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Online Dating July Roundup

by Zima

Fireworks and July go hand in hand.

Unlike June, which slowly rolled out the summer season, July moved at a breakneck pace to deliver a plethora of Online Dating news. These were both reflective of the growing awareness towards Internet risks, and reassuring of the industry’s continuing dominance. With this Roundup SkaDate brings you the main stories of the month that you might have missed.

  • BUSINESS
  • RISKS
  • IDEAS
  • TIPS
  • FUN
  • SKADATE JULY POSTS

As usual, Business first. Despite somewhat uncertain economic vibes coming from the Capitol Hill, the Online Dating Industry continued to thrive both domestically and internationally.

For instance, the rapidly growing Chinese and Indian markets have been recently joined by the CIS and Australia. The latter now serves as the market-share battleground for dating giants, which is a sure sign that smaller companies and startups will have plenty of leftovers to feast on.

Proving that global domination trends are not a fluke, businesses from much smaller countries also discovered success in July. For example Lithuanian-based Eskimi managed to find a sizable client base of several million users in Africa. So we have at least one clear example of looking-beyond-your-backyard strategy working effectively.

Back at home Match.com‘s operator IAC/InterActiveCorp. reported a substantial second-quarter revenue boost, as well as general increase in subscribers. At the same time UK’s Cupid, which also operates globally, still shows strong share price growth. AntipoDate explains the persistent boom by the general increase of the time the population now spends online - 50 hours per week in the UK alone, compared to only 20 hours three years ago.

Incredibly, despite the growing economic concerns, the army of of singles willing to look for love online continues to grow, while changing its very attitude towards virtual dating itself. Mercury News ran a story on the subject, explaining that nowadays “men and women are relaxing their standards on a potential mate’s job status“. Employment and income are no longer considered deal-breakers as was the case before.

This is good news for dating site owners, who can now breathe a sigh of relief. As usual, though, they have other things to worry about, since there were plenty of media reports on the potential risks of online dating.

These ranged from specific cases of reported scam to law enforcement warnings, to Guardian’s general expositions on the supposedly harmful nature of Online Dating as a concept. Luckily we don’t have to address this last questionable reasoning, because it was already done in a much better way in a blog post from Forbes (of all places).

But not all is lost, since one of the most talked-about online dating stories last month focused on a matchmaking site experience that actually helped catching an alleged murderer. The drama involving a Vermont woman, who confessed through a dating portal to purposefully causing a car crash that killed her husband, even made it to CBS News.

OMFG! They have monitors for heads!

This, however, was not the only online dating item on TV last month. An episode of the wonderful Parks and Recreations featured an amusing plot-line involving Amy Poehler meeting someone she already knows through the Internet. In other entertainment news, The Examiner ran a story about an entire musical about our favorite subject, called “OMFG! The Internet Dating Musical”.

If you think this is weird, wait until you learn about the emergence of new industry niches. We have already posted about WomenBehindBars, and now they have a perfect company in Inmate.com - a site full of, well, inmate classifieds.

Need more ideas on less tapped market segments? Than read the story in Adi-News to find out about networks catering exclusively to punk communities, or even pets. Also, Boston Herald sheds some light on a dating site for sports lovers, while the News Junky Journal runs a piece on the Post-Divorce Dating Club.

So yeah, it looks like we are fully covered now - people can meet each other through a regular SkaDate-powered website, get married, find a partner to cheat with through the Ashley Madison Agency, get divorced, and then join the Post-Divorce Dating Club. No matter what trials and tribulations are there, one thing everyone can be sure of - the dating needs will be satisfied every step of the way.

Of course, picking just the right niche is not enough to succeed, thus we’ll give you a few July tips on the ways to improve the online dating experience for network members.

This article, for instance, talks about bringing the support and advice of real-life dating coaches to the web. Users will definitely appreciate the professional expertise provided. Even more useful can be aid in managing every aspect of virtual dating - from proper profile creation to partner selection, to email composition. But if the startup does not have enough money to hire extra professional staff, the site can still satisfy all the customer needs by becoming an information hub on all things dating.

Oh, and if you do have the money, why not spend them creatively for promotion purposes. Ukrainian AnastasiaDate did just that and organized a Swimsuit Beauty Pageant in Odessa, which attracted the attention of related media outlets from across the world (in addition to the entire male population in the vicinity). Enjoy the video!

Now, I hope that just put you in the right mood for August, which coincidentally is the Romance Awareness Month. That’s right, August is the new February, and it is the perfect opportunity to get started on a new dating site, while all the free publicity is still around. But where to look for inspiration you ask? Well, why not Hollywood? It was pretty successful with all the comic-book adaptations this year. So in closing, have some fun and look at 11 Superhero Online Dating Profiles courtesy of Next Movie. See you next month!

SkaDate July Blog Posts

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 at 3:21 AM and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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