Alex, how long has SweetDuet been running and what's your db size?

http://www.sweetduet.net/index.html has been on the market since mid-2004. DB of 200,000+
Check it out. Now billing is turned off this month. So it's all free.

Hi Cathy

if you'e not sure where to start - don't get dragged into paying out money for off he shelf dating programs, try www.world-dating-partners.com youcan get a professional site fro free nad create your own community in an area tha suits you. take alook anyway, they have a new sytsem launching soon, if you want to know more email me, Best of luck - Robert

Cathy,

Robert is actually 100% correct. If you are keen to get into the dating business, you can always take a white labeling route that would mean less headache. Personals Application Service Providers (ASP) are very popular nowadays. They are:
http://www.sweetduet.net/index.html
SpringStreet Network
Vintacom
and many others.
But Robert, what happened to your traffic? Why did you lose 75% of it?
Let me guess. It’s because this model makes very little sense for those who you partner with. If the site is not dedicated to relationships of any kind then the traffic they get you has a very poor quality with conversion close to 0. Though the traffic is free for you, it doesn't bring you any good at all. Strategic alliances may be the answer. It was SpringStreet's way. Diagnosis - failed and were happy to be taken over for pennies by CGI Holding, the same company that bought Vintacom along with Real Estate School for $9.9 mln for both. So it's roughly $4.95 mln for Vintacom. Remember the Lavalife deal? So, not even close.
Generally speaking, Personals ASP’s partners can be divided into to groups: those who have their traffic and those who have no traffic yet.
The second group will be a source of your constant headache being sold on your promises. They will never make a dime paying for traffic more then getting in return.
The first group may make sense but you have to be really creative with these guys, because if they do little math they will see no interest in you.
It looks like this:
Let's say a media site has 1,000,000 visitors a month that makes them pretty big and proud of themselves. Let's say they add your service and put some effort to promote it on the portal. The best conversion they can get at this stage will average 1% of the overall traffic. Now it's your part. In the best-case scenario, you'll have 10% conversion on the each leg, from visitors to members and from members to payee. In a nutshell, your partner will convert 0.01% of his traffic to personals payee. If an average user's lifetime is 3.5 months, you'll have $4,375 to split at the end of the month.
Your prospective partner will not move a finger for $ 2,188 a month, especially when personals is still considered to be a gray area and many media companies won't risk their reputation.
As for you, Robert, it's certainly a losing activity, because every partner comes with a price tag. And it well exceeds $2,188 a month considering redesign, hosting, billing, CRM, tech and customer support.
So, my man, you are on a crash course of burning cash. Congratulations!
May be instead of competing with each other for Cathies, we have to consolidate the industry, work out licensing procedures, come up with legislature (a-la True.com) and finally survive together as oppose to dying out one by one.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Alex

Dating industry facts for Cathy to consider:
While the US is certainly the biggest market, Canada, especially Toronto, turned to be a playground for dating sites (the highest number of sites per capita). At the same time, it seems that Kyrgyzstan derives a huge portion of its GDP from the online dating industry.
Skadate and AEwebworks and others, made in Kyrgyzstan stand-alone software, are competing for the same crowd. They can even stuff their software with Userplane’s applications, such as voice and video chat.
International collaboration indeed.

I know very well how it works, i built the thing myself, i am the only "employee" no one else has ever touched a damn thing on it. The first verison took 2 weeks to build and was fully functional, after that it was just a matter of tacking things like the instant messenger when i felt like doing some work. As for alexa i make the ranking look a lot worse then it actually is. There are other ranking systems that cost money to use and they show it as being a top 20 site in canada and around #90 in the USA. North america wide Plentyoffish is the 4th biggest dating site. As for lavalife the vast majority of their revenue comes from their phone sex lines, and their web business is going down the hill fast.



