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IamFreeTonight has launched on Facebook, although I can’t find the service in the applications listing.
Talking about launching HotOrNot on Facebook (which isn’t a dating site IMHO), Markus at Plentyoffish says:
As for growing pageviews via facebook I think that is a mistake for a dating site, even when they allow advertising you’d make cents on the dollar compared to what you’d make having the visitor on your site. I couldn’t even create a dating site in facebook that would run with a profit on facebook. Most of facebooks pageviews aren’t even in the US and you are looking at splitting 5 cent CPM’s with facebook.
Markus is missing the point. Marketing your dating service to another 10+ million people is why dating sites catering to the younger crowd should look into establishing a presence on Facebook.
Markus says paid sites generate about 10% of their revenue from advertising. I personally despise the fact that Match and other paid sites have advertising on them. I’m already paying you over $100 to use your site, and you’re forcing absolute junk ads down my throat? Thankfully we have Firefox ad blockers to take care of that.
Markus says he will convert to a paid dating site in order to get to $100 million a year. I don’t think that’s going to work for him unless he retains a free tier of membership. Just ask WebDate about converting from free to paid.
As I spend more time in various Facebook dating apps, it’s become clear that there needs to be a consensus about how your friends are invited to take advantage of new applications you embed in your profile. Some apps make it easy to invite all or some of your friends, other apps are much more difficult to understand who is going to be invited, let along what the invitation itself looks like.
One thing is certain, Facebook is getting too complicated to use and some of the apps are incredibly compelling and fun to use. Somewhere in the middle lies a killer apps based on open profiles.
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Their other site Fling.com is growing in leaps and bounds and looks to over take AFF in a few months. Its a massive home run.
Promoting your site to “millions” and going broke doing it isn’t a good business strategy, niether is messing around with your brand.
You shouldn’t disregard the possibility that tapping into millions of new people could be a great business strategy for some companies.
Facebook is enjoying the Myspace hype in a new sector, and the app platform is an amazing idea.
Saying it won’t work before any type of analysis can be performed makes no sense.
… if Markus tries to add a paid tier, won’t Plentyoffish just become a minor version of Match.com. Or worse, be abandoned by its current users who are using it because of the fact that it is 100% free?
Have a look and pick up some tips - if you use any it would be great if you could give me credit with a link.