Plenty of Fish

History

Markus Frind, CEO of Plenty of Fish Media Inc., graduated in 1999 from British Columbia Institute of Technology with a diploma in Computer Systems Technology, and founded the business in 2003.

In 2004, Plenty of Fish became a full-time money making business for Markus. He ran the site independently until 2008, when he began hiring other employees at his new Vancouver headquarters. In 2009, Plenty of Fish also launched a contest with Lady Gaga allowing single members to go together and meet the singer during The Fame Ball Tour.

The website for Plenty of Fish appeared in several music videos in 2010: in Lady Gaga's "Telephone", Natasha Bedingfield's "Touch", Kesha's "We R Who We R", Flo Rida and Akon's "Available", Jason Derulo's "Ridin' Solo", and 3OH!3's "Double Vision". In 2011, it appeared in Britney Spears's music video for "Hold It Against Me". Many of these appearances are undisclosed paid product placements which have been met with highly negative reviews.

In 2010, Plenty of Fish launched mobile apps for iPhone and Android. A few years later, it was made available for both the iPad and Windows phone. In a June 2014 interview, Frind attributed 85% of all Plenty of Fish traffic to mobile with the number growing weekly.

On January 21, 2011, it was discovered that the Plenty of Fish website had been hacked which exposed the personal and password information on nearly 30 million user accounts.

On February 28, 2012, the parents of US Army Lieutenant Peter Burks sued Plenty of Fish. The parents' lawsuit alleges photos of their son, who was killed in Iraq in 2007, were used without permission. The parents were seeking compensatory and punitive damages. Paul Bloudoff, the firm's legal affairs manager responded by saying "Lt. Burks’ image was never used by POF.com in any way, shape or form, [a] third-party advertiser, with no affiliation to Plenty of Fish, ran an advertisement promoting another dating site using Lieutenant Burks’ picture, and one of the places this advertiser ran this advertisement happened to be our site."

In an August 2012 Forbes interview, Markus Frind stated that based on the millions of relationships and marriages Plenty of Fish has created over the past several years, it is estimated that over one million babies have been born as a result of the website.

On May 20, 2013, Frind implemented several changes to the website with the stated goal of focusing on "meaningful relationships". Among these changes were the removal of the "intimate encounters" option. A related eliminated feature was the option to contact clients of age differences greater than "Markus", presumably Frind, found tasteful. Although the Plenty of Fish site and its "matching" criteria continue to match couples with age differences greater than the 14-year guideline, attempts to contact these "matches" resulted in an inbox message from Markus stating, among other things, "[t]here is no reason for a 50 year old man to contact a 18 year old woman." Another restriction implemented in the updates is that male users could no longer attach images to messages. Additionally, the site automatically blocks messages from male users containing certain words while showing such messages as being sent.

The image sending restriction was apparently reversed after Plenty of Fish was acquired by Match Group (but not "quick messages" directly from the match's profile page) and members outside of the 14-year age limit no longer appear as matches or in searches. Attempting to contact members outside of the 14-year limit now displays a page stating the user does not meet the member's contact criteria (even when untrue) and suggests several matches to contact instead of sending a message to the user's inbox.

In March 2015 Plenty of Fish Media Inc. was fined $48,000 for alleged violation of Canada's anti-spam law.

On July 14, 2015, Plenty of Fish was sold for $575 million to Match Group (owner of Match.com, OkCupid, Tinder and Hinge, based in Dallas, Texas). The headquarters remain in Vancouver and have recently been expanded.

In August 2015, POF users were targeted by cyberattacks via a malicious adlink.

In December 2019, Plenty of Fish pushed out a fix for its app after a security researcher found it was leaking information that users had set as private on their profiles, including hidden names and postal codes.

In March 2020, Plenty of Fish (now owned by Match Group) launched a livestream feature after a partnership to interact with users from other apps MeetMe and Skout (both owned by The Meet Group) and Zoosk (owned by Spark Networks).

Staff

The site relied on volunteers to monitor forums and sort through the 50,000 new photos that, at most come in each day. By 2019, Plenty of Fish employed over 100 people, including programmers, marketing managers, product managers, designers and customer success representatives.

Technical details

Plenty of Fish uses a Microsoft-based platform for itself, including IIS, ASP.NET, and Microsoft SQL.

Historical statistics

• Registered users: 100,000,000 (March 2015)
• Dating site ranking in the UK: 1 (Comscore May 2011)
• Dating site ranking Worldwide: 1 (Hitwise, August 2011)
• U.S. site by market share: 1, with 18.57% of the market (Hitwise, August 2012)
• Number of page views a month: 2 Billion (April 2012)
• Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Plenty of Fish reported a 0.7% increase in monthly active users in the final quarter of 2020.

