A dating site called Plenty of Fish is getting attention for the massive amounts of money its creator, Markus Frind, is making from it. The net profits approach $10 million per year, according to Frind.
Plenty of Fish isn’t exactly omnipresent; compared to other dating sites, it hasn’t been become visible through television commercials. Also, a Google News search for “plenty of fish” turned up more results relating to edible animals than to any interaction between humans.
Still, that’s not a problem for Frind. His site got off the ground in Canada, and in The New York Times, Randall Stross reports, “According to data from comScore Media Metrix for November 2007, Plenty of Fish had 1.4 million unique visitors in the United States. In December, Mr. Frind said, the site served up 1.2 billion page views, and page views have soared 20 percent since Dec. 26.”
Everything’s free, of course; growth rarely takes place so quickly otherwise. The money comes in through advertising, and Plenty of Fish’s lack of a workforce keeps it from getting spread too thin.
Mathew Ingram writes, “The Times’ story mentions Craigslist, and I think the comparison is apt: like Craig, Markus has also focused on keeping the site free and on only doing those things that users want, not what others think he should do.”
