General News

TechCrunch has an article about how online advertising faired in Europe in 2008 and has a few predictions for 2009. With the recession hitting last year, it significantly slowed the growth of digital advertising. With the downturn of the economy still present, 2009 will be worse and a decline is expected. In 2008 the European online advertising market was worth €12.9 billion or $18 billion in US dollars (in 19 markets) . This is a 20 percent increase over 2007 and while most businesses would love to see an increase in sales like this, the projection at the start of 2008 (before the world recession) was much higher. Search advertising is the leading advertising format that accounts for 43 percent of spending or €5.6 billion. After search is classifieds at 26 percent or €3.8 billion.

For comparison, in the United States for 2008, online advertising was worth $23.4 billion or €16.6 billion. This is an increase of 10.6 percent over the previous year. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, who are responsible for all these number, just reported a 5 percent decline in the United States for the first quarter of 2009, to $5.5 billion.

Read TechCrunch for the full post.

Some surprising finds in the UK for men and women who start dating in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. As divorce rates rise, singles older than 60 is a growing trend. A lot of baby boomers have found that once their children have left home, they were the only thing holding their broken marriage together. When you combine this with our longer life spans when compared to previous generations, there are a lot more seniors who are single, than there use to be.

Match.com has said on numerous occasions that the older generation is their fastest growing market. Also, according to eHarmony's UK dating site, 30 percent of men over the age of 65 live alone and the figure doubles to 60 percent for woman. Why is there such a huge percentage difference between men and woman? I think it comes down to two factors. First women on average live 5 to 10 years longer than men and with the about equal gender split in the world you are going to have many more women single due to them being widowed. The second factor is, men tend to go out with younger women. Therefore a man who is 65 and living with someone (and included in eHarmony's statistic), is more likely than not, living with a woman under the age of 65 (and not included in the statistic).

For the rest of the story, read The Guardian. If you are a senior and interested in online dating, read our Match.com or eHarmony review. You could also check out our Dating Over 50 category for a list of dating sites specifically for older singles.

We have had a run of press releases over the last week or so dealing with dating services. I found one for eHarmony in which they have chosen to use the fraud-fighting technology called the Interceptas platform, from Accertify. eHarmony reviewed several fraud detection systems and found the platform from Accertify would enhance their fraud-fighting capabilities the best. Interceptas is a tool for e-commerce websites and it:

provides comprehensive fraud-fighting tools and components in a single, integrated system that allows merchants to integrate more data into the fraud-fighting process for improved screening success. The platform can be used to manage a variety of data management challenges across the enterprise. In addition, its automated workflow features strengthen fraud defenses and reduce the manual effort involved in fraud protection.

Incereptas is just one of the many systems eHarmony uses for a multi-pronged fraud protection strategy.

For more information on the dating site mention in this article, check out our eHarmony Review.

The Microsoft Network in Europe signed a new partnership deal with Meetic last Monday. MSN, the leading web portal in Europe use to have a partnership with Match.com to provide dating and matchmaking services, but with the recent sale of Match.com's European operations to Meetic (see Story) the partnership had to be renewed. This affects 12 European countries on MSN and it is unknown if the Match.com European brand or the Meetic brand of dating services will be used.

You will find the full press release here.

On June 5th, 2009, IAC completed the deal previously announced in early May with Meetic (see Story). IAC sold Match.com European operations for 27 percent equity stake in Meetic along with a 5 million Euro promissory note.

The Online Dating Insider pointed out that Hannah Schwartz of the Australian dating site RSVP said that their membership is up 31 percent this quarter when compared to the same quarter last year. Schwartz states in the following video (around the 6 minute 27 second mark) that the membership increase is driven mainly by woman and the total membership number for RSVP is now over 1.4 million.



She further states that when surveyed, members have turned to online dating due to the recession, and the need to cut back expenses.

For more on this popular Australian dating site, read our RSVP review.