References

References

1. "POF Takes Top Spot in Brazil at OPW".
2. "PlentyOfFish.com How one man beat the big guys at ARCast.TV".
3. (February 14, 2012). "Plentyoffish fires darts at eHarmony, Match.com on Valentine's Day". Itbusiness.ca.
4. "Plenty of Fish Fact Sheet at POF".
5. "Plenty of Fish Upgrade".
6. "School of Computing and Academic Studies: Computer Systems Technology". B.C. Institute of Technology.
7. Lehman, Michael. (2007). "IIS Show #10 – PlentyOfFish.com and IIS 6 = Plenty of performance". Channel 9.
8. (November 2010). "PlentyofFish.com Teams Up With Lady Gaga".
9. (June 2010). "Jason Derulo Is Ridin' Solo on PlentyofFish.com".
10. Hampp, Andrew. (March 13, 2010). "How Miracle Whip, Plenty of Fish Tap Lady Gaga's 'Telephone'".
11. Elliott, Stuart. (February 17, 2011). "Plenty of Fish, a Dating Site, Promotes Itself in Music Videos". New York Times.
12. Weiner, Juli. "PlentyOfFish.com, Get Out of Music Videos and Get Back to the Internet".
13. Kelly, Liz. (February 18, 2011). "Celebritology 2.0 - Britney Spears debuts 'Hold It Against Me' video/infomercial". Washington Post.
14. Torat, Hossain. (May 10, 2017). "Dating in a Mobile Device". The bNewTech Post.
15. "Plenty of Fish dating app review". theappzine.com.
16. (2013-06-06). "Why One Dating Site CEO Hates Casual Hook-Ups".
17. (January 31, 2011). "PlentyofFish.com Hacked, Blames Messenger". Krebsonsecurity.com.
18. (January 31, 2011). "Plenty of Fish hacked, CEO recounts bizarre ordeal with hacker in blog post | FP Tech Desk | Financial Post". Business.financialpost.com.
19. "Canadian dating site Plenty of Fish sued for using dead U.S. soldier's photo". National Post.
20. Clay, Kelly. (August 23, 2012). "How One Man Made A Million Babies With Free Online Dating". Forbes.
21. (May 2013). "Plenty of Fish dating site founder pulls 'Intimate Encounters' option to ward off sleazy men". The Independent.
22. (May 2013). "POF changes: Age Restrictions +or- 14 years AND intimate encounters".
23. "Males can no longer send private images to other users.".
24. (2013). "POF automatically blocks messages containing "offensive" words".
25. "Plentyoffish Media Inc. pays $48,000 for alleged violation of Canada's anti-spam law".
26. (27 March 2015). "Plenty of Fish avis fines show anti-spam law has teeth".
27. [http://www.businessinsider.com/match-buys-plentyoffish-for-575-million-2015-7 Bootstrapped dating site PlentyOfFish has fewer than 100 employees and Match just bought it for $575 million in cash]. Retrieved July 14, 2015.
28. (December 11, 2015). "Office Tour: PlentyOfFish – Vancouver Office Expansion".
29. (August 2015). "Users of dating site Plenty of Fish targeted by cyber attack".
30. Lucian Constantin. (August 21, 2015). "Plenty of fish, and exploits, on dating website".
31. (23 December 2019). "Plenty of Fish app leaked profile data set to private".
32. (19 March 2020). "Plenty of Fish Partners With The Meet Group to Launch 'LIVE!'".
33. "What is Live?".
34. Stross, Randall. (January 13, 2008). "From 10 Hours a Week, $10 Million a Year". The New York Times.
35. "POF Expands Team To 66, And Creates New Consumer Blog". OnlinePersonalsWatch.
36. Frind, Markus. (2007). "Looking for 3 Senior Software Developers". PlentyOfFish Blog.
37. "PlentyOfFish Architecture - High Scalability -".
38. (2011). "PlentyOfFish.com Is the Most Visited Dating Site in the UK & USA". [[Online Personal Watch.
39. (December 31, 1999). "Online Trends - Experian Hitwise". Hitwise.com.
40. (2012). "US Online Dating Rankings Update". OPW.com.
41. (2012). "POF passes 100M weekly messages, 2 Billion Pageviews/Week". Plenty of fish blog.
42. Wu, Yan. (February 13, 2021). "Tinder, Bumble and Hinge Show Surge in Americans Looking for Love Online". Wall Street Journal.