Online Dating Industry Consulting & Commentary
From the monthly archives:
uDate announced the appointment of new Vice-President of Sales and Marketing (Europe).
Riccardo Zacconi has been a successful entrepreneurial and consulting career, most recently with Benchmark Capital (London), where he was Entrepreneur in Residence and before as founder and CEO of the German operation of Spray Network NV, the European Internet media Group ultimately sold [...]
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NYT article about Elle magazine’s blunt-as-an-anvil dating columnist, E. Jean Carroll, started a Web site, www.greatboyfriends
.com, on which women recommend men to other women. Who could resist a website that tells you to go fill your martini glass, doll. This from the woman who advised going to the Kentucky Derby to meet people. Guys, start [...]
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USA Today wrote on 5-22/02 that “Citing customer complaints, Yahoo will soon drop a fee it began charging in October to people who want to place enhanced personal advertisements on its online dating service. But people browsing Yahoo’s personals didn’t like the fact that the same enhanced ads were at the top of the list, [...]
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uDate owns uDate.com and kiss.com. they reported that Net income before tax for the three months ended September 30, 2002 rose to $3.4 million, representing growth of 554% year on year and 18% quarter on quarter. Subscriber numbers fluctuate with marketing initiatives and other factors, but September 2002 paying subscribers* rose to 237,000, an increase [...]
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From the match.com website, we read that “during 2001, Match.com generated $49.2 million in revenue and $16.5 million in EBITDA with more than 382,000 paying subscribers at the end of the fourth quarter.”
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Ticketmaster, which owns match.com announced back in March that it was to acquire Soulmates Technology for $23M US in stock. “Soulmates delivers a private-label solution for portals seeking a customized personals interface that takes on the look and feel of their site. Through a relationship with MSN, Soulmates Technology is currently utilizing their technology to [...]
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USA today article states that according to Yahoo the on-line dating industry will be a $250M in 2002. Based on what I’ve read this number seems about right, and showing no signs of slowing.
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The Boston Globe ran an article about the problems people are having reporting abusive or fraudulent behavior on dating sites. Seems like a lot of people’s complaints are falling through the cracks. Someone should develop a reporting blacklist to warn people about the undesirables out there.
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In 1994 Gary Kremen joined forces with partner Peng Tsin Ong to start Classifieds Inc. They raised US$1.7 million from Canaan Partners and started a service called match.com. I bet the partners at Cannan are very happy with their long shot. They also mention starting jobs.com, which is now a monster.com property. File under “do [...]
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Another WIRED article from November ‘99 where Rufus “Naughty Bits” Griscom and Genevieve Field went from “just another twentysomething Manhattan couple with low-paying jobs and a fascination with sex” to a separated duo hoping to score $10 million to spiff up the place and launch NerveCenter, now known as Spring Street Networks. Keep [...]
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