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VANCOUVER MAGAZINE - Nov 20 - Markus Frind, the founder, CEO, and
sole owner of Plentyoffish.com, works as little as he desires. He’s been
quoted as saying he works about 10 hours a week. Plentyoffish.com now
has 16M users, earns tens of millions of dollars a year, and is growing
80% a year. Alexa ranks Plentyoffish.com the 35th most trafficked site
in Canada and the 100th in the US. It serves up 2.4 billion page
views/month.
Plentyoffish.com spends far less money than other sites
do. Match.com and eHarmony.com each spend $100M a year on advertising.
They run thousands of costly servers even though their traffic is
smaller than that of Plentyoffish.com, which has only 11 machines.
The
next level Frind aims to conquer is the world of “scientific” dating
research. Companies like Chemistry.com, eHarmony.com and
Genepartner.com hire psychologists and scientists to design
questionnaires and even DNA tests to help people find mates. Frind did
hire a relationship psychologist to create “compatibility matching
tools” for Plentyoffish.com. Now he thinks he can do better with his
own algorithms. “The science of dating,” Frind scoffs, “is all BS.”
Those much-heralded matching tools are only 15 or 20% better than
chance. And does Frind think he can optimize and tweak his way to beat
that score? “I could double or triple it.”
THE PARADIGM SHIFT - Nov 18 - Plentyoffish.com will start serving ads
from their own self service advertising platform located at ads.pof.com. Advertisers can target based on zip code, age, gender, ethnicity, income, education, profession, if a user drinks, smokes, etc. FULL ARTICLE @ THE PARADIGM SHIFT
PLENTYOFFISH DATING TIPS BLOG - Nov 10 –
PlentyofFish.com offers a demographic breakdown of members based on
the interests they provide in a tool in their advertising section.
This offering can prove both useful and fun, as one user recounts: A
large majority of vegetarians are female, vegetarians often have
higher levels of education, and they are less likely to drink.
FULL ARTICLE @ POF DATING TIPS BLOG
PRESS RELEASE – Nov 11 –
PlentyofFish.com, the world's largest free dating site with more than
17 million members, has partnered with Iconic recording artist, Lady
Gaga. The site is sponsoring a contest for single fans to win a “date
of a lifetime” with Lady Gaga during her upcoming North American
concert tour, “The Monster Ball.” Two lucky winners will be
selected per concert stop. PlentyofFish.com will also be giving away
tickets and backstage passes for each stop. Visit
www.plentyoffish.com/gaga
for complete details. FULL ARTICLE @ EIN NEWS
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
PARADIGM SHIFT - Sep 24 - Here are the top dating sites in the world, from the latest Comscore July 2009 report.
The most interesting trend over the last year is the growing difference between usage at paid sites verses free sites and hybrids like Singlesnet. If you combine total visits at Singlesnet and Plentyoffish in the US, those 2 sites combined already have more monthly visits than all pure paid sites combined.
FLORIDA TODAY - Sep 22 - Mark Brooks, editor of Onlinepersonalswatch and an industry consultant, said that online dating is growing in popularity because it is a cheaper alternative to filtering your way through the real world to the match of your dreams. PlentyofFish.com, a free dating site averaging ~3M unique visitors per month, has seen a jump in growth since the economic downturn. The site saw a 94% increase in traffic from June 2008 to June 2009. eHarmony.com has seen a 48% gain in traffic since last year and Match.com saw its strongest fourth quarter in about seven years in 2008. Two Indialantic entrepreneurs have capitalized on the trend, creating a new site called vacancylove.com. It is in beta-testing until Oct. 1, when it will officially launch. Until then, users who sign up will get a free 90-day membership. FULL ARTICLE @ FLORIDA TODAY
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WESTENDER -- Aug 26 -- Singles in Vancouver seem to put more effort
into finding a mate when the leaves start to turn. “Once it starts
getting a little bit colder, people stay indoors a lot more — and, of
course, are on their computers — and would like to find someone to
snuggle up and watch a movie with,” says Kate Bilenki, spokesperson for
Plentyoffish.com. “We notice an increase in the fall, and a very large
jump comes around Christmas.” While Plentyoffish generates a high
volume of traffic because it offers free membership, local paid dating
services such as Executive Search Dating (ESD) also see an increase in
business in the fall. FULL ARTICLE @ WESTENDER
FORBES -- Aug 25 -- Online dating is now a $950M industry and according
to Nielsen dating sites snared 27.5M unique visitors in June. Forbes
used Nielsen's latest unique-visitor data for June 2009 to rank the 10
