Online Dating Insider » Partnerships

Match.com and Meetic Announce Latin America Partnership

David Evans — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:38:52 +0000

Not satisfied with European market domination, Match and Meetic have established a joint venture in Latin America.

Match.com and Meetic will each own 50 percent of the joint venture’s equity, and Match.com will control the new entity’s operations. Match.com will pay Meetic $3 million in cash at the closing, which is expected by March 15, 2010. Meetic’s participation in this new entity is subject to put-and-call rights that can be triggered beginning in the fourth year, when Match could purchase Meetic’s stake at fair market value. An additional payment of $1.5 million could be triggered at that time.

Greg Blatt, CEO, Match.com:

By combining ParPerfeito’s strength in the Brazilian market with Match.com’s presence in the rest of Latin America, we believe we’re best positioned to drive that expansion and create an asset of meaningful value. We’re confident from our work together in Europe that further partnering with Meetic will be a productive experience.

Another day, another big deal for Match and Meetic, who seem quite comfortable with each other given their expanding online dating empire. Match has been looking for partners for a long time, and Meetic and People Media seem to fit the bill quite nicely. Muy bueno.

And what pray tell are eHarmony and Yahoo up to? Eharmony’s international expansion is nowhere near as advanced as Match/Meetic and Yahoo appears to be stagnant, if not faltering.

Something tells me we’ll be hearing more about Match in Asia as well. They have a couple of properties there but we haven’t heard a peep about them in a long time.

More at Boston.com.

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Honesty Online Partners with DatingHeadshots

David Evans — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:27:41 +0000

DatingHeadshots and Honesty Online have announced a strategic partnership to provide daters with the tools they want to make online dating more fun and successful. Disclaimer, I work with both companies. Through this new partnership, DatingHeadshots and Honesty Online address two areas that have disappointed users — unreliable photos and inaccurate personal information.

DatingHeadshots, an industry leader in online dating photography, offers professional photo shoots that produce accurate, yet flattering photos to post on a dater’s profile. Honesty Online, a leader in online identity verification, provides a secure identity credential so daters can share verified personal information, such as a dater’s age.

Full press release.

This is a terrific partnership. I’ve been working hard to get complimentary companies to work together while pitching their services to online dating sites. Both startups and established dating sites need an a la carte menu of services to choose from. Right now the online dating business development process seems pretty broken and I hope to change that.

Dating sites often don’t have the technical resources to implement third-party technology solutions, but thankfully this new crop of partners have made integration and implementation much easier than say a generation ago.

Ric Fleisher of Honesty Online was on Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert Radio Show today talking about the company. I spent the 4th of July weekend hanging out with both companies, exciting things are coming, I’ll keep you posted.

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ChristianCafe.com and Single Christian Network Merge

David Evans — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:11:01 +0000

Breaking News: Christian online dating services ChristianCafe.com and Single Christian Network have merged.

Sam Moorcroft, CEO of ChristianCafe.com, and I are talking on Skype right now. He is filling me in with some additional details of the deal. Sam is going to guest post here next week to provide additional depth to the story.

Single Christian Network launched way back in 1991. Started as a snail mail operation and evolved into a web-based site around 1994.

The two companies have engaged in co-opetition since day one, helping each out with traffic swaps and other business-related activities like shared spammer lists.

Single Christian Network always kept the organization small, as online dating continued to become more competitive in recent years, they decided to get out and they called Sam to see if a deal could be done between the two friendly competitors.

The hope is that the companies will be stronger together than apart. Only time will tell, the Compete numbers are only up to the end of April, will take a few months to see the effects of the merger.

The two companies have spent the last several months working on merging the database, facing several technical hurdles, as would be expected when combining databases and other back office system.

There is much more to write about the story, I’m looking forward to Sam’s guest post next week to clue us into the deal in greater detail.

Link to full press release.

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Match.com Sells EU Business to Meetic, Retains 27% Stake

David Evans — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:41:23 +0000

Today is a big day for Match.com and Meetic.