Limited understanding ahahahahaha

As for Cathy, unless you have 5 million to spend to create a paid dating site that is competitive RUN.[/quote][/i]

As for working together Alex, give me ring, like my affilaites they all have direct access to me. Your strange traffic and conversions are bizarre.

I'll set you up a site so that you can see how it works as well a conversions. Let me know if you want me to do this, you might make more money from this than doing your own thing. Most industry leaders and top affiliates are using the system now, which proves a point.

You abviously have no conception or understanding of what our percentages are. Your statements are false, misleading and insulting. 4250 partners making money every month - we rarely lose a partner when they join. Most of the professional partners have been with us for over 4 years

Ask Mark Brooks, Mark Lesnic, Michael MacGouwn, Rich Goss, many other leaders in the industry. Who all know that our system works well.

If you your conversions are really 0% then this is a new record and I can teach you how to market properly. tell me what site you made with us to come to this conclusion?

Reasons for this may be:-
Have no knowledge of marketing
Work out how to do it right and do it the opposite way
A brain might be useful

or seriously

Target Niche markets
Use Adwords to promote with good targetted traffic
(If you are not experienced at this, then ask us and we'll do it for you FOC)
Use a system that has extensive demographics and Statistics
Branding or White Labeling - Templates are just as good as long as you don't use PPC campaigns
Use a system like ours that helps you identify and target niches

Doesn't this make your blag I mean blog vindictive or just shows you up for what you are. I don't mind reasonable critisism - but when it comes to spewing lies, you open your self to a misrepresentation suit. be careful.
Your other posts show you as you are, so I guess most people get the gist.

Look at the other comments in this forum from partners that have posted, do you suffer from road rage as well?

Why we always win is that we can create any niche market in any style that the Partner wants in any language. The effect of this is that targetted markets always win with advertising being cheaper and conversions always above our standard of 30% and 10%. With a Google adwords tracking system built into the system, means that on any market an average 116% profits is easily achived.

Traffic, how do you know about our traffic?? how do you track 4250 dating sites? We can - we built our system with a complex analytical system for both partners and ourselves and as I know you have never attempted to set up a branded site with us, you will never know or be able to comment on what you seem to comment so freely about without actaul first hand knowledge. As usual you make it up as you go along.

It shows many who listen to your drivle who you are and what you can be like, which shows a very good reflection of the rubbish that you like to write.

I don't like to be dragged into flamers posts like you, it is not my style.

Can I ask you what you believe in with running a good affiliate system?
I'm always game for a laugh. Let me know your concepts.

Call me so I can set you right on some points +44 1278 722718

Try our revenue calculator its very accurate http://world-dating-partners.com/calc/calc.html

Partner comparison chart
http://world-dating-partners.com/Robert ... art-LA.pdf

Movie presentation -
http://world-dating-partners.com/downlo ... tation.zip 45Mb - but worth the time watching

_________________
Robert A Fathers

Alex, how do you make money if billing is turned off?

http://www.sweetduet.net/index.html has been on the market since mid-2004. DB of 200,000+
Check it out. Now billing is turned off this month. So it's all free.

...some interesting comments on these threads, guess it's the old theory that there are plenty of ways to skin a cat (an sure animal rights lot will appreciate that comment!)

Plentyoffish.com that’s the spirit:)
I will now run to buy a few phones; I have cheap labor in Eastern Europe let the fun start hehe!

Cathy the guys have much bigger knowledge then me. But they missed one important thing because they think it's obvious.

So your site will need programmers, western world programmers cost ALOT, be prepared for that.

Do not be tempted that you can outsource work to cheaper nations.
Not possible for work of such small magnitude.

I tried to start such a business, and found there were to many communication problems...you would really need a virtual reality communication line for that and such don't exist.

But I am dating coach, that’s my passion and what I love to do, in outsourcing I suck so maybe that was the problem.

Anyway be prepared to pay a lot. And when you give assignments to programmer you have to DEFINE all because he will do just what you define, nothing else.