Flirtomatic
Encyclopedia
Flirtomatic is an online flirting
and social network
ing service for people connected to the Internet via mobile phone or PC. Operated by Handmade Mobile Entertainment, Flirtomatic was named the number one mobile dating site in the U.S. in a study by the mobile measurement company Ground Truth.
Flirtomatic allows members to connect on the basis of preferences, interests, location and other information stored in their profile; chat with other users; send immediate messages with graphics and photos; rate other members; and find user-generated editorial content relating to flirting and dating. Flirtomatic has virtual currency
known as FlirtPoints, which members can purchase and use to buy additional services, such as virtual goods, and pay to promote or advertise their profile within the service and through alert features. About 80 percent of its members access Flirtomatic via mobile phone.
Flirtomatic is available to mobile users in Britain
, Germany
, Australia
, Spain
, Italy
and the United States
. The service is available on iPhone
, Android, BlackBerry
and Ovi
and has integrated Facebook
into its services. Flirtomatic has partnerships with AT&T
, Verizon, Virgin Mobile
, Cricket
, Vodafone
, T-Mobile
, Orange, MetroPCS
and ninemsn
and has attracted mobile advertising from companies such as Fiat
, Peugeot
, NatWest, O2
, Vodafone, Rimmel
, Samsung
, Walkers
, Orange, 3
, McDonalds, H&M
and Sony Pictures.
The service, open to users 18 and older, has 3.5 million (1.5 million in the U.S.) registered users. Flirtomatic users average six logins a day while its iPhone users check in nine times a day.
The company generates revenues from online advertising and value-added services paid for through carrier billing, premium SMS
and card payments. Flirtomatic monitors its site in order to maintain a PG-rated content.
-listed mobile entertainment business sold for £180 million ($284 million) in June 2005. Mark Curtis, the CEO, was formerly the global EVP for Razorfish
and a co-founder of Fjord, building cross-platform and mobile products for Nokia
and Orange.
Fjord created and developed the flirting theme, invented the service’s name and was instrumental in the design of all digital interfaces. The company also developed such features as Flirtograms and Supersnogs. The service started as a Fjord concept when Nokia enlisted the company to propose five ideas for mobile, one of which became Flirtomatic. “When we described dating on the mobile and what it’d feel like, we talked about messaging, fun, humor, a light touch,” Curtis said to WeLoveBusiness.co.uk. “Some bright spark piped up and said, ‘We’re describing flirting’ to which the rest of us thought, ‘Wow! There’s an idea. How could we create an application that could make flirting as easy, fun and good as it possibly can be for mobile?’ ” Fjord took a lead role in securing funding to build and launch Flirtomatic, which is now independently run.
Flirtomatic’s proprietary multimedia interaction platform was designed to provide a consumer entertainment proposition that stood between the popular social networking and online dating services. The company’s emphasis on flirting has differentiated it from more traditional online dating sites geared toward matching users with one another.
Flirtomatic had 100,000 users in July 2006, with a Flirtomatic poll revealing that online flirting peaks daily at 4:30 p.m. “due to workers trying to waste that last hour before the end of their working day,” according to MediaWeek. By November 2006, Flirtomatic had 185,000 registered users.
The following year, Flirtomatic adopted a “freemium
” model, switching from subscriptions for mobile to mobile advertising revenues and premium
services.
Flirtomatic reached 1 million users and had a 475 percent revenue increase in 2008. The company also expanded into Germany
that year and into Australia
in 2009.
In Dec. 2009, Flirtomatic ranked 9th in mobile Internet use in the UK, at 55 million minutes for the month, according to GSMA Mobile Media Metrics. Flirtomatic sold 100,000 virtual gifts in the four weeks leading up to Christmas of that year, including 19,455 Christmas stockings.
Flirtomatic launched an advertising-funded iPhone application in January 2010, which was made available for free via the Apple Inc. App Store. Later that year, Flirtomatic was made available on Android, BlackBerry and Ovi and integrated Facebook into its services. Flirtomatic also expanded into Spain and Italy.
In April 2010, Mobile Commerce
, which delivers 25 percent of all mobile Internet searches from UK carrier portals, released a report that found that Flirtomatic was the 15th most commonly searched term on the UK mobile web in 2009.
During the 2010 election for UK prime minister, Flirtomatic posted mock profiles of the three main candidates and invited members to “snog” them. By May 5, 2010, 10,000 Flirtomatic users weighed in: 34.4 percent chose Liberal Democrat
candidate Nick Clegg
, 33.9 percent picked Conservative
candidate David Cameron
and 31.7 percent selected Labour
candidate Gordon Brown
.
Flirtomatic raised $18 million in overall funding by December 2010, with $10 million secured that year. Among the investors: Nauta Capital, Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, Seraphim Capital, Oxford Capital Partners and company chairman Avi Azulai.
, a Cambridge
, UK, research firm.
In September 2009, Flirtomatic was ranked #4 in the Guardian
’s Tech Media Invest Top 100 companies.
