Shaadi.com

An interview with Anupam G. Mittal, CEO Of Shaadi.com is available over at Online Personals Watch (OPW). In the article Mittal discusses how he founded the website back in 1997 when he returned to India for a few months and by chance met up with a traditional matchmaker. In India, traditional matchmakers not only foster a relationship between people looking for a partner but, with their families as well. Family is considered very important in India. When Mittal talked with the matchmaker, he further learned that she had about 50 or 60 people in her network. It was easy for him to see that moving part of the matchmaking process onto the internet would increase the matchmaking pool by thousands.

In the interview Mittal also discusses:

• How Shaadi works from a user's perspective. There are about 75 Shaadi centers across India and one in Canada now. In the United States singles must rely on just the website.
• The prices and services offered by Shaadi and how they differ depending on what country you live in.
• How the economy and Facebook has affected the dating business in India.
• Where Mittal would like to see Shaadi by the end of 2010.

For the full interview, visit OPW and for further information on the top matrimonial service in India, read our review of Shaadi.com.

I just noticed on the Indian dating service, Shaadi.com Matrimonial, that they now offer a 100% money back guarantee. They are confident to offer this guarantee because of their successful track record of matching singles. Shaadi calls the guarantee an Unconditional Guarantee - 100% money back, but there is a few conditions.

The first condition is, If you do not have at least 1 accepted member in the first month, Shaadi.com will refund your entire Premium Membership fee, with no questions asked. A accepted member is considered to be either a member who expressed interest in you and you responded positively OR a member who responded positively to your interest expressed.

You are also expected to fill in all details of your profile, create a partner profile, upload your photo and actively communicate with members.

For more information on this online dating site, read our Shaadi.com review.

India’s largest online matrimonial services, Shaadi.com announced a partnership with Star Plus (an Indian entertainment television channel) to create a new entertainment and reality TV show that helps singles from India to find a partner for marriage. The show will document the participants from the initial meeting, until the wedding, and everything in between.

The show is open to all eligible single male and female Indian residents, who can speak fluent Hindi and are aged between 22 to 25 (for females) and 22 to 30 (for males) ... To register for the show, eligible participants can log onto Shaadi.com and fill in a simple form online. Registrations will be open from 15th to 30th January 2009.

I'm not sure why Shaadi.com released the press release today since the registration time is almost up (3 more days).

For more information on one of India's most popular online dating and matrimonial sites, read our Shaadi.com review.

There is a promising future for mobile dating as predicted by Juniper Research. They claim the value of the chatroom market and mobile dating will grow to almost $1.4 billion by 2013. For the most part revenue will be generated by subscriptions but event-based charging (like paying a fee to contact someone or virtual gifts) and advertising will continue to become a larger part of the revenue stream.

... many companies which have migrated to this approach are seeing conversion rates amongst customers buying premium rate goods and services which generate revenues significantly in excess of those achieved under flat rate subscriptions.

By 2011 it is predicted less than 30 percent of mobile dating customers will be on a flat rate subscription model. China and Japan currently have the largest number of mobile dating customers.

There is no mention what the 2008 revenue is for this market. Currently from our reviewed online dating services, Match.com (called matchMobile), Date.com, Lavalife, DatingDirect and Shaadi.com all offer a mobile phone service along with their dating website. Other sites like MeetMoi also offer location based mobile dating based on the GPS in your phone (with lots of privacy options of course). With the rise of 3G and the large bandwidth it provides I expect to see the rise of video mobile dating as well.

For reviews on dating services that offer a mobile/cell phone dating service check out our new Mobile Dating Category.

Over 10 years ago Shaadi.com, the online dating and matrimonial service was born. Recently Shaadi has become available on your cell phone browser and for viewing on satellite TV. Now Shaadi.com has launched Shaadi.com Sapphire. This is a new phone service which allows singles to talk with a trained matchmaking assistant who will help them with every step in dating online. This includes writing a profile, searching for matches and replying to messages.

The service has been designed for the "busy professional" who doesn't have the time to search through all of their matches. Members can call 91-22-67752020 daily between 10am and 7pm to speak to a Matchmaking Assistant and to sign up for the service.

For the full release go to indiaPRwire and, read our review on Shaadi Matrimonial dating service for more information.

It seems that Shaadi is branching out into a lot of different types of media tools this year. First it was Satellite TV (see Story) and now it is mobile phones. Shaadi Matrimonial has teamed up with Vodafone Essar to launch Shaadi.com on Vodafone. This new service will allow Vodafone cell phone customers to search and view Shaadi profiles without needing the internet. Mobile phone users may also express interest and send and receive messages from their matches.

View the full story at Business Standard.