Industry

People Media, a provider of online dating communities like BlackPeopleMeet.com and SeniorPeopleMeet.com was ranked on Technology Fast 500, Deloitte LLP`s ranking of 500 of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in the US and Canada. People Media came in at number 359. Ranking is determined by the percentage of fiscal year revenue growth during a five year period. People Media grew 342 percent during 2004 to 2008.

To check out some of People Media dating sites, read our review of BlackPeopleMeet.com and our review of SeniorPeopleMeet.com.

Aaron contacted us here at DatingSitesReviews.com asking us to post some job positions he needs filled for a new internet dating site he is planning.

Here is his request:

WEB-BASED START-UP SEEKING CTO, DESIGNER, CODER, + ENGINEER

We are starting a new kind of online dating service. In order to create the site, we are hiring design and tech professionals in the following areas:

The Online Personals Watch Blog has an interview with CEO of People Media, Josh Meyers. In the blog post we learn a bit more about the company which was recently bought by IAC, the owners of Match.com and Chemistry.

People Media employee between 40 and 50 people with about half in the editorial (profile reviews) and customer service departments. In 2008 the dating network had revenues of $11.6 million and currently have 255,000 paying subscribers. It is interesting to note that People Media's revenue and paid subscriber numbers is about even to Match.com European Operation which IAC sold in June (see Story ).

Related Story: More About People Media

To find out more about People Media's most popular dating site designed for black singles, read our BlackPeopleMeet review.

If you are planning to start, or just started an online dating site, then you may want to take a look at this blog post at White Label Dating. The post is actually commenting on another post at "Startup Professionals" which attempts to show all new dating site endeavours will fail.

I do agree with most of Startup Professionals reasons about why starting a online dating site is tough:

• Direct competition is huge.
• No longer a growth market.
• Entry cost is very high.
• Intellectual property is tough.
• Social networks and search engines.

The only real exception I have is the point they made about online dating not being a growth market. While growth may be slowing a bit, the Online Dating industry has a huge potential for further growth. The reason is, most single men and women are not online daters. In 2008 there was 93 million single Americans, only 3 million had paid that year to use a dating site (see Stats).

Including the point about "Entry cost is very high" may confuse people who have looked into buying software for a dating site. To buy and setup a readymade dating site script is relatively easy and can be done for under $300. There are hundreds of these type of dating sites out there but they all suffer from a couple of major problems. One problem is getting your website noticed, to do this these days costs money, lots of it. Dating terms in Google Adwords are not cheap and to generate enough traffic to hopefully get people to come back to your site will cost you alone at least $10,000 a month (conservative est.). Of course one month is not enough, you have to keep the marketing dollars flowing. The other problem these dating sites have is no members. People sign up to a dating site to connect with other members, if you don't have any, no one will sign up. This is the same problem as the chicken or egg scenario, which came first?

The White Label Dating post has a successful argument on how someone with a limited budget can bypass these points on why your dating site will fail. White Label Dating provides their clients the dating software, membership database, payment processing, customer support, hosting infrastructure, tax processing and more. All their clients need to do is provide a brand, website design and marketing. If you want to start a dating site but have limited funds, this is really the only option you have if you want a half decent chance at success.

People Media's CEO Josh Meyers and VP of Marketing Ron Worthy attended the Beverly Hills iDate 2009 conference recently and answered a few questions regarding their company's dating services. Some of these questions included:

• The importance of the iDate conference?
• What are the latest online dating trends?
• How is safety maintained on your dating sites?

In their answers Josh and Ron referred to how People Media's group of dating sites have seen a 55 percent increase in unique visitors when compared to last year. They also talked a bit about BlackPeopleMeet (BPM) and how The Steve Harvey morning radio show partnership came about. When asked about how they maintain safety on their dating sites, they made a comparison to how a dance club would work. Like a club, they look at a number of factors right from the start when members signup, and the monitoring continues while they are using the site. If anything misleading is detected then the account is closed. They also rely on other members as well to report potential scammers.

Consumer reviews on the internet for products and services usually receive more negative posts than positive, since most people satisfied with a product or service tend to be using it rather than writing reviews. It is probably the same for reviews of employers. I found a website called Glass Door which allows visitors to review their current and past employers. The website currently has over 26 thousand companies listed, with most of them being publicly traded. The site is new and is in beta so most companies do not have a lot of reviews yet.

A reviewer can list their job title, the Pros and Cons of the employer and Advice to Senior Management. They also rate the company on 8 different attributes (which is then averaged to a 5 bar rating) and also select if they approve or disapprove of the company CEO.

There are not a lot of employer reviews for dating site companies but, here are a few I found reviews for: