Nov 6 — A jewellery manufacturer in the United States is putting her home up for sale on the Ebay online auction site with the twist that she comes with it. Deborah Hale, 48, says she wants to find a bidder, aged 40-60, to share the home within a long-term relationship. housewithbride.com. The house is priced at $US600,000 ($818,370), with herself added in as "priceless".
The full article was originally published at ABC News, but is no longer available.
LEE SPRINGFIELD BUREAU — Dec 2 — A Southern Illinois Democrat is considering legislation requiring online dating services to perform criminal background checks to weed out predators that might be lurking on the Internet. State Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, said he was surprised to learn that these services are not required to perform background checks on members. "One thing I was trying to come up with is a way to make sure you have a simple background check on somebody before you allow them to advertise," he said. "It seems to me that there should at least be a non-sex offender requirement to be on one of those dating sites." He is considering creating legislation to address this potential problem. FULL ARTICLE @ SOUTHERN ILLINOISIAN
THE KANSAS CITY STAR — Dec 1 — What happens when faith is the dealbreaker? He’s gotta be Jewish. She must be Christian. Or Muslim, or Wiccan, or whatever. …some interesting interviews with Muslim, Catholic, Jewish, Protestant and Christians. – Mark Brooks
MEDIA POST — Dec 1 — Revenue from Web ads next year, excluding online newspaper classifieds, will increase by a predicted 25.2%, while overall U.S. ad revenues will grow by 4.5%. The Internet will account for more ad dollars than radio by 2007, and will surpass magazines by 2008, to become the third largest ad category, with newspapers and broadcast television remaining in the top two slots.
The full article was originally published at Media Post, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Webdate, OKCupid, Plentyoffish, Friendster and Myspace offer advertising. Who else?
ASK MEN — Dec 1 — The problem with blind dates and personals is that they do not satisfy a very crucial requirement needed in order for two people to hit it off and see each other again: physical attraction and chemistry. Back to basics. People are beginning to realize that attraction depends on more than just a description or picture of a person, but also through the way two people interact with each other. Physical appearance and chemistry play important roles in the initial stages of dating. Even though we tend to demote its importance for fear of sounding superficial, someone’s appearance does play an important role in the decision of wanting to see them again. First impressions are really everything. FULL ARTICLE @ ASK MEN
Mark Brooks: I’m a proponent of events, but I’d like to see a system that integrates a basic personality profile as well. That would be a nice advance on the traditional speed dating event. Table for six has one of the better event model for this kind of matchmaking. Speed dating is great for the sheer number of people you meet in one evening.
PR Newswire — Dec 1 — JDate announced that it will host JSoiree, a six city event expected to draw over 2,000 Jewish singles to some of the nation's coolest clubs. Atlantic City: House of Blues, Chicago: House of Blues, Las Vegas: House of Blues, Miami: Shine, New York: Duvet, San Diego: House of Blues
Mark Brooks: What did you do on the weekend…I went to an awesome party hosted by Jdate. People love to talk about these kinds of parties, which is great if it was a great party, and bad news if it was a bad party…or even mediocre. The trick is to run really, really good parties. Then it becomes worthwhile…but tough to track the ROI. Parties are a lot of work.
USA TODAY — Dec 1 — Of almost 127 million Americans age 40 and over, more than a third are unattached. They're either casualties of the divorce explosion (13%); widowed (11%); or never married (8%). Match.com says registrations by people over 50 are up 340% since 2000. Those over 50 account for 21% of visitors to Yahoo Personals. A Yahoo Personals survey released in September found that 51% of men and 56% of women say it's acceptable for a potential date to be up to 10 years younger. So more older women are taking a cue from celebrities who are linked with men who are years or even decades their junior. "Women of a certain age want to date but don't necessarily want to be married," Carr says. "Women don't feel middle-aged. They feel there's a long life ahead." FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
MARKETING VOX — Nov 30 — Google has opened an internet-ready lounge at London's Heathrow Airport to offer 10 net-connected laptops to travelers during layovers or flight delays. The lounge – Google Space – is staffed by Google employees who provide assistance to users. It allows Google to road-test new products and get feedback. The space was launched a week ago and will be active in Heathrow until December 19.
The full article was originally published at Marketing Vox, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: If anyone happens upon it, please comment. Perhaps Google is testing something pertinent to online personals?
ZDNET NEWS — Nov 29 — Microsoft is developing a free online service that will let people list items for sale, events and other classifieds-type of information that can be shared either with groups of friends or anyone over the Internet, the company said Tuesday. The service, code-named Fremont, has been in internal testing at Microsoft for about a week and a half. It will be a free listing service, with a bunch of twists to make it very unique, such as integration with social networks, in particular integration with MSN Messenger. Ads relevant to the listing will appear alongside the search results. The U.S. online classifieds advertising market is forecast to grow from $2.6 billion this year to $4.1 billion in 2010, according to JupiterResearch.
The full article was originally published at ZD Net News, but is no longer available.