IAC and Meetic, a leading European online dating company based in France, announced today that they have entered into an agreement for Meetic to acquire Match.com’s European operations from IAC. IAC will sell 100% of the stock of the entity that houses Match.com’s European operations for an approximate 27% stake in Meetic, plus a 5 million euro note. Additional terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

Match Europe contributes approximately 13% of Match’s consolidated Operating Income Before Amortization. IAC expects annual run rate synergies to be at least 15 million Euros, though it will take a significant transition period before Meetic is able to fully realize them.

Match has been battling it out in many European markets and that the deal is a huge opportunity for customers to reach larger broader community. It also makes sense that there are a number of business efficiencies that both companies may benefit from.

Meetic founder Marc Simoncini speaking to the BBC in 2007 after acquiring Dating Direct:

The UK is the battlefield for the World War of dating.

If Meetic is able to take the UK, Meetic will have won the war. If Match.com is able to keep the UK then they will have won the war.

If you use a US website they promise you will fall in love. They promise you to be married in 6 months, which for a French guy or a Spanish guy or an Italian is crazy. So the difference is whether you promise love or you promise dates.

It’s the French vision against the Texan vision so we will see. I’m confident, but I’m French.

It looks like the free-for-all dominance of the European dating market is just about sewn up. there are still a few French, German and Nordic dating sites ripe for acquisition, but this is the real game-changer.

TechCrunch says:

IAC will sell 100% of the stock of Match Europe – the entity that houses Match.comâ€™s European operations – for an approximate 27% stake in Meetic, plus a 5 million euro note.

According to French newspaper Le Monde, Meetic had revenues of 153,7 million euros in 2008 and currently counts over 696,400 registered users. The company is public and listed on NYSE Euronext, currently at a nearly 228 million euro valuation.

Acquisitions Meetic has made in the past to grow in Europe include eFriendsNet, Lexa, ParPerfeito, DatingDirect, Cleargay and Neu.

I wonder how Parship feels, after all, they made 46 million euros in 2007, not exactly small change for a dating site.

The deal is set to close in a few months.

Emails, calls and texts are flowing into HQ here, I’ll continue to post as more is known about the deal and the online dating industry reaction to the news.

Deal Coverage

TechCrunch

StreetInsider

Loic Lemeur (video of Meetic founder Marc Simoncini being interviewed by Loic, who was on the Meetic board).

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Match.com Partners with Virgin

David Evans — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:30:08 +0000

Taking a page out of the SouthWest playbook, Virgin America has partnered with Match.com to bring singles aboard the airline’s “SuperFly” Wednesday night series for an evening of social networking and fun. Bob Guiney formerly of “The Bachelorette” and “The Bachelor” will be on the flight to encourage guests to meet their match and stir things up en route from San Francisco to Las Vegas.

Dimitrios Papadogonas, Virgin America’s Director of Marketing says:

With swanky, mood lit cabins and a seat-to-seat chat feature, we’ve noticed that our planes have become a new place for social networking and for singles to meet. Match.com is the perfect partner to encourage guests to mix and mingle at 38,000 feet on their way to a fabulous destination.

Dimitrios, you should have partnered with Adult Friend Finder!

I can see it now. Hey Bob, let’s fly Virgin and pick the women up on the plane instead of when they are drunk at a nightclub at 3am, thanks Match.com! Can you imagine the uncomfortable flights back to LA? You’re only a virgin for one leg of this trip.

Great, now I gotta dress up for the flight instead of wearing comfy sweatpants. This is a Staturday Night Live skit just begging to be written.

Why is the partnership limited to flights to Vegas? Is this a one-time deal? How is Virgin going to get Match members on flights? Is there going to be a Virgin presence on Match.com? Do we get to pick “Single” at the check-in kiosk?

This certainly makes joining the Mile High Club easier.

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Match.com Expands International Partnerships

David Evans — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:04:29 +0000

Huge news out of Dallas. Match.com has signed two distribution partnerships in Australia and Latin America which will allow it to reach more than eight million people a month in Australia.

In Latin America, Match.com has partnered with Terra, the region’s largest Internet portal, to become the exclusive online dating provider for Terra’s sites in 18 countries, including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Venezuela and Peru.

eHarmony has been talking about International expansion for a while now and Match goes and pulls this off. That’s a real business development smack-down.

