Online Dating Insider

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Online Dating Insider delivers cutting-edge insight and commentary on all aspects of the online dating industry. Topics include industry news, site reviews, emerging trends, analysis of dating site features, discussion about safety safety, finance and other issues important to the online dating market. Don't miss our Tools & Services directory, useful to anyone running dating or social networking sites. Subscribe to the RSS feed (you can subscribe via email as well). Your comments and suggestions for stories are welcomed.

Where did the week go? I’m busy with all sorts of client work, hence the slow posts. I’m building the next generation of online dating and social networking sites and helping solution providers build out their value proposition for top dating sites. I can’t talk about much, you’ll just have to see the fruits of my labors when various clients go live over the next few months.

True and Friendster: Of all the partnerships to consider… Co-branded “Love” page. Too little to late IMHO.

Spark Networks 2Q06 Financial Results: Traffic to Spark Networks properties increased 35% from May to June, to 3.7 million visitors. Record Quarterly Revenue of $17.3 Million, Q2 EBITDAS(1) Increases Over 900% to $2.6 Million, Six Month EBITDAS of $6.0 Million - Matches Full Year 2005 Total, Six Month Net Income of $1.0 Million; Quarterly Net Income of $327,000. SAC for the Company as a whole in the second quarter of 2006 was $34.45, an increase of 8% compared to $31.93 from the same period last year.

Pinger has unveiled the first carrier-independent instant voice messaging service for mobile phones. Pinger is a new communications tool that lets you send voice messages directly to individuals or groups as instantly and efficiently as email or text messaging. The service works on mobile phones from all major U.S. carriers. Following a one-month beta test, Pinger today introduced a new feature that allows MySpace users to post voice comments to their MySpace friends’ pages from their mobile phone. You can also be notified of new Pinger messages with a MySpace message.

This is going to be useful in several contexts. Progressive communication is a hot topic in online dating and social networking. Pinger may work it’s way into the wink->email->IM->phone->F2F communication style followed by so many sites. I love the idea of being able to leave a message without actually having to talk to people.

Meez and Paltalk Team Up: Mashable is surprised Meeze partnered up with PalTalk.

Eight Social Networking sites for men who love men.

Marketwatch: Today, there are 3.2 million visiting the country’s biggest online dating service from home each month, and 4.9 million, if you include those checking out their prospects at work. Match.com generated $248 million in sales last year and is on a run-rate to generate $312 million this year. Siminoff says that his network will do about $70 million in sales. And, he’s estimating that privately-held eHarmony and Yahoo Personals generated about $165 million and $100 million, respectively. Just adding those big four alone gets you closer to $600 million. Still, that’s chump change compared to the roughly $12 billion in advertising online.

The blog continues to be a problem. Updownupdownup. I either need to get it fixed or go back to my own blog.

You have got to be kidding: Text message people by looking up their license place at SearchPlates.com.

Sam Wick joins Userplane as head of business development.

Technorati Tags: meez, research, voice+messaging, paltalk, pinger, searchplates

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