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 [...]

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This month’s WIRED article by Chris Anderson (of Long Tail fame) plays directly into the business playbook for PlentyOfFish (PoF) and OKCupid.

A decade and a half into the great online experiment, the last debates over free versus pay online are ending.

This is Markus’ (founder of PoF) primary argument against large paid dating sites, which tend [...]

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Boston is getting a lot of snow today, tonight the snow shoes come out!
I’m sorry to say that Consumating is joining the TechCrunch Deadpool on March 15. I talked with founder Ben Brown many times when they were starting up and during the transition after CNET bought them in 2006. I loved the concept, turns [...]

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Hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day. Today I feel like accountants must feel on April 16th.
In my quest to learn more about the role of fraud detection in online dating, I had lunch with Maxmind. Talking with the fraud guys is a real eye-opener. There are a number of companies working around the clock [...]

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I’ve compiled recent bits of information about Match.com, along with related stories and insights, let’s review.
Match by the Numbers
Let’s take a look at the most recent numbers for 4Q 2007.

Higher revenue per subscriber.
Revenue up 14% from $79.4 to $90.6 million.
Paid Subscribers grew 1% to 1,285,500
Operating Income Before Amortization flat at $20.9 million.
Operating Income down 22% [...]

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Fitness Singles and Active.com have announced a new partnership to serve single adults who engage in active and fitness-oriented lifestyles. With the partnership, Active.com is helping their members connect to a large database of like-minded, active singles by way of Fitness Singles.
I’ve seen sites where you can add criteria to your search like “runs 8-minute [...]

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Collaborative editing is making it’s way into online dating profiles. Recently Match launched a Testimonial feature and this morning I discovered OKCupid enables friends to edit your profile.

Another weirdo toy by us. With the new WikiProfile feature, you can let anyone you trust propose edits to your profile. Is that a twisted thing for a [...]

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I awoke in a post-Patriots party fog, fired up my web browser and I see Markus Frind, founder of PlentyofFish at the top of Techmeme.
Here’s the story at the New York Times. It touches on many of the same complaints and praise leveled at PoF over the years.
My main issue with the article is this, [...]

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Markus Frind, the founder of Plentyoffish, is featured in a video interview as part of a customer stories series at Peer1. Peer1 is the PoF web hosting company. Markus writes a great blog, The Paradigm Shift, a must read for dating industry executives. Hey Markus, add me to your blogroll!
interviews

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OnlinePersonalsWatch has an interview with new General Manager at Yahoo! Personals. A great update as to what Y! Personals is up to and their plans for 2008.
I wrote about Yahoo! Personals in October and December, both good companions to the OPW interview.
interview

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