WESTERN MAIL — Aug 20 — 15% of single people in Britain are looking for new ways to meet 'the one', and are using speed and internet dating. Researchers at Ohio University say it takes just three minutes for most people to decide whether they were going to fall in love, remain friends, or never speak with a person again. Men spend almost 10 times as much buying drinks and meals for potential partners than women.
The full article was originally published at IC Wales, but is no longer available.
NEW ZEALAND HERALD — Aug 21 — A new online dating service is attempting to weed out the wonderful from the weirdos by allowing only beautiful people to join up. theBeautiful has about 200 members from almost 400 applications and has special ways of “validating” applicants suspected of palming off snaps of models as themselves.
The full article was originally published at New Zealand Herald, but is no longer available.
The full article was originally published at MSNBC, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: This feature plays to the egos of the 'connectors.' Engage the connectors and they rave and make lots of (viral) noise, spreading the word. I score 7790. Meir Strahlberg, CEO of Date.com has me beat at 18020.
CNET — Aug 19 — A new application powered by Google Maps and a personals Web site just might offer a satisfying alternative. Dubbed "HotMaps," it allows users to roughly pinpoint where a subscriber of HotOrNot lives. Once a specific location on the HotMaps Web site is selected, a list of markers will appear. These signposts will then denote where subscribers to the dating site live. Created by Frozenbear.
The full article was originally published at News.com, but is no longer available.
ONLINE PERSONALS WATCH — Aug 22 — A white paper on anonymous phone calling services/enablers is in process (in addition to OPW's mobile dating white paper). Phonematrix, Voice Star, gNumber and PrivateTel have identified themselves as having service offerings in this category. Do you know of any others? Please contact me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com.
ONLINE PERSONALS WATCH — Aug 22 — Nielsen Netratings is now providing monthly rankings to Online Personals Watch (see column on left). Each month you can expect to see the top 15 online personals site rankings from Hitwise, Alexa and Nielsen Netratings. In addition Hitwise provides enough numbers for us to pull the rankings for some additional categories (defined by Online Personals Watch). These categories are; personality profiling, religious focused, black, asian, gay. We use the Alexa rankings for the social networking rankings and adult dating sites. The methodologies used by Hitwise, Alexa and Nielsen, (and also Comscore) are very different. Hitwise pulls their numbers from ISP’s and only ranks by market share. Alexa uses data from it’s toolbar userbase and also only gives a ranking score for websites. Nielsen pulls from a panel and extrapolates numbers such as uniques from it’s representative panel of tens of thousands. Also note, Hitwise and Nielsen categorise online personals slightly differently so, for example, you’ll see TheFaceBook in the Nielsen rankings but Hitwise chooses not to categorise this as an online dating site.
CNN MONEY — Aug 18 — Online dating has shrugged off its social stigma and emerged as a mainstream means for singles to find that special someone. The U.S. online dating industry is expected to climb 9% year-over-year with revenues of $516 million in 2005, said Nate Elliott, an analyst at Jupiter Research. That's slower than the 19% growth in 2004. And 77% in 2003. There are currently nearly 1,000 dating Web sites, said Bill Tancer of Hitwise, and one out of every 100 people logging on to the internet visits an online dating site. Niche sites are popular. Social networking sites have become increasingly popular among the young. That's giving traditional online dating sites a run for their money, said John Tinker, research analyst at ThinkEquity Partners. The Big 3 online dating sites — Yahoo! Personals, Match.com and EHarmony.com will have to tweak their business models and create new innovative products to grow revenue. One place to look is advertising. Date.com's CEO Meir Strahlberg said that advertising revenues have doubled in the past few months to 10% of total revenue. "There are 86 million single adults who control annual spending of $1.6 trillion," Strahlberg said. "Online dating sites reach about 30 percent of that market currently." Date.com can target an advertiser's products to almost any demographic based on user profiles. Yahoo! Personals general manager Lorna Borenstein said, "today's online daters are increasingly sophisticated. You can't just increase offerings; you have to help singles figure out their relationship goals and offer tools to help them find their version of success, whatever that might be." FULL ARTICLE @ CNN MONEY
Mark Brooks: Hot future trends; 1. targeted advertising on online dating sites. 2. personality profiling.
GLOBES — Aug 05 — Israeli company Arcode Software Solutions is launching a new dating service, entitled "I Pick You" (IPQ). People meeting accidentally can contact each other through the IPQ website. People who met by chance in a bar, exercise room, library, or supermarket, and who lacked the nerve to start an immediate conversation, can send an IPQ dating card to a person they like. The two people can use the card code later to contact each other through the website. Arcode's revenue comes from sales of dating cards. FULL ARTICLE @ GLOBES
Mark Brooks: What kind of response rates will guys get. 1 in 20? What do you think? Your comments please.
The full article was originally published at My Way, but is no longer available.
REVOLUTION — Aug 16 — Impulsedating.com combines real-life encounters with online matchmaking. Users join the site, order impulsedating profile cards, and then give them to attractive strangers, who will be able to log on to the site and find out more about their suitor and get in touch if they are interested. After a month's free trial, the site costs £2.50 to subscribe to.
The full article was originally published at Revolution, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Interesting spin.
