Archive for July, 2010
EasyDate To Play Cupid Across The Globe
EDINGBURGH NEWS – July 14 – Bill Dobbie, founder of EasyDate, is a St Andrews pure maths graduate
who got a job with Burroughs in Cumbernauld in the 1970s making
“business machines” – today they’re known as computers. Then he build
up Teledata, a telephone information services company that he sold to
Scottish Telecom, and Iomart, an internet web hosting firm he helped
create with his brother-in-law Angus MacSween. He left six years ago,
but maintains interests there, and launched web-based DVD rental firm, dvds365.com.
When that was sold to LoveFilm.com, it was time to seek out a new
venture. Named last year as one of Deloitte Technology’s Fast 50 – a
list of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in the UK -
EasyDate attracts about 200,000 new fee-paying members a month. “We
wouldn’t be maximising the company’s capability if we didn’t take it
worldwide,” said Bill Dobbie, the founder. “And we’ve had an
international outlook from the beginning.” Boosted by the stock market
cash injection, EasyDate is now preparing to do just that. First up is
the acquisition of an American firm that will increase the firm’s
presence there. Australia, where EasyDate already draws ~£200,000 a
month, is targeted for expansion, as is Brazil, China and almost
everywhere else you might care to mention. FULL ARTICLE @ EDINBURGH NEWS
eHarmony’s Steady Growth
WSJ – July 12 – Founded in 1999, eHarmony started off in a space with
sites like Match.com and Yahoo Personals that catered more to men,
emphasized free services and enabled users to sign up and begin using
the service quickly and easily. But eHarmony emphasized privacy, which
made it popular among women. CEO Greg Waldorf would not discuss exact
revenue figures but said reports of the company generating $250M in
revenue annually are “in the right ballpark.” There are no immediate
plans for an IPO, Waldorf said. The company has raised ~$110M from
Sequoia Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures and Fayez Sarofim &
Co. and doesn’t need any more venture funding, he said. “eHarmony has
an advantage over other dating sites in that its users tend to be more
serious about dating since they must fill out a long questionnaire.
Therefore those people who are interested are willing to pay up front
to subscribe”, said Mark Brooks, a consultant and editor of
OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. eHarmony is now in the U.S., Australia,
the U.K. and Canada and is soon going to announce its move into more
countries. However, can eHarmony be a victim of its own success if its
users get married and leave the site? That is a challenge to the
company, as its U.S. user base is already large and its U.S. user
growth is probably flat, said Brooks, the industry consultant. The
company is still growing in other countries though, he said. One small
way eHarmony addresses this is through an “elongated” communication
process, longer than other dating sites, which ensures safety but also
makes it take longer for people to get to know each other, and thus
stay on the site longer, Brooks said. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ
Flirting With Mobile Phones
WSJ – July 14 - According to Handmade Mobile Entertainment, the operator
of online flirting network Flirtomatic, more and more people want to
use the computer and mobile phone for quick, romantic fun, rather than
to merge their soul with another.Handmade Mobile raised a $9M Series C
round. Juniper Research has estimated the market will grow to ~$1.4
billion in revenue by 2013. Other services include MeetMoi, which is
tied more to a user’s mobile location, and BigCafe, which rewards
members the more they play with points and “coins” used to send virtual
gifts. Flirtomatic’s goal is to make it as easy as possible to meet
others through a mobile device. A user can sign up and begin flirting
with the 2.7M registered members in less than a minute. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ
