Conspiracy Theory:The real story behind PlentyofFish

http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2008/12/conspiracy-theory-the-real-story-behind-plenty-of-fish.html

by ceonyc • 18 years ago

20 23 18 years ago

smoody• 18 years ago

"A scan of Twitter reveals a lot more people talking about actually using Match.com than Plentyoffish"

There's the biggest flaw in his theory. If you've scanned the people who have profiles on POF (or any other free dating service), you might draw the conclusion that the people using such services are not part of the tech elite. Yes, Twitter has a large user base but it is not mainstream.

Here's why it gets so many clicks: A lot of the ads on POF are for alternate online dating sites, so there's a 100% match between the people visiting the service and the people who might click on ads. By definition, if you're visiting POF, you're not in a relationship and thus POF isn't satisfying your need to be in a relationship. So what are you going to do? Search for a better dating site. And, coincidentally, POF has already done that work for you by surrounding every inch of unused space with dating site ads. It's both a dating site and a dating site search engine.

It's that simple in my opinion. But I do love a good conspiracy theory!

timr• 18 years ago

Yep. POF is the world's most elaborate banner ad for other dating sites. It probably gets a bloated CPM for having targeted traffic, and I wouldn't be surprised if it could support a high click-throgh rates on CPA ads for the other dating sites -- because it's fairly useless for dating, itself.

I'm not sure if the author was being serious or satirical, but it's kind of a shame that the article was so dopey, because there's probably a real story here.

fauigerzigerk2• 18 years ago

But why do so many people go to plentyoffish in the first place? Do they get more clicks per user than other sites?

mechanical_fish2• 18 years ago

This is so hilarious that it feels wrong to nitpick it. But in the interests of science, this survey technique:

A scan of Twitter reveals a lot more people talking about actually using Match.com than Plentyoffish...

... is like a freshman-class exercise in Spot The Sample Bias. Twitter users are hardly a representative sample of the online population, let alone the population at large.

jwesley• 18 years ago

Twitter users alone is a small sample, but I think there are other anecdotal samples that support (but can't prove) the author's hypothesis. I can't remember anyone talking about PlentyOfFish, and this includes people who have tried multiple dating sites. Compete, Alexa, Google Trends and other traffic estimators also show Match having higher traffic. The only statistics showing PlentyOfFish as bigger than Match are the comScore numbers quoted by Mashable.

It's also important to remember that Markus Frind was accused of overstating the PlentyOfFish traffic levels to generate buzz years ago when the site first became popular. Although the post went off into a satirical conspiracy, there could still be something fishy going on.

mechanical_fish2• 18 years ago

Well, it could certainly be that Frind's stats are off -- accidentally, or on purpose, or for the same reason that many scientists' stats are off. (They make an initial mistake, and the positive feedback from that mistake creates a big disincentive to reexamine the data too closely.)

If so, it's a joke on the web stats industry, which seems to be... well, a joke. If people had any confidence in the accuracy of these traffic estimators, there wouldn't be room for a wacky conspiracy theory, right? Does anybody really know how many people visit a site, besides (perhaps) its owner? I suppose Google might give me more definitive data if I paid enough and signed an NDA in blood.

nreece• 18 years ago

Google Trends seems to paint a similar picture: http://www.google.com/trends?q=match.com,+Plentyoffish&c...

markbao• 18 years ago

Interesting analysis, though it became a hit outrageous at the end. With the degree of fakeness he is proposing, how is it possible that the degradation of content quality went unnoticed? And A.viary?

I'm not one to hate on awesome and successful startupa, we should also consider this. POF doesn't have the members it says. POF had growth, decent size. Publicise startup story and millions in income, millions in members. Press written, and your numbers jump.

Just like the situation with a video on YouTube. It wasn't the video that made it have high view counts. It was the video being publicised as having a huge view counts because of an exploit - and people went on the page, and the view count increased.

fallentimes3• 18 years ago

Wait is this an actual analysis or a joke? I'm not familiar with the blog.

dhimes• 18 years ago

Clearly reads like a joke to me.

ceonyc2• 18 years ago

It's a joke... You know, like... haha... funny. That kind of a thing.

jgilliam• 18 years ago

This is completely nuts.

mrtron• 18 years ago

As with any good conspiracy theory, there are chunks of truth in there. There are many people doing this type of activity on smaller scale.

compay• 18 years ago

I've worked in the online dating industry for long time, and yes, POF is making lots of money, though I don't know exactly how much. Adsense is only one part of how they are monetizing their site.

The idea that it's all click bots is just silly.

fauigerzigerk2• 18 years ago

I'm embarrassed to say but my own logical reasoning leads me to the conclusion that I might actually want to date one of those super intelligent PhD bots.

Google, do you hear me? Or are you just a creature of Microsoft meant to stop the DoJ from breaking them up?

aston• 18 years ago

PlentyofFish's revenue numbers aside, one really has to be amazed at their sheer traffic numbers. If the market share stats are to be believed, Match.com and eHarmony are getting trampled on despite their outsize national advertising budgets, deep-pocketed investors and clearly more polished products.

I'd really be interested to know how PoF is pulling so much traffic.

Fuca• 18 years ago

In my experience when the outcome of something is a lot of money, some people do whatever to make it happen.

I wouldnt bet anything against Google or PoF not messing this

visdo• 18 years ago

Is today April 1st?

Conspiracy Theory:The real story behind PlentyofFish

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