Flirtomatic ranked eighth in mobile downloads in the U.S. in March 2010
Flirtomatic was named the number one mobile dating site in the U.S. in August 2010, accounting for 65 percent of the summer audience for mobile dating, according to a study by the mobile measurement company Ground Truth.
In a January 2011 poll of its contacts in the mobile content business, Mobile Entertainment named Mark Curtis one of the top 50 executives in the field.
Flirting
Flirting is a playful, romantic, or sexual overture by one person to another subtly indicating an interest in a deeper relationship with the other person, and can involve verbal communication as well as body language...
and social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
ing service for people connected to the Internet via mobile phone or PC. Operated by Handmade Mobile Entertainment, Flirtomatic was named the number one mobile dating site in the U.S. in a study by the mobile measurement company Ground Truth.
Flirtomatic allows members to connect on the basis of preferences, interests, location and other information stored in their profile; chat with other users; send immediate messages with graphics and photos; rate other members; and find user-generated editorial content relating to flirting and dating. Flirtomatic has virtual currency
Virtual currency
Virtual currency is used to purchase virtual goods within a variety of online communities; which include social networking websites, virtual worlds and online gaming sites....
known as FlirtPoints, which members can purchase and use to buy additional services, such as virtual goods, and pay to promote or advertise their profile within the service and through alert features. About 80 percent of its members access Flirtomatic via mobile phone.
Flirtomatic is available to mobile users in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The service is available on iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
, Android, BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
and Ovi
OVI
OVI may refer to:* Ohio Volunteer Infantry, volunteer regiment during the American Civil War* Operating a Vehicle under the Influence * Optically Variable Ink, anti-counterfeiting measure in currencyOvi may refer to:...
and has integrated Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
into its services. Flirtomatic has partnerships with AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
, Verizon, Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile is a brand used by many mobile phone service providers across the globe; its headquarters are based in the United Kingdom. Virgin Mobile has local operations in Australia, Canada, France, India, South Africa, Greece, United Kingdom and the United States. It briefly also had operations...
, Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, Vodafone
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
, T-Mobile
T-Mobile
T-Mobile International AG is a German-based holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. Based in Bonn, Germany, its subsidiaries operate GSM and UMTS-based cellular networks in Europe, the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
, Orange, MetroPCS
MetroPCS
MetroPCS Communications, Inc. , formerly known as General Wireless, Inc., is an American mobile phone service provider. It operates the fifth largest mobile telecommunications network in the US, with 8.9 million subscribers as of May 2011...
and ninemsn
NineMSN
ninemsn is an Australian 50/50 joint venture between Microsoft and Nine Entertainment Co.. It effectively acts as the website for both the Nine Network and MSN, and is one of Australia's most popular websites...
and has attracted mobile advertising from companies such as Fiat
Fiat
FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino , is an Italian automobile manufacturer, engine manufacturer, financial, and industrial group based in Turin in the Italian region of Piedmont. Fiat was founded in 1899 by a group of investors including Giovanni Agnelli...
, Peugeot
Peugeot
Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest carmaker based in Europe.The family business that precedes the current Peugeot company was founded in 1810, and manufactured coffee mills and bicycles. On 20 November 1858, Emile Peugeot applied for the lion...
, NatWest, O2
O2
O2, o2, O2, or O2 may refer to:- Companies :* O2 Global Network, an international network for sustainable design* O2TV, a Russian independent socially-political TV channel...
, Vodafone, Rimmel
Rimmel
Rimmel is a cosmetics brand, now owned by Coty, Inc.. The House of Rimmel was originally founded by Eugene Rimmel in 1834 in Regent Street, London, UK....
, Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
, Walkers
Walkers
Walkers may refer to:* Walker , a common British surname like Rodger, Martin or Wilson.-British and Commonwealth companies:* Walkers , British snack food manufacturer* Walkers , a Cayman Islands based offshore law firm...
, Orange, 3
Hutchison 3G
3 is a brand name under which several UMTS-based mobile phone networks and Broadband Internet Providers are operated in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom...
, McDonalds, H&M
H&M
H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB is a Swedish retail-clothing company, known for its fast-fashion clothing offerings for women, men, teenagers and children....
and Sony Pictures.
The service, open to users 18 and older, has 3.5 million (1.5 million in the U.S.) registered users. Flirtomatic users average six logins a day while its iPhone users check in nine times a day.
The company generates revenues from online advertising and value-added services paid for through carrier billing, premium SMS
SMS
SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
and card payments. Flirtomatic monitors its site in order to maintain a PG-rated content.
History
Flirtomatic was founded by Avi Azulai and Mark Curtis in 2005. Azulai, the company chairman, previously founded iTouch, the London Stock ExchangeLondon Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
-listed mobile entertainment business sold for £180 million ($284 million) in June 2005. Mark Curtis, the CEO, was formerly the global EVP for Razorfish
Razorfish
-Fish:A common name used for three unrelated groups of fishes:* The genera Aeoliscus and Centriscus of the family Centriscidae, also known as shrimpfishes* The genus Xyrichtys of the family Labridae* The species Aeoliscus strigatus-Bivalve:...
and a co-founder of Fjord, building cross-platform and mobile products for Nokia
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...
and Orange.
