul." Brooks thinks three trends will define the future of the industry: location-based services, mobile services and behavioral matchmaking. "Dating sites that do well will be serving their users’ interests, which means a little more immediacy, a little more help and going mobile," he says.
That instant face-to-face interaction is what MeetMoi, a location-based mobile dating company led by CEO Alex Harrington, has been facilitating since 2007. Users are matched with one another based on preferences and proximity, through application-based and mobile web-based dating.
by Cailynn Klingbeil
See full article at Unlimited Magazine
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2 Dating Sites Sued Over Soldier's Photo In Ads
ASSOCIATED PRESS - Feb 29 - The picture of a handsome, uniformed soldier accompanying online ads that proclaim "Military Man Searching for Love" is an Army lieutenant who was killed in Iraq in 2007, according to a lawsuit filed by his parents against PlentyofFish.com and True.com. In December, a friend recognized Peter Burks in an ad on PlentyofFish.com, clicked on it and was directed to True.com. PlentyofFish Media spokesman Paul Bloudoff said hundreds of thousands of third parties advertise via his company's site every month, and that it cannot control nor know about the content of those ads. The ad has been blocked from the company's network, he said. "We dealt with this matter a month ago," Bloudoff said in an email. True.com President Ruben Buell said he will be researching this diligently. He said True.com buys ads that run on other dating sites but does not know what happened in this situation.
POF.com - The Business Of Finding Love
SYMPATICO.CA - Feb 14 - Business News Networks(BNN) has interviewed Markus Frind, CEO and founder of POF.com.
Q: How do you make money ?
A: Through advertising and we also have optional online subscriptions. With a couple of million people visiting our site a day it’s pretty easy to make money.
Q: How much do you make a year?
A: $10’s of millions.
Q: In online dating does price matter?
A: Our users spend on average $700M per year on paid dating services so virtually all the users that are on a paid online dating site are also on POF, there’s a massive overlap.
Q: So what differentiates you from the others?
A: POF is free and it’s the largest free site.
Q: And what’s the success ratio for every 10 people who use your site
A: We track the relationship numbers and they are usually over 30%.
Q: Is it true that most people lie about their age in online dating?
A: We really don’t see that much.
Q: Have you had any thoughts about taking it public?
A: As a sole shareholder it doesn’t make too much sense for me to go public.
Revenues Of eHarmony & PlentyofFish.com
OPW - Feb 17 - Privco is a source for financial data of major privately-held companies. They've estimated revenues for eHarmony, PlentyofFish (POF), Zoosk and OKCupid, to and other Internet dating companies. According to Privco, eHarmony's 2010 revenues were $255M with projected 2011 revenues of $265M. POF revenues were estimated at $19M with $14M operating income in 2010.
Download the full reports for $99 at Privco.com.
We also learned from the POF report that IAC offered $175M for POF in 2008.
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POF Takes Top Spot In Brazil
OPW - Feb 16 - The Plentyoffish.com team have been busy with their Portugese. Here's the top ten dating site rankings in Brazil. POF is in the top spot now.
| Unique Visitors | |||
| 1. | POF Sites | 1,078 | |
| 2. | C-Date | 785 | |
| 3. | MSN Dating & Personals | 755 | |
| 4. | Meetic-Match | 607 | |
| 5. | be2 GmbH | 558 | |
| 6. | Chifrevirtual.com.br | 488 | |
| 7. | Twoo.com | 484 | |
| 8. | Baixocidade.com.br | 396 | |
| 9. | 1001 Cartas de Amor | 242 | |
| 10. | eHarmony.com.br | 147 |
(Source: Comscore)
WWL Radio Interview With Sarah Gooding, POF Dating Coach
WWL RADIO - Feb 14 - Sarah Gooding is the dating coach with Plentyoffish.com (POF.com), the largest free dating site. WW Radio has interviewed Sarah recently.
Short interview summary:
Q: What would you advise people when it comes to do’s and don’t’s.
A: I always recommend to put an hour aside and spend time thinking about why you’re on the site and what you’re really looking for. Images are really important. You want to show yourself in a way that represents you. Giving details/examples of what you like to do is a great way to get a conversation started online.
Q: If you were a couch potato? How would you clean that up?
A: Take a picture outside. Don’t ever take a picture of you in the bathroom mirror holding up your cell phone. Avoid any professional shots or upload 6 other images. It gives a better representation of what you look like.
Q: How do you make sure you don’t put a picture up that makes you seem a little loose?
A: If you are a woman, avoid too much cleavage. Men put a shirt on.
Q: What do you think a woman can do that will make a man not be interested in her profile?
A: If the woman is trying to be too sexy in images/profile description. Women have a bit more advantage on online dating sites and can get away with a little more than men.
Q: So women can sometimes be too sexy?
A: I think so. Remember that whatever you portray yourself as that what you’re going to get.
Q: Do you know how many successful unions your website has produced?
A: Millions. We have a page on our site where couples that met on POF can submit their stories. Every week we receive hundreds of submissions from people now married/engaged/have kids. So a lot of success stories.
Plentyoffish Fires Darts At eHarmony, Match.com On Valentine's Day
IT BUSINESS - Feb 14 - Plentyoffish has released a white paper indicating that its social media dating formula may be more effective at hooking you up than the matchmaking algorithms employed by other dating sites. “Traditional online dating sites provide a very linear and singular experience,” said Mark Brooks, principal analyst of Courtland Brooks, a media relations and marketing company that does work with POF. Brooks released a whitepaper titled What is Social Dating? Courtland Brooks released a graph showing that feature-for-feature it outguns both Match.com and eHarmony. Brooks said the process of making users browse through numerous profiles based on specific criteria with the intent of finding a potential date or partner is too time consuming and requires “significant commitment.” With most online dating systems, he said, users have to create profiles to “sell” themselves to others. “This leads to misleading information or a frustrating experience.” On the other hand the social networking focus such as that employed by POF offers a “more relaxed environment,” Brooks said.” Social networking is very much centered around activities and interest, which give excellent representation of who a person really is.” Brooks also pointed to as study authored by Dr. Eli Finkel, associate professor of social psychology at Northwestern University, in New York, who pointed to several “pitfalls” of online dating. “To date, there is no compelling evidence that any online dating matching algorithm actually works,” Finkel said in statement. “Our report concludes that that it is unlikely that algorithms can work, even in principle, given the limitations of matching procedures that these sites use.”
POF.com: Dating Is A Numbers Game
STANDARD FREEHOLDER - Feb 14 - Is there such a thing as love at first “site?”. Sarah Gooding, a dating coach with PlentyOfFish (POF.com) said people the world over are going online by the millions to find out. “We have 40M users worldwide, we’re the number one online dating site in the U.S., Canada, the UK and Brazil,” she said. "POF sees its most traffic between the time right after Christmas up until Valentine’s Day itself,” she added. “We see a 15% increase in traffic in that time period.” The site’s other biggest spike in traffic is the period right before summer and the most popular day of the week for the site is Sunday, according to pof.com public relations consultant Shannon Smith. For Gooding, who met her own boyfriend by logging on to pof.com, dating is a numbers game. “The more people you meet, the more likely you are to meet that special someone,” she said. Since pof.com has gone mobile, it has seen a staggering 3% increase in site traffic per day.
Money Can't Buy Me Love - Or Can It?
IRISH TIMES - Feb 14 - A European Singles survey found that Irish men are likely to spend €106 on a date, compared to British men, who were likely to spend €60. According to a study conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute last year, one in 16 Irish people surveyed started their relationship online. Services range from the free, such as PlentyofFish.com to subscription-based sites like Match.com. While there are never any guarantees, does a greater financial investment result in a higher success rate? “They know that a paying member is serious about dating,” says Grainne Barry of Another Friend, Ireland’s largest dating site with ~60% of the Irish market share.
by Claire O'Mahony
See full article at Irish Times
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As 20-somethings Take To Online Dating
OREGON LIVE - Feb 12 - More 20-somethings are on online dating sites than ever, and their numbers are growing. Only 8% of users on Match.com are under 30. Free sites like OkCupid and PlentyofFish report much stronger numbers among 20-somethings. In fact, the majority of OkCupid's 8M members are under 30, with the most common age being 24. In the past year, countless more sites have sprung up promising to be the next big thing in online dating for the young adult. They tend to be more tech-savvy, carefree and interactive. There's MeetMoi, a mobile-based site that tracks your location through your phone, allowing you to invite nearby users on a spontaneous date. There's Clique, a site that lets New York City singles meet friends of friends by linking their profile to social networks like Facebook. There's Assisted Serendipity, which uses Foursquare check-in data to monitor a user's favorite hangout spots and notify them when the male-to-female ratio tips in their favor. There's even Spoondate, which lets users plan dates based on a mutual craving for, say, udon noodles.
by Kelly House
See full article at The Oregonian
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Plentyoffish.com: Most Visited Mobile Dating App
PR NEWSWIRE - Feb 7 - Plentyoffish.com (POF.com), the world’s largest dating site with more than 39.5M registered users, surpassed 300M monthly visits to their free IPhone and Android apps in January 2012. The apps’ success is a testament to the growing popularity of mobile-based services and changing habits of daters, with mobile traffic on POF increasing at a rate of 3% a week. “40% of sign-ups in the U.S. are now via mobile device”, says Markus Frind, founder and CEO of POF.