Eharmony can’t do partnerships. They are on their own and this is a huge problem for them. They have/had a partnership with Friendster which tanked and I’m not certain of the status of the deal with Gannett Co., which put eHarmony on USA Today and other newspapers.

Match can leverage the marketing power of it’s partners, whereas eHarmony has to spend more marketing dollars.

I need to figure out how to separate Match International performance and traffic to see how these deals pan out over time.

Dallas Business Journal. has synopsis and the Earth Times has full details.

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HonestyOnline Partners with myPartner

David Evans — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:28:48 +0000

MyPartner has started offering Honesty Online profile certification services to it’s memebers.

The optional Honesty Online certification will verify name, address and date of birth before running a background investigation to check for any criminal records. Members of myPartner who opt for the certification will have the Honesty Online stamp of approval on their profile. Anyone choosing to date a certified member can be confident they are getting a real person with a clear record.

“This is just one more way that myPartner.com is creating a safe online community for gay daters. The best way to find your perfect partner is to get an honest start,” said Patrick Perrine, M.A., founder and CEO of myPartner.com.

Using its proprietary matching technology, Honesty Online can search billions of records in a matter of moments. From the results of its inquiries, Honesty Online confirms the existence of your name and date of birth. Honesty Online then formulates a questionnaire designed to confirm that you are truly the bearer of that name. For the honest, the questionaire may be a nice trip down memory lane or a gentle reminder that momâ€™s birthday is coming up; but for the dishonest, it is an insurmountable hurdle. This same database is tapped to perform a comprehensive criminal and sex offender search, almost instantly locating those offenses linked to your name and address.

“Our background checks are thorough and efficient. We offer a peek into the past behavior of people you meet online, which is a good barometer of future behavior. Our goal is to make dating safer for myPartner members.” said Mark Ezra, CEO Honesty Online.

Mark Ezra and Patrick Perrine are two of the nicest guys working in the online dating space, both providing a valuable service to online daters. Congrats on the deal.

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Should Scientists Date People Who Believe in Astrology?

David Evans — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:03:45 +0000

A WIRED writer says they disregard anyone on dating sites who believes in astrology. The tv show The Big Bang Theory ties it all together. You’ve got well-intentioned geeks, a hot blonde and, well watch the clip.

Given the number of people who sit in front of the tv watching reality television, someone should start a dating show on cable. Wait, Comcast tried that, and there is another guy trying to make it happen. Browse video profiles and vote with you mobile phone. Not much different than Idol, so why hasn’t this taken off yet?

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Mobestar Announces the Appointment of Nomad NetWorX

David Evans — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:36:03 +0000

Mobestar Holdings Plc are pleased to announce the appointment of Nomad NetworX as the exclusive sales and marketing agent for their mDate product set in Australia and New Zealand. Nomad will be identifying and developing opportunities for Mobestar solutions and providing local sales and marketing support. Industry sources suggest there are an estimated 1.3 million registered users of online dating services in Australia, generating in excess of $AUD 40 million per year.

The first product scheduled for local release is Gaydarâ„¢.

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PlentyofFish Joins Userplane Ad Revenue-Sharing Program

David Evans — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:17:19 +0000

Userplane, the premier communication platform for online communities and a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, today announced that PlentyofFish, the world’s top free dating site, has joined Userplane’s new ad revenue-sharing program. Userplane made the announcement at iDate 2007, the business conference for the online dating industry.

Userplane recently created a new advertising program for sites that pay usage-based licensing fees – typically, large dating and social networking communities. For these sites, Userplane now enables text-based ads within its private-label chat and IM tools. It then splits any resulting revenue with participating sites.

PlentyofFish, an early adopter of the ad-supported business model, immediately signed up. The free dating site has more than 1 million daily visitors and is ranked by Hitwise as a top five dating service in the United States. Since 2004, its members have used Userplane Webmessenger(TM) to initiate, on average, more than 100,000 IM sessions and exchange millions of text and audio/video messages per day.

You are Reading Online Dating Insider, the premier and largest dating industry blog, which gets nowhere near the revenue or pageviews of Userplane, AOL or PlentyOfFish and is beholden to no large lumbering corporations.

Read the press release.

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