PRNEWSWIRE — May 18 — The Today Show's Judy Gordon, Dr. Lillian Glass, Ph.D., Authors Josh Piven and Jennifer Worick Join Happen's A-List Panel of Experts and Columnists. Each week, Happen Magazine reports on the latest trends in dating and relating.
Mark Brooks: Happen is an online magazine. One2One Living is a rival print magazine.
PRWEB — May 20 — www.DateAGolfer.com main focus is to help golfers have fun, meet great friends, and expand their golf network. Says co-owner Gary Kelly. "We want to create a safe and dynamic online community where people come to share their passion of golf." Introductory offer gives full access free. Members who include their photos will also be entered into a draw to win a FREE one-day golf lesson.
Mark Brooks: Gary tells me he plans to grow the site through a grass roots network. He’s advertising in Golf For Women, and on Google Adwords and will rely on viral guerrilla marketing promotions. He’s been calling some new members to welcome them on board…which usually stuns them.
PRWEB — May 20 — Many who've tried on-line dating speak of finding someone who seems great, making a date to meet in person, and then being frustrated by the lack of face to face chemistry. Enter Rachael Lorenz, a personal stylist based in San Francisco. "Younger types, the no-life-work-addicts, have invested so much energy in their careers that their romantic lives have not been a priority. As a result when they finally go on a date, they don't have a clue. Another group of men are those that I call "neo-daters" – these are guys who've been married and divorced and are just getting back into the dating scene – they're usually over 40. They've forgotten what they learned in their twenties about how to present themselves – this makes them so self conscious that they make goof after goof. I start with the wardrobe and hair, and work through basic elements of etiquette for a total dating makeover." http://www.rachaellorenz.com 
Mark Brooks: Interesting before and after example shows a guy Miami style with no socks. Definite improvement. Guess I need to lose the socks then?
REVOLUTION MAG — May 20 – AOL has signed a two-year deal with DatingDirect.com to provide its members with access to the UK's biggest online dating agency. DatingDirect has other deals with sites including iVillage.co.uk and ITV.com, and has more than 2m members in the UK. It is ranked by Nielsen//NetRatings as the largest personals site in the UK in terms of monthly unique users, ahead of Meetic.co.uk and uDate.com. Research compiled by Jupiter shows that the Western European dating markets will be worth €117m (£80m) by 2007. The UK online dating market is particularly showing rapid growth, currently worth £11.7m and is estimated by Jupiter to grow to £47m by 2008. DatingDirect was founded in 1999. As well as hosting white-label dating services for other websites and its own branded website, it runs offline dating events, which it sees as a way of raising brand awareness.
The full article was originally published at Revolution, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Dating Direct is pulling ahead in the UK market it would seem. It's tough to compete with sites that know how to do good deals.
SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL — May 17 — Yahoo 360 is Yahoo’s “blogging local reviews social network friend finder” community which has yet to really take off in the States like Orkut did in Brazil. I have about thirty-something invites left so if you want to join email me at lorenbake@yahoo.com. It's a fun intermingled way of keeping a personal blog (or journal). Intertwining local news and reviews with others’ opinions in your network is a powerful touch and Yahoo is definately doing a good job of integrating 360 into it's Local Search, Music and Groups. “As a blog, Yahoo 360 lags behind the capabilities of Blogger, Multiply and Friendster blogs. Friendster has the best blog program among the four services but the URL it offers to its users is ridiculously long. Mobile phone blogging is such a pain to set up in Yahoo 360 — it’s centered on US telecom firms — and I eventually gave up.” FULL ARTICLE @ SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL
Mark Brooks: Yahoo always seems to do two things very well. Firstly, it's services are always nice n simple. No feature creep. Just the services I need, laid out in a super-usable fashion. Secondly, Yahoo is reliable and relatively fast.
MARKET WIRE — May 17 — Userplane, the leading provider of live community software, today announced that it has been chosen to present at Under the Radar(TM) Consumer Technologies, a one-day event that will take place on May 31 at the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, Calif. Under the Radar will showcase technology's early innovators in several fast-growing sectors in the consumer space including search, podcasting, blogging, RSS, music search and distribution, digital content storage, and social networking software. Userplane's recent new clients include: Date.com, Friendster, Honda, and Red Bull.
DAYTONA BEACH NEWS JOURNAL — May 16 — Kent was on a tour of Asia with other college students last summer when he heard people saying, ‘Oh, this would be a perfect facebook picture.’ Thefacebook is a free site that connects college students, faculty and recent alumni and boasts 2.4 million users at 573 campuses. People use it to learn more about hot classmates, track down information on homework, sign friends’ "walls," and generally waste time. Users must have an e-mail address connected to a member institution. Some students are using a similar site, collegeclub.com.
DAYTONA BEACH NEWS JOURNAL — May 16 — Kent was on a tour of Asia with other college students last summer when he heard people saying, ‘Oh, this would be a perfect facebook picture.’ Thefacebook is a free site that connects college students, faculty and recent alumni and boasts 2.4 million users at 573 campuses. People use it to learn more about hot classmates, track down information on homework, sign friends’ "walls," and generally waste time. Users must have an e-mail address connected to a member institution. Some students are using a similar site, collegeclub.com.
SOUL SHINE — May 16 — As rock star Billy Corgan is helping to prove, MySpace is the new Friendster, with decidedly better benefits. More and more acts are using MySpace.com to promote themselves. Corgan is using his space www.myspace.com/billycorgan to give fans the chance to get inside his brain via his super-detailed blog, to stream songs from his upcoming solo album, to win free tickets to his summer tour, and yes, even to become his “friend.” Alongside the big names (Oasis, Weezer, My Chemical Romance), some not-so-famous artists make a home on MySpace. FULL ARTICLE @ SOUL SHINE
Mark Brooks: Musicians and DJ’s are the greatest ‘connectors’ (see Tipping Point and Unleashing the Ideavirus). MySpace captured their attention and they ‘sneezed.’
PRWEB — May 16 — FilipinaEyes (Asian online dating) has decided to offer lifetime memberships for $45. There is a one time lifetime membership fee for gentlemen. RELEASE @ PRWEB
Mark Brooks: Many early singles clubs/groups went under, leaving their lifetime members high and dry. Consequently, I'm informed, lifetime memberships in the U.S. are not entirely legal these days.