PR WEB — Dec 16 -– Share Results welcomes Quest Personals into the Share Results Affiliate Network. Affiliate marketers promoting Quest Personals earn a flat 50% commission on first time purchases. As added incentive, total earnings include purchases made at fellow dating sites within the Heart2Heart Network. RELEASE @ PR WEB
Month: December 2005
Looking for Love (or a Date) on Cable TV
The full article was originally published at Wall Street Journal, but is no longer available.
New Online Dating Site Offers Privacy to Users
Mark Brooks: Ashley Madison caters directly with the cheaters segment. I find the whole concept quite abhorrent. I'd love to hear some kind of ethical justification for this segment. Viable, indeed. Ethical?
Desperately Seeking Suckers
MACLEANS CANADA — Dec 14 — Last month, two lawsuits were filed in match.com and Yahoo Personals alleging that the companies entice users into continuing to use the services with fake romantic emails. The damage could spread from match.com and Yahoo Personals to the dozens of other online dating companies playing Cupid. Both match.com and Yahoo Personals fervently deny the charges. In its defence, match.com has acquired a signed affidavit from Autumn Marzec, the woman it allegedly hired, swearing she was not an employee of the company. "The lawsuit is completely baseless," asserts Roldan.
Mark Brooks: Large online dating companies, Yahoo and Match.com, date bait? C'mon. They have far more to lose than gain. Online personals companies live and die by word of mouth these days. These suits are indeed extremely bad for the industry. I believe some small online dating companies may well have succumb to the temptation of sending date bait emails…but not the big boys. It's absolutely unthinkable. Online dating companies 'bubble up' profiles in search results when they are nearing the renewal date so those users receive more emails and winks during that period.
Belarus Moves to Limit Online Dating
ASSOCIATED PRESS — Dec 14 — Belarusian lawmakers on Wednesday passed legislation that would crack down on Internet dating and online spouse searches in the latest of a series of stringent government controls backed by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko. The measure passed 101-1 by the subservient lower house of parliament and is intended to help halt human trafficking in the ex-Soviet nation. The legislation would place restrictions on organizations that promote dating or match potential suitors with spouses, particularly via the Internet. Lukashenko has made his nation of 10 million people a pariah in the West by stifling dissent, persecuting independent media and opposition parties and prolonging his power through elections that international organizations say were marred by fraud.
EveryTeam.com Lets Sports Fans Create Communities and Content
PR WEB — Dec 14 — On EveryTeam sports fans can develop their own teammate and rival lists (similar to buddy lists), create social groups that they can invite other fans to be a member of, write blogs, store and share sports photos, subscribe to sports news RSS feeds, post and search classifieds and more. EveryTeam has partnered with UserPlane to provide chat rooms, an instant messenger and a video recorder. RELEASE @ PR WEB
Pretty is as Pretty Votes
BALTIMORE SUN — Dec 13 — BeautifulPeople.net is an exclusive networking site whose members vote in only attractive people. The site – which has its roots in Europe but started up in the United States five months ago – took a look recently at the distribution of its 8,000-plus members and decided that Maryland ranks 31st and Washington D.C. is at 40th place in the nation. New York topped the list of beautiful singles, with 25.8% of applicants being good-looking enough to get in. North Dakota came in last. More than 38,000 people who have applied to the site have been rejected, more than one out of five.
Mark Brooks: I doubt Beautful People has to do anything in the way of advertising. People will talk about the site because they got in.
Internet Dating Convention Update
Dec 14 — The 2006 internet dating convention on Thursday 2nd Feb and Friday 3rd Feb will focus on improving profitability; conversion, retention and new product offerings. Dr John Gray (Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus) will be speaking on customer retention. I will be giving a news roundup for 2005. Rob Fisher of Great Expectations will be contrasting online and offline business models. Attorney Peter McGreevy will be addressing recent legal issues in the online dating industry and suggesting methods of liability protection. Scott Butler (formerly of MyFamily, TRUE) is back to give another fantastic 90 minute workshop on customer acquisition and retention. I ran a Hotwire search for 4 star hotels at Miami Beach; three alternatives were available at $195, $210 and $399. The Wyndham Miami Beach deal is competitive at $209. iDate2006
Background Checks Split Matchmaking Sites
Yahoo Acquires Social Network Del.icio.us
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS — Dec 10 — In its latest acquisition of a social networking service, Internet powerhouse Yahoo on Friday devoured del.icio.us Inc., a startup that enables people to more easily compile and share their favorite content on the Web. More than 300,000 users have signed up for the service since del.icio.us’ inception two years ago. Yahoo’s other recent social networking acquisitions include a popular photo-tagging service, Flickr, and an event-planning service, Upcoming.org.