PlentyofFish

Plenty of Fish
Type Private
Industry Internet
Founded 2003
Headquarters Vancouver, Canada
Area served Canada
United States
United Kingdom
Australia
Key people Markus Frind, Founder and CEO
Revenue $10 million USD[1] (2008 estimated)
Employees 4[2]
Website plentyoffish.com

PlentyofFish is an online dating site, popular primarily in Canada, the UK, Australia and the United States.[3] The service, based in Canada, generates revenue through advertising.[4] While it is free to use, offers premium services, such as message tracking in which members pay for credits that can be used for higher tiered services. The site also offers a paid version.[5]

According to Compete.com's site traffic tracking, Plentyoffish attracted 5.3 million visitors in February 2011.[6]

Contents

History

Markus Frind, CEO and Founder of PlentyofFish Media Inc., graduated in 1999 from British Columbia Institute of Technology with a diploma in Computer Systems Technology.[7]

In 2004, PlentyofFish became a full-time business for Frind.[8] He ran the site independently until 2008, when he began hiring other employees at his new Vancouver headquarters.[9] In 2009, PlentyofFish also launched a contest with Lady Gaga allowing single members to go together and meet the singer during her "Fame Monster" tour.[10]

The website for PlentyofFish appeared in several music videos in 2010: in Lady Gaga's "Telephone", Natasha Bedingfield's "Touch", Ke$ha's "We R Who We R", Flo Rida and Akon's "Available", Jason Derulo's "Ridin' Solo",[11] and 3OH!3's "Double Vision". In 2011, it appeared in Britney Spears's music video for "Hold It Against Me".

On January 21, 2011 it was discovered that the PlentyofFish website had been hacked which exposed the personal and password information on nearly 30 million user accounts.[12] Since the alleged hacking incident, Frind alleges he has identified persons he believes are responsible for the hacking, and alleges he is threatening legal action in response to the widespread negative media exposure. At the time this received global media exposure and security experts blame PlentyofFish for the security and privacy lapse specifically for keeping user's passwords unsecured.[13][14]

Staff

PlentyofFish employs eight customer service staff members, an executive assistant, an account manager for their own ad platform launched in early 2010, a marketing manager, a graphic designer and several programmers. The site relies on volunteers to monitor forums and sort through the 50,000 new photos that come in each day.[15]

Technical details

The website uses the following technology:[16]

Statistics

Awards

PEER 1's PlentyofFish.com video customer story won three bronze awards in the Video categories of Infomercial, How-To/Instructional and Comedy at the Telly Awards.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ Gomes, Lee (2007-05-23). "PlentyofFish Owner Has the Perfect Bait for a Huge Success". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117987775136211487.html. Retrieved 2007-05-23. 
  2. ^ "How Plentyoffish Conquered Online Dating". Inc.com. 2009. http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-rolling-in.html. Retrieved 2009-02-03. 
  3. ^ "‘‘PlentyOfFish.com How one man beat the big guys’’ at ARCast.TV". http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=331501. Retrieved August 3, 2007. 
  4. ^ "‘‘Plenty of Fish Fact Sheet’’ at POF". http://www.plentyoffish.com/about_facts.aspx. Retrieved February 3, 2009. 
  5. ^ "‘‘Plenty of Fish Upgrade’’". http://www.plentyoffish.com/seriousintro.aspx. Retrieved January 13, 2011. 
  6. ^ http://siteanalytics.compete.com/plentyoffish.com/
  7. ^ "School of Computing and Academic Studies: Computer Systems Technology". B.C. Institute of Technology. Archived from the original on 2007-10-12. http://web.archive.org/web/20071012222622/http://www.bcit.ca/cas/cst/. Retrieved 2007-12-09. 
  8. ^ Lehman, Michael (2007). "IIS Show #10 - PlentyofFish.com and IIS 6 = Plenty of performance". Channel 9. http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=300230. Retrieved 2007-04-12. 
  9. ^ Chafkin, Max (January/February 2009). "And the Money Comes Rolling In". Inc.. http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-rolling-in_Printer_Friendly.html. Retrieved 2009-02-21. 
  10. ^ Ein, News (November 2010). "PlentyofFish.com Teams Up With Lady Gaga". http://allourpress.typepad.com/plentyoffish/2009/11/plentyoffishcom-teams-up-with-lady-gaga.html. Retrieved 2010-01-19. 
  11. ^ a b c "Jason Derulo Is Ridin' Solo on PlentyofFish.com". June 2010. http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Jason-Derulo-Is-Ridin-Solo-on-PlentyofFishcom-1276587.htm. Retrieved 2011-02-18. 
  12. ^ Hacked accounts - http://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/01/plentyoffish-com-hacked-blames-messenger/
  13. ^ http://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/01/plentyoffish-com-hacked-blames-messenger/
  14. ^ http://business.financialpost.com/2011/01/31/canadian-dating-website-plenty-of-fish-hacked/
  15. ^ Stross, Randall (2008-01-13). "From 10 Hours a Week, $10 Million a Year". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13digi.html?_r=3&ex=1357880400&en=9a69f05cdc551c11&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2008-01-18. 
  16. ^ Frind, Markus (2007). "Looking for 3 Senior Software Developers.". PlentyOfFish Blog. http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2007/08/08/looking-for-3-senior-software-developers/. Retrieved 2007-12-09. 
  17. ^ a b c d "Plentyoffish Has Plenty of Users: Top Dating Site in US and UK". Mashable. 2008. http://mashable.com/2008/07/29/plentyoffish-us-uk-comscore/. Retrieved 2008-07-29. 
  18. ^ http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.html
  19. ^ Albo, Bonny (2008). "Top Five U.S. Dating Sites by Market Share". About.com. http://dating.about.com/b/2008/02/18/top-five-us-dating-sites-by-market-share.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 
  20. ^ "PEER 1 Wins Telly Awards For PlentyofFish Testimonial Video". Online Personals Watch. 2008. http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2008/05/peer-1-wins-tel.html. Retrieved 2008-05-20. 

External links