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2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

plentyoffish.wordpress.com

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Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#21

Post by timr »

rms wrote: post #7
mixmax wrote: post #2

I've always been intrigued as to how plentyoffish has done so well. It's one person with a (in my opinion) suboptimal site that doesn't offer anything special. There are plenty of free dating sites, and yet this one seems to have disproportionate success. Why? Anybody know?

Early SEO (when it meant a lot more than it does now) + the network effect. An incredible success, and as strong an outlier as ever exists. http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/06/14/how-i-started-a...

He also spammed the hell out of craigslist, iirc. There was a period of about a year where you couldn't go into a craigslist dating room without seeing fake posts that linked to POF profiles.

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#22

Post by [deleted] »

wyclif wrote: post #4
mixmax wrote: post #2

I've always been intrigued as to how plentyoffish has done so well. It's one person with a (in my opinion) suboptimal site that doesn't offer anything special. There are plenty of free dating sites, and yet this one seems to have disproportionate success. Why? Anybody know?

Because it's free as in beer, and it's not intimidating or filled with Flash like some of the others (the "good enough" design derided by web design snobs). But it's still a dating site, and even the best, most functional dating sites aren't very good. A friend of mine signed up at plentyoffish, he lives in an urban area and is reasonably attractive. What he found was a lot of women who like to chat and email, but do…

[deleted]

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#23

Post by vaksel »

axod wrote: post #5
mixmax wrote: post #2

I've always been intrigued as to how plentyoffish has done so well. It's one person with a (in my opinion) suboptimal site that doesn't offer anything special. There are plenty of free dating sites, and yet this one seems to have disproportionate success. Why? Anybody know?

Don't underestimate the power of one person with a passion and determination. I think plentyoffish got some good press early on and that got it the momentum. Plentyoffish is the only free dating site I've heard of, so there's a big reason to go there instead of other free dating sites. The site design is actually pretty good IMHO, and sort of suggests that you're going to quickly get what you want to see and not a to…

you never heard of craigslist?

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#24

Post by timr »

This is absolute nonsense.

Alexa doesn't place POF anywhere near the top 100 US websites (they have it at 466, actually). Now, I'm not claiming that Alexa is the gold-standard for accuracy, but if you're truly a top-20 site, you're going to be so immense that nobody would confuse you for a top-500 site. It's like confusing an aircraft carrier for a tugboat.

For whatever it's worth, here's the Alexa 10-20:

10. AOL 11. Amazon.com 12. craiglist.org 13. Blogger.com 14. Go.com 15. CNN.com 16. ESPN.com 17. Photobucket 18. Microsoft.com 19. Comcast.net 20. Flickr.com

Tell me again how plentyoffish is larger than Flickr, Microsoft and CNN -- I have a bridge to sell you. It's nice.

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#26

Post by [deleted] »

wyclif wrote: post #4
mixmax wrote: post #2

I've always been intrigued as to how plentyoffish has done so well. It's one person with a (in my opinion) suboptimal site that doesn't offer anything special. There are plenty of free dating sites, and yet this one seems to have disproportionate success. Why? Anybody know?

Because it's free as in beer, and it's not intimidating or filled with Flash like some of the others (the "good enough" design derided by web design snobs). But it's still a dating site, and even the best, most functional dating sites aren't very good. A friend of mine signed up at plentyoffish, he lives in an urban area and is reasonably attractive. What he found was a lot of women who like to chat and email, but do…

[deleted]

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#27

Post by jkkramer »

samson wrote: post #16
dcurtis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MySpace isn't nearly as bad.

You need to get over whatever that emotion you want to call it that is causing you to react like this, and come to the realization that regardless of what you think of the design or even genre as a whole it is one person operation doing what he's doing.

Reading the comments, I'm confused by the apparent hate. When I saw the article, I thought, "Hey, isn't this a mostly-solo operation? That's impressive."

Am I missing something? Is it just that people think the site is low class?

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#28

Post by iloveyouocean »

mixmax wrote: post #2

I've always been intrigued as to how plentyoffish has done so well. It's one person with a (in my opinion) suboptimal site that doesn't offer anything special. There are plenty of free dating sites, and yet this one seems to have disproportionate success. Why? Anybody know?

PoF was essentially the firstest with the mostest. One of the first free dating sites started by an obsessive, incessantly self-promoting founder. It was started at a time that was just right to take advantage of the huge online dating boom that occurred ~late 03-04 and became a media darling because of its 'story'.

The PoF 'Story': A one man operation started in his apartment, with the aim of providing a free alternative to the complicated, expensive pay sites. And then out of nowhere, overnight people started showing up in droves! Millions of them.

... or at least thats the story. Everyone loves the Cinderella, wild success against all odds kind of stories.

PoF (and most all online dating sites) are a testament to what people are willing to endure in their quest to find 'love'. Dating sites have been taking advantage of lonely people for far too long.

I started FlowMingle ( http://flowmingle.com ) because I felt that it was time for a major shift in how things are done. Things are going to change.

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#29

Post by tom_rath »

mixmax wrote: post #2

I've always been intrigued as to how plentyoffish has done so well. It's one person with a (in my opinion) suboptimal site that doesn't offer anything special. There are plenty of free dating sites, and yet this one seems to have disproportionate success. Why? Anybody know?

Because it provides a straight-forward way to let you find local people interested in dating. It's ugly (at least it was when I was using it two years back -- before I happily found my s.o. through the site) but it's fast, simple and works.

For those of you using dating sites who only find people interested in e-mailing, here's an unsolicited tip: Ask the person you're interested in out for drinks right after receiving a response to your initial 'Hi'.

Just cut through the crap and get to the point. You'll easily weed out the flirts and chatters and meet many more people in the process. That's why you're on the site in the first place, right?

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