pre paid cards or virtual charge

Several times I had suggested to Online Dating Companies wanting to enter (or already in) the Latin American Market (Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, Peru) to offer pre paid cards as the primary option of payment.

Latin Americans do mostly not have credit cards. The ones who have credit cards, do mostly not use them for subscriptions to avoid automatic rebilling and identity theft. More than 70% of people who own a cell phone, are pre-paid clients. They do not receive bills, they charge credit in their cell phones by 2 methods: Acquiring pre-paid cards at kiosks/drugstores or via virtual charge at kiosks/drugstores/supermarkets or at any place with a PosNet terminal (Banelco or Link)

Badoo offers to pay using SMS via your cell phone, but there were (several) complaints about up to 8 hours of delay from when you send the SMS and your profile is set in top visibility.

INTERNET TRENDS 2011

INTERNET TRENDS – Web 2.0 Summit  San Francisco, CA
Mary Meeker – October 18, 2011

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia are South American countries but ...
South America is an unserved / unexploited market for the Online Dating Industry.
Argentina's debt is not listed at page 62. It was reduced since 2002. Please see the article "Argentine debt restructuring"

South American sites had failed.

Free, Ads supported sites, are not viable (OasisActive, AmorEnLinea, DatingArgentina, DatingChile) because free online dating sites perform only as marketing tools to send free users to paid online dating sites and convert them in paid ones. To be profitable, they need the commissions paid by those paid online dating sites: That is the only way sites like PlentyOfFish and OkCupid can be profitable, and in South American countries paid sites had also failed (ZonaCitas, TeBusco, ParPerfeito, Match, eHarmonyBrazil).

South America is an unserved / unexploited market.

Many South American online dating proposals claim "millions of members" in their databases
but
see how Alexa shows that claim can not be true.

South America is an unserved / unexploited market.

Featured in "Caras y Caretas" issue Nº 2254, January 2011.

"Caras y Caretas" (Faces and Masks) is a high society magazine.
Article "Te espero en la banda ancha" (I wait you in the BroadBand, article about the Online Dating Industry Market in Argentina) page 84 by Juan Pablo Urfeig (journalist)

Match Argentina, Zonacitas and I are featured in that article.

- Argentine online daters are mainly persons in the range 35 to 60 years old.
- 60% are men at Match Argentina and Zonacitas.
- 50% of men at Match Argentina and Zonacitas say they have a College degree.
- Match Argentina costs ARS $ 80.00 per month (USD 20.00) [Match Argentina includes Chemistry inside, it is called Daily5 in Argentina, but it is Chemistry rebranded. In USA & Canada Match and Chemistry are separated sites, but not in Latin American Countries]
- Zonacitas costs ARS $ 75.00 per month (USD 18.75)
- Nor Match Argentina not Zonacitas disclose a success rate.
- Match Argentina claims 4 million Argentinean profiles, but admits they are only 1 million active profiles (not paying members, only active profiles).
[i.e. 75% of profiles at Match Argentina are useless at all, they are inactive]

There I say "You can fastly search for the person you want, but most probably that person does not exist or does not want to meet you because you are not compatible with him/her. Online dating needs innovations, but the innovations will come from Latest Research in Theories of Romantic Relationships Development with commitment: high precision personality similarity"

South America

Some maps distorts because they show you
Greenland as big as South America

South America: Area
17,840,000 km2
(6,890,000 sq mi)

Greenland: Area
2,166,086 km2 (13th)
836,109 sq mi



South America is not the end of the world, it is the beginning of everything.