Plentyoffish “Destroys” online dating business model

by David Evans on July 6, 2005 in Dating Sites

Markus tells us that Plentyoffish accounts for nearly 25% of English-speaking Canadian online singles. More than 35,000 Canadian members visit Plentyoffish.com each weekday looking for their perfect match. Plentyoffish.com is comprised of only one employee. Sites of comparable size rarely operate with a staff under 50 employees. Technology costs are at a minimum when compared with AmericanSingles.com, whose costs exceed $500,000. Plentyoffish.com garners the same amount of online traffic while keeping costs less than $10,000 per month not including advertising.

CEO Markus Frind:

With the recent success of Plentyoffish.com in the Canadian dating market, the executives of Lavalife.com, AmericanSingles.com and other major dating sites must realize their days are numbered. Who wants to pay when they can get a superior product for free?

Not sure about days being numbered but Markus seems to have a solid grip on the Canadian dating market.

Sharing:

1 Edward Orysiek July 7, 2005 at 12:44 pm: My site was free for two years. I found that my site attracted as many spammers and scammers as members. I had a real issue with competing sites emailing my members to drive traffic their way. Changing to a pay model served as a speed bump and virtually eliminated the spammers. I’d seriously consider changing back to an advertiser supported site if it were not for spamming.
2 Alex Smirnoff July 7, 2005 at 4:26 pm: Today I have researched for sites to review in this month and found that according to Alexa stats PlentyOfFish is in the Top10 dating sites list.
Here is a link where PlentyOfFish is on #9 place.
http://www.alexa.com/browse?&CategoryID=29485

I think that it’s more true facts than usual PR article. They did a great job and I wish them the best in the future. But I suppose they have to improve their services to increase their revenues.
3 Dave Evans July 7, 2005 at 5:09 pm: Witholding judgement on quality and caliber of the site on that list.
The stats are suspect. Amigos is FriendFinder, why showing up as two sites? Meetup is not a dating site either. Not sure how the ranking system relates to the final rank, # incoming sites, week-to-week rank changes, etc.

Bigger question, how woud you rank a dating site? What are the attributes you would use to develop a ranking system?
4 Markus July 7, 2005 at 8:32 pm: Any user deemed to be a spam risk, or doesn’t have a legitimate profile is automatically deleted on signup. Most likely that explains why cupidsreviews couldn’t stay on.

Amigos.com is absolutely huge in spanish speaking countries that is why they rank so high.
5 Elj July 7, 2005 at 9:55 pm: What is Markus Frind’s turnover? This is never mentioned.

How much sleep does Markus Frind get? He mustn’t if he is a one man show.

Is this just an effort to garner mass publicity and then sell out? Sounds like it.

The internet dating industry doesnt need to worry.
6 jay July 9, 2005 at 12:08 am: Free dating sites just attract spammers and scammers as members. Plentyoffish’s dating business model feels like a sell out?

Good luck to them.
7 Will O July 9, 2005 at 9:48 am: Considering how comfortable the owner seems to be with self-congratulating, I wonder how come they don’t release their revenue. (he releases everything else)

I think we would all love to know if you can run a profitable dating site on nothing more than adsense.
8 hi i,m geo1956 January 21, 2010 at 7:19 pm: i was a member of this site (pof) i was kick off for no reason i wish to get back on this site (pof)is a good dating site but (pof) will not let me please email me why i was kick off (pof) or put me back on