Spark Networks, Other Dating Sites To Be Buried By MySpace?

Some investment pros believe in the “scuttlebutt” method as Philip Fisher described it in Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. Giraffe Capital’s Avner Mandelman is one such pro. In his Globe and Mail columns, he describes how he gets information on companies through informal channels -- like visiting pubs where company employees hang out.

But anyone surfing the blogosphere can now collect quality scuttlebutt with less time and effort. For example, one can get an insider’s view of the Web 2.0 industry at Paradigm Shift, the blog of Markus Frind (his Plentyoffish.com dating site generates about $300,000/month in Google AdSense revenues).

When Frind says MySpace.com is “killing” online-dating companies, you probably would want to avoid shares in online-dating plays like Spark Networks (LOV).

Then there is the commentary on the weaknesses and strengths of Web 2.0 players like Digg.com, and their impact on Web 1.0 players like Yahoo (YHOO).

Comments

[Ronald Adamus:]

Yes, but the refreshments are better at the pubs!

2006 Oct 17 05:01 PM

[David Jackson:]

Interesting. Wonder whether this impacted Yahoo's numbers via its online dating business as well.

2006 Oct 17 05:52 PM

[Larry MacDo...:]

Hi David
It would seem Yahoo Personals is in trouble, which could could more evident in 2007. Recent sales of Yahoo’s international dating sites is one sign. Also according to Markus Frind, useage data shows growth in signups is trending away from paid sites like Yahoo Personals to MySpace and Plentyoffish.com. Lastly, the latter site currently has about the same number of pageviews as Yahoo Personals but is produced by one person at a cost of $20k month. Frind is making a nice living just from the Google Adsense revenues. Yahoo might fight back by switching from paid to free service but it has a much larger overhead of many staff and servers to support.
Larry M.

2006 Oct 19 11:20 AM

[Dave Evans:]

As a dating industry blogger who built his first website in 1994, I feel I can comment on this with some level of authority. First, PlentyOfFish is not a web 2.0 company and Yahoo is not necessarily 1.0. Why do people keep using these useless terms? Markus knows how to make money advertising, but not much about relationships and matchmaking. This is fairly standard in the dating indsutry. The situation at Spark has always been interesting to watch, the back-stories about the founders, stock options and it's network of sites, of which 2-4 make up the lion's share of revenue and traffic are all common fodder for beer-fueled conversations, although cherry-picking at a bar is pretty unsavory.

2006 Oct 18 10:20 AM

[Free Online...:]

actually i think it is myspace that is going to be going down the tubes. and who gets information at local pubs? this is the most unreliable type of information one can possibly get. a new site you may want to check out to invest in is confonder.com, they are a lot different from most free online dating sites.

Mar 31 12:11 PM