BUSINESS WIRE — Mar 24 — Userplane’s Webchat application has been named a finalist in the Flash Film Festival 2005 San Francisco — a competition and gala awards ceremony honoring the Internet’s most innovative work using Macromedia’s Flash development environment.
Mark Brooks: Userplane enables online dating sites (amongst others) with cutting edge messaging and A/V tools.
OPW SCOOP — Mar 23 — My source is council for a major online dating company and informs me that Michigan is moving forward full steam and is debating the legislation right now. Two weeks ago the bill passed through the Michigan Senate judiciary committee where Match.com and Netcoalition opposed the bill. Also, a letter from a number of companies opposing the bill was presented. The legislation was on the floor of Michigan senate earlier today where it came up under ‘general orders,’ but is not expected to come up for vote until the week of April 11th, after a two week recess (spring break). If successful the bill would still need to go through the Michigan house of representatives. If it passes there, it would go on to the Michigan governor and would pass into law as long as the governor didn’t veto it. So, the industry has an opportunity to weigh in over the next couple of weeks. Regarding California; the bill’s author has indicated she does not plan to pursue the legislation this year. It’s dead in the water, for now. My alternate source is Ravi Mehta of Capitol-Advocates, a lobbyist who has been monitoring the bill, and he affirms that the author of the California bill is not moving forward. However, there is another bill in California (ab766 chavez) that calls for online dating sites to remove profiles when users request them to be removed. There’s always the chance that this bill (or others) could be amended with some of the language from the background checks legislation.
Mark Brooks: Marc has the bills published in their entirety at idate2005.com fyi
INQ7 — Mar 24 — Friendster has disclosed its partnership with Pusit, which has been running an online classified service since last year. Last year, Friendster launched its first mobile service in the Philippines with a Filipino mobile phone content provider.
The full article was originally published at INQ7, but is no longer available.
BUSINESS WEEK — Mar 22 — Plaxo is launching two new premium services: an address book customers can access from any mobile phone and a service designed for power users to clean up information on contacts that may have switched jobs or moved. The mean number of contacts is 340.
The full article was originally published at BusinessWeek, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: I worked on eturn.com which became xpherix.com in 1999. Same idea. Pays to have smart (VC) money.
SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo is acquiring photo-sharing company, Flickr, that lets people share digital images, expanding its portfolio of self-publishing and "social networking" services. The company’s slogan is, "This isn’t your grandfather’s photo-sharing site." FULL ARTICLE @ YAHOO Mark Brooks: Multiply is a competitor to Flickr
BUSINESS WIRE — Mar 21 — IDEA-OASIS, the Internet Dating Executive Alliance/Online Association for Social Industry Standards http://www.ideaoasis.org, today announced its formal opposition to state legislative efforts regarding personals companies conducting background checks on all users of Internet dating and online matchmaking services. It's "legislative overkill vs self-regulation through better business models and policies," said Michael Jones, president of IDEA OASIS. "In addition to damaging individual privacy, this kind of misguided effort may ultimately undermine e-commerce — from giants such as eBay and Amazon down to the small business and start-ups. In the end, the supposed cure is worse than the disease, which is why we believe this will simply force the hand of online businesses and impair the rights of free speech and free communication online." Meir Strahlberg, CEO, Date.com, said "rather than risk giving consumers a false sense of security with criminal checks that are not 100% accurate, responsible companies in the industry should continue to promote safety guidelines to those in the online dating community."
CLICKZ — Mar 21 — IAC/InterActiveCorp to purchase Ask Jeeves for $1.85 billion. IAC intends to grow Ask Jeeves by using its local content properties, which include Citysearch, Ticketmaster, Evite, Expedia and Match.com. FULL ARTICLE @ CLICKZ
Mark Brooks: Great strategic move that will help lock in Match.com as the top online personals player. No doubt prompted by rising advertising costs.
PRWEB — Mar 21 — LookBetterOnline.com has teamed up with some of America’s leading relationship experts to bring emergency advice to the masses. Singles can pick a dating expert of their choice, give them a call and — for less than the price of a movie ticket — get a personal consultation. When his kiss is a peck, she can pick up the phone and find out what it means. When she says, “You’re like my best friend…,” he can pull out his finger and dial his emergency number. RELEASE @ PRWEB
DENVER POST — Mar 19 — Professional basketball, baseball and tennis have all added Singles Night to the pantheon of themed events designed to lure more fans on game day. "The pendulum is shifting back to wanting to meet in more traditional way," said author/sociologist Dr Jan Yager. "Really what society needs is an authentic community, where people can go at the end of the workday" and feel connected, said Ava Rosenblum, who conducted a two-year study of online romance.
The full article was originally published at Denver Post, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Online personals world, meet the real world. Now how to make the two connect? The promise of online personals > hooking (compatible) people up in the real world.
SOCALTECH — Mar 18 — MySpace.com has launched an online music album for the group "Queens of the Stone Age". MySpace offered streaming access to the new album to users of the MySpace.com service ahead of the album's physical release.
The full article was originally published at SocalTech, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: MySpace; in with the in crowd. Prime territory for the 18-34 yr olds that TV is failing to captivate.