Fjord created and developed the flirting theme, invented the service’s name and was instrumental in the design of all digital interfaces. The company also developed such features as Flirtograms and Supersnogs. The service started as a Fjord concept when Nokia enlisted the company to propose five ideas for mobile, one of which became Flirtomatic. “When we described dating on the mobile and what it’d feel like, we talked about messaging, fun, humor, a light touch,” Curtis said to WeLoveBusiness.co.uk. “Some bright spark piped up and said, ‘We’re describing flirting’ to which the rest of us thought, ‘Wow! There’s an idea. How could we create an application that could make flirting as easy, fun and good as it possibly can be for mobile?’ ” Fjord took a lead role in securing funding to build and launch Flirtomatic, which is now independently run.
Flirtomatic’s proprietary multimedia interaction platform was designed to provide a consumer entertainment proposition that stood between the popular social networking and online dating services. The company’s emphasis on flirting has differentiated it from more traditional online dating sites geared toward matching users with one another.
Flirtomatic had 100,000 users in July 2006, with a Flirtomatic poll revealing that online flirting peaks daily at 4:30 p.m. “due to workers trying to waste that last hour before the end of their working day,” according to MediaWeek. By November 2006, Flirtomatic had 185,000 registered users.
The following year, Flirtomatic adopted a “freemium
Freemium
Freemium is a business model that works by offering a product or service free of charge while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related products and services...
” model, switching from subscriptions for mobile to mobile advertising revenues and premium
Premium
Premium may refer to:* Premium , a promotional item that can be received for a small fee when redeeming proofs of purchase that come with or on retail products....
services.
Flirtomatic reached 1 million users and had a 475 percent revenue increase in 2008. The company also expanded into Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
that year and into Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 2009.
In Dec. 2009, Flirtomatic ranked 9th in mobile Internet use in the UK, at 55 million minutes for the month, according to GSMA Mobile Media Metrics. Flirtomatic sold 100,000 virtual gifts in the four weeks leading up to Christmas of that year, including 19,455 Christmas stockings.
Flirtomatic launched an advertising-funded iPhone application in January 2010, which was made available for free via the Apple Inc. App Store. Later that year, Flirtomatic was made available on Android, BlackBerry and Ovi and integrated Facebook into its services. Flirtomatic also expanded into Spain and Italy.
In April 2010, Mobile Commerce
Mobile Commerce
Mobile Commerce, also known as M-Commerce or mCommerce, is the ability to conduct commerce using a mobile device, such as a mobile phone, a Personal Digital Assistant , a smartphone, or other emerging mobile equipment such as dashtop mobile devices...
, which delivers 25 percent of all mobile Internet searches from UK carrier portals, released a report that found that Flirtomatic was the 15th most commonly searched term on the UK mobile web in 2009.
During the 2010 election for UK prime minister, Flirtomatic posted mock profiles of the three main candidates and invited members to “snog” them. By May 5, 2010, 10,000 Flirtomatic users weighed in: 34.4 percent chose Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
candidate Nick Clegg
Nick Clegg
Nicholas William Peter "Nick" Clegg is a British Liberal Democrat politician who is currently the Deputy Prime Minister, Lord President of the Council and Minister for Constitutional and Political Reform in the coalition government of which David Cameron is the Prime Minister...
, 33.9 percent picked Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
candidate David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....
and 31.7 percent selected Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
candidate Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
.
Flirtomatic raised $18 million in overall funding by December 2010, with $10 million secured that year. Among the investors: Nauta Capital, Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, Seraphim Capital, Oxford Capital Partners and company chairman Avi Azulai.
Reception
Flirtomatic in 2008 topped The Mediatech 100, a list of the hottest mediatech companies in Europe compiled by Library HouseLibrary House
The Library House Ltd was a business information and consulting company based in Cambridge, England, founded in 2002 by Doug Richard and John Snyder....
, a Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, UK, research firm.
In September 2009, Flirtomatic was ranked #4 in the Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
’s Tech Media Invest Top 100 companies.
Flirtomatic ranked eighth in mobile downloads in the U.S. in March 2010
Flirtomatic was named the number one mobile dating site in the U.S. in August 2010, accounting for 65 percent of the summer audience for mobile dating, according to a study by the mobile measurement company Ground Truth.
In a January 2011 poll of its contacts in the mobile content business, Mobile Entertainment named Mark Curtis one of the top 50 executives in the field.
Awards
- Best Social Media, Mobile Entertainment Awards 2009 and 2010
- Best Use of Mobile and the Grand Prix, NMA Effectiveness Awards 2009
- Community 2008; Social Networking 2009 and Social Media 2010, the Meffy Awards
- Overall Mobile Web Category, Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards 2009