Looks like a massive slowdown in the US market, compete is showing all the major dating sites have big declines. Plentyoffish showed a small increase for Sept, but that is mostly because of the massive momentum we built over the summer. Like everyone else we saw a massive drop in momentum and signups in September. Several people have mentioned that Plentyoffish now has the top spot in the US according to hitwise.
It looks like during a recession people don’t flood to free sites, A dating site only costs the same as a cheap date. People aren’t going to use a free site or spend $20.00 on a paid one when they have to worry about spending $500+ on dates or dating someone.
On the plus side, depending on how you look at it, the Canadian dollar has gone from 1 to 1 with the US to 83 cents verse $1.00 USD in the last few weeks. The dollar had the biggest fall in history today going down nearly 5.4% for the day.
I wonder how many dating sites will fold, and how many free sites will give up as advertising revenue vanishes.
October 11, 2008 at 1:07 pm |
I’ve noticed the same thing, especially this week. No real change in SERPS but overall traffic is lower. We are also receiving less clicks from Adwords as well with no real change to our account.
The dollar is the only thing that has been good news lately.
October 11, 2008 at 5:01 pm |
We saw a poor September but things are looking a lot better in October – in fact, Thursday and Friday were our best days ever which is saying something!!
We’re still predominantly in the UK though (although that is beginning to change).
I think other businesses will suffer much more than dating companies – although you are correct about free advertising-supported sites, there’s not many ad dollars around nowadays and those that are will go to the big players like PoF.
Ross
October 11, 2008 at 9:09 pm |
Marcus, re: your comment about sites folding – the weak ones will (hopefully) die out during any slowdown (if it actually does slow). The stronger ones will just hunker down and come out stronger.
Re: our CAD dropping – that works for me:-) Let’s say we had a 5-10% drop in memberships (assuming my theory about romance being recession proof is slightly off), we’ll more than make that up in CAD due to our dollar’s drop…
October 13, 2008 at 12:32 am |
What about the small ad supported sites? I think there will always be some ad revenue and if a site can keep its costs down (ie plentyoffish or my site) it will always be able to ride out hard times. For example, I just started my free dating site, FindOneTrue.com, in my spare time and my costs are very low. We are slowly getting more members but I will keep my day job and reinvest every dime of profit until (if ever) the site is huge. My point is that if a site can keep costs down and is smart about reinvesting profits, it should be able to ride out any bad times. Just my 2 cents.
October 13, 2008 at 5:56 am |
I’m thinking of sites like okcupid with 20 some employees and barely enough money to break even. Sites with no employees and some guy doing it in his spare time is never going to go broke. The pain comes when sites have a lot of fixed costs.
October 13, 2008 at 7:55 am |
Smooch.com (primarily UK) had it’s biggest month for ad revenue last month, so we’re not currently experiencing any slowdown. Whether this is because companies that still need to buy ads are buying them online rather in print/radio/TV, or because the UK market just hasn’t come to terms with the state of the economy I couldn’t say (naturally I’m hoping it’s the former).
Martin
October 16, 2008 at 2:16 am |
“…to 83 cents verse $1.00 USD in the…”
is supposed to be “…to 83 (US)cents verse $1.00 CAD in the…”
if I am not mistaken(?)
October 18, 2008 at 3:55 am |
We have not recorded any significant decrease in browsing activity, on both networks. All within the error range and normal traffic fluctuations. People are still browsing dating sites all right..
October 22, 2008 at 2:21 am |
[...] at PlentyOfFish says that people are going to st… because dating is going to get too [...]
October 23, 2008 at 12:03 am |
Marcus, I got a cool $1.2509 CAD on a USD trade today. Gotta love being Cdn, eh?
October 23, 2008 at 9:34 am |
Marcus:
I have been on your site for about a year. Proud to see a fellow Canuck as the owner, even cooler to read and find out that you are doing this out of your apartment. I was just curious how you handle the huge Bandwith requirements, even on a free site, do you outsource this to Telus, Bell Canada, Rogers, Cogent? Anyway, congrats on the site, and for staying humble.
Cheers,
October 28, 2008 at 4:36 pm |
Free Adult Friend Finder Gold Membership
http://free-aff-gold.blogspot.com/
October 28, 2008 at 10:11 pm |
Hoe groot is de datingmarkt in Europa?…
Ik krijg regelmatig vragen over de grootte van de datingmarkt. Dat het aantal gebruikers van datingsites nog steeds groeit, is een feit. Maar hoeveel mensen zitten er op datingsites? En wat is de totale omzet van datingsites? Voor keiharde cijfers…
October 31, 2008 at 8:07 pm |
Online Dating and dating in general are going to go down when the DOW goes down. If people aren’t spending in restaurants and cutting back on shopping at even places like Walmart, dating is first to go. Also, folks are working extra hours to keep a job so don’t have time for even free sites.
November 1, 2008 at 12:29 am |
[...] Comment on The US Dating market. by Lynne Green [...]
November 1, 2008 at 7:39 am |
[...] Comment on The US Dating market. by Lynne Green [...]
December 3, 2008 at 2:31 pm |
[...] Marcus speaks [...]
December 4, 2008 at 3:51 am |
You got to check this video out I found on Youtube. Its badass.
Let me know what you guys think.
youtube video
December 8, 2008 at 8:45 pm |
[...] online dating market has been tracking the economy and has seen a major slowdown in traffic over the past couple months. Although, Vancouver-based Plentyoffish.com has been enjoying a US/CDN [...]
March 19, 2009 at 7:10 am |
There is nothing in this world I enjoy more then making friends. I’m always looking for new social networks!
March 27, 2009 at 8:15 pm |
Nice post! Thumbs up!
May 25, 2009 at 9:39 am |
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