Modern Dating Offers Innovative Ways To Meet New People
SOUTH UNIVERSITY - Feb 5 - Janis Spindel of Serious Matchmaking, says her business has gone up by 62% since shows such as Bravo’s The Millionaire Matchmaker have made her matchmaking services better known. Spindel goes to breakfast, lunch, or dinner every day of the week with a different potential client. She takes note of behaviors such as good eye contact. Spindel’s clients are all men, ranging in age from 27 to 78 years old. She describes them as very well-educated, upscale, professional, awesome men. In order to find matches for her clients, Spindel accepts applications through her website from women hoping to meet them. The women need to be well-educated, well-spoken, intellectually stimulating, grounded, and must follow a healthy lifestyle. Having things in common is also an important part of a successful match. Shannon Smith, a representative from Plenty of Fish (POF), says the site’s matching system is based on a combination of the information members enter into their profile and their user behavior. “If they have specified that they are looking for blondes, but search for brunettes, they will get matched with brunettes,” Smith says. “If a user will not date a smoker, they will not see smokers in their matches. POF has ~38M users worldwide. POF also has a mobile app. “Currently, upwards of 60% of our users under the age of 40 in the US access the site via mobile device", Smith says.
Online Love Comes With Hefty Price Tag
INDEPENDENT - Feb 4 - Irish singletons are spending up to €50 a month in the hope of finding love online. As Valentine's Day looms, a survey by the Consumers Association of Ireland (CAI) has found that Irish dating sites charge between €12 and €49.90 a month. There were also plenty of free internet dating sites, with PlentyofFish the most well-known. Growing numbers of people may be in need of assistance in the dating game, as there was a 10% increase in the number of Irish singletons between 2002 and 2006, while divorcees were the fastest growing dmographic. Almost one in six Irish couples met online, according to a study published last year.
by Aideen Sheehan
See full article at Independent
Google Top Adsense Earners: #1 Markus Frind
- Markus Frind : PlentyOfFish.com : $300K per month
- Kevin Rose: Digg.com : $250K
- Jeremy Schoemaker : $140K
- Jason Calacanis : Weblogs, Inc. : $120K
- Mahmood Somani a Technology Entrepreneur from Vancouver, Canada quickly climbing to Top Adsense Earner really fast, and runs multiple classified websites sites earning him approximately $185,000.00 monthly.
- David Miles Jr. & Kato Leonard : FreeWebLayouts.net- $100K
- Tim Carter : AskTheBuilder.com : $30K
- Joel Comm : e-book : $24K
- Shawn Hogan : DigitalPoint.com : $10K
This list only comprises of people who are earning from Adsense.
Check Criminal Records Of Online Daters, Experts Say
CBC NEWS - Jan 16 - Online dating companies should be taking advantage of the RCMP criminal records system to keep convicted criminals off their sites, say experts in the identity verification business. "There is no perfect instant criminal record system on the planet," David Dinesen told CBC News. "But Canada is the best in the world. No question." Criminal backgrounds of Canadian daters could be checked without breaking privacy laws, because the daters could authorize or volunteer to provide their criminal conviction record check to the dating sites, he said. Online dating companies such as PlentyofFish, Match.com, eHarmony and others should offer options to their Canadian clients. PlentyofFish, founded by Markus Frind, makes ~$30M annually from advertising on its website. The company espouses a "buyer beware" philosophy and posts warnings and safety tips for clients on its free site. eHarmony sent CBC News an email statement emphasizing that "eHarmony's efforts are focused on empowering people to use good judgment and to be responsible for their safety on eHarmony, as they would anywhere else. Since there is not a comprehensive database of criminal convictions and many crimes go unreported by the victims, eHarmony does not want to give its members a false sense of security. We make it very clear in several places throughout the site that eHarmony does not conduct criminal background checks on our members. In an email, Match.com told CBC News: "Match is always reviewing new ways to keep the community safe and is aware of RCMP National Repository of Criminal Records. Unlike the National Sex Offender Registry, against which Match.com screens against in the United States, the RCMP repository is not public information. Therefore, utilizing this information is not currently possible."
by Jeannie Stiglio
See full article at CBC News
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Online LDS Dating Sites Grow In Popularity
UNIVERSE - Jan 10 - More and more Latter-day Saint members have found success with online dating, through numerous sites including LDSSingles.com, Match.com and Plentyoffish.com. Arielle Schechtman, director of Spark Networks, the company that owns sites such as LDSSingles and ChristianMingle, said members of the LDS Church would likely be surprised at the number of people who have met their spouse online.
by Chelsey Saatkamp
See full article at Universe
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