Online Dating Industry Consulting & Commentary
From the category archives:
Given yesterday’s impending acquisition of Singlesnet, I wanted to throw out a few things that I have been thinking about lately.
Recently dating industry insiders have been talking more about how to compete with Match.com.
In my mind, to compete with Match its important to understand the company’s history, various marketing strategies, branding and several other factors, [...]
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Some time ago I met with Aaron Schildkrout and Brian Schechter in Boston to talk about their online dating startup. Fast forward several months and behold the soft launch of How About We, a dating site that puts the date back in dating. Instead of rating people on their dating profiles, you rate them based [...]
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Some interesting news regarding the Guardian newspaper’s Soulmates dating site. The online dating service, which runs on The Dating Lab platform, launched in 2004 to introduce likeminded readers of the Guardian to other likeminded readers. Just over five years later there are 145,000 active members of the site and the Guardian have just commissioned and [...]
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This is a classic gorilla marketing tactic deserving a golf-clap. ManCrunch (related to sugar daddy site EstablishedMen), creates an ad that CBS will never approve. Planning on being rejected from the start, they send news to TMZ and enjoy the free publicity. Arguments about double standards (see GoDaddy ads), and appropriate content for super bowl [...]
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When it comes to niches one of my favorite originals is FarmersOnly. Of course PeopleMedia is now the clear 500-pound gorilla in the space with it’s network of niche sites, but I’m still a fan of small, passionate dating sites based on well-defined niches. They may not make millions but they have great stories [...]
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Spark Networks, operators of such popular online dating destinations such as JDate.com and ChristianMingle.com, has merged AmericanSingles.com and Date.ca into Spark.com. Having suffered ongoing declines in membership across the majority of their dating site portfolio, Spark has decided that it is now going to compete with Match and eHarmony/Chemistry/Perfectmatch, while attempting to keep the majority [...]
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Dating sites launch all the time. I receive a constant stream from startups claiming to be the next big Match.com or Plentyoffish killer, the majority of which leave me nonplussed and end up in the circular filing cabinet. This is a big week for dating site launches and Herway, the latest dating site from Mobeze, [...]
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For Sale: online dating site. Launched in 2006, the world’s first dog lovers dating site was born with a mission to bring single people together from all over the world who shared a passion for dogs.
Niche: Dog lovers.
Potential Market size: 43 million single dog lovers in the US alone.
Membership: Thousands of active members.
Revenue model: Subscription [...]
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