Online Dating

CBS 5 is reporting that one of the largest dating sites, Match.com is about too debut an application with everyone's favorite social networking site, Facebook. The application is called "Little Black Book" and it allows Facebook users to see other Facebook users and Match.com members who wish to date. With this application you can also share your matches with any of your Facebook friends. The other key feature is, users of Facebook with the Little Black Book don't necessary have to be members of Match.com. The reason for this is the application is a new paying service for Match.com. Once you have your matches, It will allow Facebook users to contact other users on a "pay per contact" basis instead of the regular monthly subscription which Match.com itself offers. At this point I would assume, if you are a member of the Match.com dating site you would not have to pay this fee. The Little Black Book also allows you to purchase keys to unlock a potential match for a friend. This feature ties in nicely with Match.com other new feature this week, matchmyFriends. Match My Friends allows people to create a dating profile for their friends (with the friends permission of course). We will have more information on matchmyFriends in another story. (UPDATE - Story now available here)

As everyone knows, social networking on the internet is huge. Sites like Facebook and MySpace have made it very popular. Facebook itself has an estimated 58 million users, while Match.com themselves have over 15 million. With the rise of social networking sites internet gurus expected dating sites to decline. In fact the opposite is true. Internet Dating has never been more popular. Singles like the dedicated service and features which dating sites offers. Plus, you know people on a dating site are actively looking for a relationship, on Social Networking sites a large percentage are not.

Allowing Facebook users to access Match.com's features is a very smart move on the part of Match.com and opens the door to more potential customers. IMO it should work out well just as long as Match.com doesn't charge too much to Facebook users to contact a match through the Little Black Book application.

The Facebook Little Black Book application is expected to launch next week, for more information on Match.com read our review.

Last month we reported this story, Rumor - FriendFinder purchased for $1 Billion?. Well it turns out that most of the rumor is true according to the New York Times. The FriendFinder Network was sold but for $500 million. There are over 25 sites in the FriendFinder Network with about a total of 1.2 million paying subscribers out of 260 million members. The projected profits of the network is estimated to be $340 million this year.

Some more of the popular sites in the FriendFinder Network includes their first site created, FriendFinder.com and Passion.com geared towards adults.

Ha, I noticed on the Online Dating Insider (a blog for people who work in the Dating Industry) that David has an article on Date.com's new Blog Widgets. These Blog Widgets are actually quizzes. The available quizzes include "How addicted are you to Online Dating?" and a "Hot or Not Calculator". Once you take a quiz they will give you the code to put on a blog if you have one. Dave only scored a 45% and he thought that was low since he spends a large amount of time using online dating sites. I took the test as well and I scored a 45%! I spend a fair bit of time using online dating sites but only from the point of reviewing the dating service and checking in from time to time to see any new features and what has changed. So in this regard, some of the questions I answered pertaining to how often I change my profile and photo, would have lowered my overall score.

You can see our Date.com Review here for more information on this dating service.

According to a recent Financial Post article, Ashley Madison, the dating service that caters to people who want extramarital affairs is banned from placing ads on the Microsoft Network (MSN). MSN Canada states the reason for the ban is because this web service is designed to facilitate deception.

While I don't agree morally with the Ashley Madison dating site concept, I'm on the fence about this ban. On one side MSN is a business and they have the right to decide who can and who cannot advertise with them. On the other hand, say all of the big 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) took the same stance on who can advertise. This would hurt your legitimate business. It is a form of censorship in a way and IMO the big 3 search engines are basically an essential service of the internet.

The New Jersey Assembly Committee has passed the next measure that would require dating services to tell residents of New Jersey whether criminal background checks are done.

Most singles dating online are honest but it's that 1% everyone worries about. Background checks don't tell the whole story and probably give online daters a false sense of security. A fair number of states have considered a bill similar to this but, one state has yet to pass it. The biggest problem with these type of checks is that most singles who have a criminal background would just give a false name to circumvent this type of security measure. A dating site would have to confirm that a member is actually who he or she says he or she is before an actual background check can be done. Confirming ones identity for websites is a whole other problem.

More information about this bill is located at the NewsCenter 16 website.

TechCrunch have posted a rumor from what they call a reliable source that the FriendFinder Network of sites has been acquired for $1 Billion. In an update to this rumor the buyer is reported to be Penthouse Media Group. The FriendFinder Network of dating sites includes AdultFriendFInder, Passion, Senior FriendFinder and over 15 other different types of dating services. The article further reports that rumored revenues for the Network is over $300 million a year which makes this acquisition worth about 3 years of revenue.

Is this a good deal for Penthouse? Could be, the FriendFinder dating sites have always done well financially and they don't seem to be slowing down. At a cost of 3 years worth of revenue seems a little on the low end to me but most likely there is more too this deal than we know about (if it actually is true!).