Are dating site operational costs higher than social networks? Markus at PlentyOfFish says “operational costs of a dating site significantly higher then social networking sites.� I doubt that 100%. Come on Markus, enough with the hype, or at least back up your assertions. You know your numbers but sometimes they appear a bit too “bendy� to support your world domination claims.
“With the number of free sites exploding.� Where?
Prediction, OkCupid is going to be a much better dating site than PlentyOfFish in a few months, which will start to decline, despite the hype. I didn’t say larger or more pageviews or cheaper technical budget (daters could care less about these things). I said better, as in better profiles, features, look & feel and overall user experience. Wait and see.
That said, the forums on PoF are a pretty incredible resource for singles.
The Comscore numbers that Friender get 6 billion pageviews a month are outrageous. Pageviews mean nothing except to advertisers. Well designed sites log much less page views, often because the navigation is better thought out and it doesn’t take 5 clicks to do something that with AJAX-style programming only takes one.
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Wow Dave, pretty bold to predict a decline in traffic for PofF in the coming months. Unless there’s some sort of screening/quality control that takes place, I think that all the spam from members posing as someone they are not will eventually catch up and hurt traffic. That said, I agree, the forums on PofF are a great resource. Also, Markus spends money promoting the site through Google AdWords. Given his low expenses and healthy profit margins/savings, he can ramp up his advertising budget to offset the loss of traffic that may be occurring. If the loss of traffic is heavy, it will take its toll in time. Less traffic, the less money he makes from ads, the less he can afford to spend to advertise.
OkCupid: yea, pretty cool site. The quality of the profiles are indeed solid. The site has a Consumating.com feel to it, no?
Life is good.
Peace.
Online Personals Watch, Mark Brooks take on the online dating industry is nothing more than an advertisement for plentyoffish.
What I once regarded as a good source of industry information is now no more than a billboard of blog posts. Someone really needs to do something about creating a better resource for industry news.
Hi Sally, obviously Plenty of Wish is a client of his =) Mark needs to pay the bills like the rest of us but I think it’s important to disclose your clients when blogging/sharing industry “news” about them.
Nevertheless he does a good job of keeping the site updated with relevant info (well, “mostly” relevant anyway =)
Peace!
-S
POF domination in the free dating market will most probably end in less than 12 months. I predic that there will be at least 4-5 big paid sites in a matter of months including pof, okcupid, justsayhi. There will be a bigger competition for 4th, 5th place between some of the new players: collaboradate.com, connectingsingles.com, onelovenet.com, soulmatefind.com.
You can also check here what do I think about the dating market for the next year:
http://www.unitedwebsite.com/zoltan/2007/03/24/free-dating-sites/