PlentyofFish on Canadian News
Tuesday, 17. October 2006 - 9:31 pm
GLOBAL NATIONAL — Oct 18 — Last year 12% of newlyweds in the U.S. met through the Internet. So we can assume a similar number of Canadians did. Clearly there are plenty of fish available out there and tonight we're profiling one of the biggest nets that catches them. She was HorseLady3, a small town B.C. girl. He was HappyDaddy, a Vancouver chef whose search for love took him on the Internet. "I needed an escape because the separation from my marriage was kind of hard." It wasn't long before the two found each other. "We hit it off and we haven't looked back since." Markus Frind is the Vancouver web guru who just happens to be one of the world's biggest matchmakers. His site, Plentyoffish.com brought together HorseLady3 and HappyDaddy and thousands of other couples and he runs it all from his tiny Vancouver office. "I am the largest website run by one person. I'm doing about 600 million pages a month." His website is part of a huge new wave on the Internet. Companies making money on content generated not by them, but users. The biggest example is YouTube, the online video site that Google recently bought for $1.65 billion. Like YouTube, Frind's site is free to use but it's bringing in a heap of cash. [Google Adsense] ads make him more then $10,000 a day. "The tellers always look at you real funny. They're like are you some kind of criminal? Why do you come in with a $900,000 check? I suppose if I went paid, this site could make hundreds of millions but it just wouldn't be fun anymore and I would have to hire people and I don't know, I just like what I'm doing right now."
Global National
Mark Brooks: This story gives some insight on Markus. Every American dreams of making big bucks working on their own terms, from home. Markus is the poster boy for the internet fringe of one-man-band success stories. This fringe is growing but it's a rarity so see them pop their heads up. He's ranked #1 in Canada on Alexa, and #6 in the Hitwise USA rankings of internet dating sites. Markus said in this interview, " I am the largest website run by one person." That's a lot of mental ownership. He's gunning to be the top internet dating site in the U.S.A. Your comments please.
18. October 2006 - 12:58 pm
My comment on online personals watch. Thought I would repost here as it relates…
“Good for Markus! I love the little guy getting one up on the “man”. That being said, in my opinion some real changes need to be made to plentyoffish for it to not be gobbled up by the new great whites starting to swim in his ocean. But numbers are numbers, and from the stats plentyoffish is a winner. Sooner or later though, something better will come along. Just being free will not be enough anymore.
Now I have mentioned Collaboradate.com getting completely re-done, well it’s taken much longer then I had hopped, as it seems it always does, but I don’t want to release a piece of crap. A lot of people are fed up with the low quality, lack of innovation that currently plagues the online dating market (free or paid). I am working hard to change all of that.
Check out a great post on Dave’s blog
http://dating.corante.com/archives/2006/10/18/a_dating_industry_insider_rant_10182006.php
which really illustrates the current frustration. Also if you get a chance read the comment I posted, as it will give you some great insight to the innovation to come with the new site. Date on!”