Month: January 2006

Unicast Veteran To Launch Social Site For Women

Posted on January 27, 2006

SisterwomancomONLINE MEDIA DAILY — Jan 25 — Sisterwoman, slated to launch by March, is targeting women ages 28 to 50–closer to iVillage's demographic than to MySpace's younger crowd. Visitors will be encouraged to create closed circles of friends as well as open hobby- and location-based circles. Savarino, who helped launch the streaming media company Unicast, believes that advertisers and publishers are just now catching on to women's unique Internet usage habits. 

The full article was originally published at Media Post, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: iVillage advertising is among the most premium priced on the net today. 

Looking for Love in London?

Posted on January 27, 2006

SnoglondonRESPONSE SOURCE — Jan 24 — SnogLondon presents the opportunity to really find out about the person behind the profile. Through the use of interesting and fun questions including “dream dinner guests”, “if I could be any animal for a day, I would be…” and “in my bedroom you will find…” as well as profile content specific to London; for example favourite venues, best & worst things about living in London etc, which allow subscribers to learn more about each other. Individuals can also engage in online games such as “Blind Date”; and “Who Wrote That?” where members match profiles and photographs to quotes.

The full article was originally published at Response Source, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Other sites in their niche network include Over50sRomance, VeggieRomance, YogaRomance, GothicSouls, OtherSingleParents

O2 Partners with Enpocket and Time Out to provide Time Out Dating

Posted on January 27, 2006

EnpocketNEW MEDIA KNOWLEDGE — Jan 18 — The partnership will enable singles to search for dates and chat with other singles using their i-mode phones. The site will offer mobile consumers access to thousands of profiles of like-minded individuals on its i-mode site from £3 per month.

Mark Brooks: Enpocket built Match.com's mobile app. Match mobile users can search a database of a couple hundred thousand other match mobile users. Match made the decision to spend less on the initial application development which does not allow the Match mobile users access to the millions strong entire Match.com database of users. Webdate allows access to the full database. 

Sprint Launches Three New Mobile Chat Services

Posted on January 27, 2006

Webdate_1BUSINESS WIRE — Jan 24 — Sprint announced the availability of Jumbuck Island from Jumbuck Entertainment, The Lounges from AirG, and Webdate Mobile from Trilibis Mobile for Sprint PCS Vision and Sprint Power Vision subscribers. Each service features an exclusive element available only through Sprint.

Mark Brooks: Internet dating takes a sizable time commitment.  Mobile services allow users more convenience and freedom.  Webdate Mobile is the leading mobile dating application allowing users to search a database 5 million strong.  Webdate is 'channel agnostic.' 

Userplane Provides Video Chat and IM to Dating Sites in UK

Posted on January 27, 2006

UserplanecomBUSINESS WIRE — Jan 24 — According to Britain's TimesOnline, a survey reported 65% of U.K. singles have used an Internet dating service. Userplane is now providing its apps to: Single2Couple.com, Face-pic.com, TotallyJewishDating.com, Christiansuk.com, PartyFlirt.co.uk.  "We have recently seen a rapid embrace of online social networking and online dating in Europe," said Michael Jones, co-founder and CEO, Userplane. "Many of our European clients are actually seeing faster growth than their US counterparts."  Jones will participate in the annual meeting of IDEA OASIS, a not-for-profit association for the Online Dating and Social Networking industries, on February 3rd at the Internet Dating Conference in Miami. Jones is a founding board member of the organization.

Yahoo’s Social Circle

Posted on January 24, 2006

Yahoo_1YAHOO FINANCE — Jan 23 — Yahoo is on a quiet acquisitions tear. First, it snapped up photo-sharing site Flickr in March. In December, it acquired del.icio.us, a service that bookmarks and shares users' favorite Web sites. And on Jan. 6, Yahoo purchased WebJay, a site for creating and sharing music playlists. By cultivating online communities — and encouraging people to tap into the collective knowledge of these groups — Yahoo is hoping to change the way people find information online. Known in industry parlance as "social search," it presents a significant departure from the Google approach, which relies on complicated mathematical models to help users find sites.  Social search gleans input and preferences from the communities which searchers are associated with. Someone seeking "Mexican restaurants," for instance, would arguably be better served by results reflecting preferences of people in the same neighborhood. It could represent a monumental shift in search technology. Google has done far less than Yahoo in the arena of online community building. Google's long-term bet remains on using computing horsepower.  Startup Eurekster hit the market first with its social search technology in early 2004. Jeteye Technologies and Kaboodle followed.  Yahoo is applying social search on a limited basis in its My Web 2.0 beta product. "Social search is not one of these things that will take off overnight," says Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li. "It will take a lot of time to build." 

Mark Brooks: At the core of social search, Yahoo is attempting to capture and bottle 'friendly referrals/recommendations.'  Wouldn't you rather get a referral/recommendation from a friend?  This is groundbreaking work. Yahoo may well apply the social search spin to Yahoo Personals.  They have the critical mass to make this work. A great differentiator that plays to Yahoo's size.  Friendster tried it.  Yahoo has the usership clout to make social search really fly for online personals.  Check out Yahoo's Web 2.0 Search. 

Lonely Kenyan Singletons

Posted on January 24, 2006

Lovepotcom_1BBC NEWS — Jan 24 — Many young urban Kenyans are finding it hard to meet a partner because of changing lifestyles. "We never used to approach men, we waited at home. They were able to identify a good girl and then finally in that situation you waited to be asked to be married." For Claire, the modern way of meeting her man has so far failed. Enter Lovepot.com  FULL ARTICLE @ BBC NEWS