most popular dating sites. #1: eHarmony.com, with 4.25M visitors, up
48% YOY. Yahoo Personals came in at #2, with 4.1M uniques, followed by
Match.com, with 3.4M. Plentyoffish.com, at #6, boasting 2.2M viewers,
nearly double the amount a year ago. Noteworthy is the 91 minutes that
an average users spends per visit. "Unlike other dating sites,
Plentyoffish relies less on a marketing blitz than on word of mouth
from satisfied customers", says founder Markus Frind. In Depth: The 10
Top Online Dating Sites. FULL ARTICLE @ FORBES
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WSJ -- July 29 -- eHarmony has twice commissioned studies from Harris
Interactive to estimate its impact on marriages. The first, in 2005,
found that 90 people a day married because of the site. The second, in
2007, found that the number had surged to 236. Using Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention data on marriages, eHarmony estimated
that it could claim credit for 2% of marriages in the U.S. A Match.com
media kit claimed that 12 marriages a day trace their roots to the
site, but the company now says it's inaccurate. Markus Frind, CEO of
PlenyofFish.com, says his site creates 800,000 relationships each year,
according to exit interviews with departing members. ~100,000 marriages
per year. The only statistic Mr. Frind knows with certainty is the
number of members who have self-reported success stories on his site --
now ~ 2,000. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ
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NY TIMES -- July 17 -- Professor Helen
Fisher, of Chemistry.com, studied the neural chemistry of people in
love. She zeroes in on six specific chemicals, which are linked to
certain traits. Those with a preponderance of dopamine and
norepinephrine she named “explorers,” those with serotonin
are “builders,” those with testosterone are “directors” and those with
estrogen and oxytocin are “negotiators.” The 56-question test that
Fisher has developed for Chemistry.com helps identify who is a builder,
an explorer and so on. She has also studied 28,000 people and found
that those who are explorers tend to pick explorers, builders tend to
choose builders, while directors and negotiators often select each
other. James Houran, a relationship psychologist who has developed
“compatibility matching tools” for Plentyoffish.com, a free dating
site, said his work indicated that people who met someone through the
site were more satisfied in their relationships than those who met in
other ways. GenePartner scientists developed a formula that
successfully determined genetic compatibility. After receiving the DNA
results users can hunt for their genetic soul mate on Genepartner.com. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES
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ONLINE DATING MAGAZINE -- July 13 -- iDate is an
established conference for the online dating industry, but it’s not a
venue for consumers. It is the only dating conference in the US, and it
runs two US shows a year.
33TV -- July 13 -- After a long marriage, Alexander Drake is once again dating and in this economy he chose the free site PlentyOfFish.com. "I had zero expectations, but it wasn't worth spending money if it was going to turn out to be something that didn't work for me." It seems the down economy is not hurting dating. Match January membership was up 16% over the same time last year. And from January to May eHarmony saw its registration grow 20% over the same time period last year. eHarmony did a national survey recently and found one if four unmarried men and women want a long term relationship more as a result of the current economic climate. FULL ARTICLE & VIDEO @ THE 33TV
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GUARDIAN.CO.UK -- June 27 -- 15m people in the UK are single, and almost 5m are
shopping for love online. According to Markus Frind, the CEO of
Plentyoffish, 1/3 of POF users form a relationship, 1/3 do not and 1/3
give up. One in five married people between the ages of 19 and 25 met
their partner online, in a YouGov poll of more than 2,000. 15% of
couples met online. Research at Bath University found that internet
relationships lasted, on average, seven months. Clyde Baldo, a
psychologist who works with disillusioned internet daters, said "Many
people are addicted to online dating. The problems lie in the fact that
it is not a real relationship, but one in cyberspace. When you meet
people conventionally, friends or colleagues introduce you. These
factors create boundaries, so you tend to behave better. This doesn't
exist on the internet. Dr Paige Padgett of the University of Texas has
conducted a survey of the personal and sexual safety of women who
internet date. 30% of women who meet men on the internet have sex on
the first date. Of those, 77% do not use condoms. FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK
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