PlentyofFish Owner Markus Frind
 

The paid dating site, and membership business model is dead. Circa 2006.

Podcast
:pimp

Funny how toe sucking weirdo switched from "toe da top" post to cut and paste crap.

idiotic statement

Cliff notes version of the podcast, as many will not bother to listen. I guess I should have marked it as "cliff notes" for those individuals. My bad.

That said, it was basically his take on social networks, dating sites, and paid membership model from the interview.
:2 cents:

Markus is a complete douche...

Yeah well he's doing it better then 99% of all of you

complete crap, I make my living pushing dating sites

What he said + posted on webmaster forums more times than I care to recollect.

My thoughts exactly.
:pimp

While I have listened to, and read, plenty of interviews from this dude and his story, I do not agree with them all either. That said, there are plenty of people in this industry, as well as mainstream, I do not care for. But failing to learn from their successes, and failures, as well as experience is one's own folly.

Dating is still doing well for us? No shortage in buyers that is for sure.

pretty sure you could up that to a good 99.5% and still be accurate... :1orglaugh

of course this model is "dead" because there are 84,000 other dating sites out there all promising the same thing.

match.com is probably one of the most successful dating sites IMO (mainstream) and that has a lot to do with the amount of advertising and marketing they do. Eharmony is the same way, they are always running ads but i think they are focused more towards the "older" type crowd.

at the same time, I dont think the "free dating site" model will ever be successful because of the mass amount of spammers it will get. Shit, even sites like Fling have spammers that try to get you to sign up for AFF ads.

IMO this kind of goes in the same as porn. general/hardcore sites are not nearly as productive as they used to be because that content is everywhere, versus niche sites are performing just fine and thats probably how dating will start to go too

Nice post fine sire.
:thumbsup

there is some serious money in there for him

That's a really good post!

By this logic all the free dating site needs to do is reign in their affiliates and do more fraud screening... you wouldn't believe how much fraud screening is done on the major dating sites... but even then they're not going to take over...

For one you've got the whole perceived value thing... Second, you've got an ad based revenue model... good to support one guy or maybe a few people, not good enough to drive a major company.

PlentyOfFish is a joke with anyone that's actually looking to date... if you want a better example I say take a look at OKCupid, albeit it's more of a hybrid social network/dating model.

dating sites should locate on areas advertising model, find area build site, promote, try to make db of customers, work it out, go to next area and let this on auto pilot

I saw a thing on him on TV and all his shitty furniture was the worst IKEA crap that falls apart when you put it together.

Then why does POF charge to become a premium member now?

It's not dead, that's just ignorance... They charge because the free model has ALWAYS been dead, inherently... Premium member is where it's at, subscription models are actually profitable, LOL

It took Markus a few years to catch on though... some how he still thinks he knows more than everyone else in the dating industry :clown

Being frugal rocks. :2 cents:

Business thread accomplished.
:pimp

That's probably why all the chicks on POF are butt ugly =)

That's crazy.

Seems odd to me to get paid by check with that sum but it's probably fun depositing them.

he is my hero

two different banks in Canada told him to F-off and deposit it somewhere else. :1orglaugh

eharmony is the closest thing of a successfull model along with Match. POF is full of dead weight. It's basically a glorified craigslist for hookers, rapists, fat girls, 40year old virgins, and murderers hangout. Markus needs to clean his site up.

:2 cents:

The paid dating model is still very much alive. A good way to market paid dating sites is to point out the major pitfalls of free dating sites. A lot of people who register on POF aren't serious about online dating. They pretty much register on there for the same reasons they register on myspace.

On the other hand, the quality of users on paid dating sites is way higher. Since it's more focused on actual dating and the users who are serious about it have to actually pay for the service.

Not saying anything bad about the owner of POF though. He's a very smart man who is worth more than 99.9% of us will ever be. Of course he's going to brag about his business model while putting others down. Just like all the other business giants do, (Steve Jobbs, Bill Gates, etc).

And fat :1orglaugh

My g/f in NJ finds all kinds of fucked up guy's on there.

POF is a lead gen play. Its the largest but there are others like it. What's core to remember about sites like POF is this- they exist primarily because they remarket those users to paid dating sites.

If premium membership driven dating sites went under the largest portion of his incoming revenue would dry up. I doubt he would be able to continue to operate.

If 5 years ago someone had said full scenes would be given away on sites for free, they would of been called an idiot. Could dating sites go 100% free? Their running costs are less than Tube sites, so yes it could happen.

A bad thing for porn? Not if it cuts funding to Tubes sites giving away full scenes for free.

We live in a changing world. Adapt or die.

True dat old friend.
:pimp