The full article was originally published at Marketing Vox, but is no longer available.
Month: March 2006
Google, Nike Take Run at Soccer-Focused Social Network
TECH NEWS WORLD — Mar 21 — Google is teaming with Nike for soccer fans worldwide with joga.com. Joga being Portuguese for "play," the new site will allow players and fans of soccer to create profiles, pick favorite players, post photos and video, compete in online tournaments and more.
Mark Brooks: Social networking will follow the same trajectory as online dating with the creation of numerous niche sites. For alumni – facebook.com, for the young – piczo.com, for Estonians rate.ee. Avenue A/Razorfish brought Carnival into the MySpace era with CarnivalConnections.com, "a site that enables travelers to plan and manage their group travel needs and socialize all at one spot."Please email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com if you see others that I can list under the Ultimate Social Networking sites list.
True Love Exists
DAILY RECORD — Mar 21 — Boffins 'prove' passion can be perfect .. but it takes a year to blossom. Forget love at first sight. Scientists have discovered true love only begins after 12 months. Research has revealed real love blossoms with time, especially for men. 147 couples took part in the study. According to the study, men are more likely to find true love than women. The research, by psychologists at Bath University, was commissioned by Match.com. To date, there has been no systematic study of love in the context of relationships formed via online dating sites.
The full article was originally published at Daily Record, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: I'm not seeing anything really earth shattering here. 147 couples seems like a small sample. But, it's a veritable start. With millions of daters online, major sites should be able to perform studies of hundreds of thousands. I'm looking forward to the day online dating sites truly open up to the fantastic and extensive university brainpower. Psychologists around the world must be itching to get their hands on the major online dating sites data and research resources. Your comments please…
Fox News LA, DC, LA, Orlando
Mar 24 — I was in four Fox News interviews in February. Alas, there was no online videos to link to.
1. Fox News Orlando – mobile dating overview
2. Fox News New York – mobile dating overview
3. Fox News Washington D.C. – online dating safety
4. Fox News Los Angeles – online dating safety
I have news reels on the way for Orlando and New York. – Mark Brooks
Online Personals ‘Success’
Mar 22 — A writer asked me for numbers of ‘successes’ on online dating sites. Here are my thoughts. Success can be defined at 8 levels… Online dating sites basic ‘promise’ is to put compatible singles in front of each other, in the real world, on a first date. The first level of success is with two singles IMing or both emailing each other. Then, talking on the phone. #3 is a big step, meeting face to face, and I think most of the people who make it to phone conversations make it to face to face meetings. Then perhaps they decide to date, repeatedly, make it to 3 months, then 9 months, then to a prolonged committed relationship, then marriage. 8 levels of ‘success’ if you like. Now how do the user numbers match up?
20+ million online daters (not including social networks) for 2006 leading to several million paid online dating users.
1. two people IMing/emailing online – several million daters make it this far
2. two people talking on the phone – 5+ million with at least one phone encounter
3. face to face meeting – 5 million meet face to face
4. active dating, 3 dates or more (sexual) – 4 million actively date one person or more
5. 3 months relationship – 750,000 make it into an ongoing relationship of 3+ months
6. 9 months – 250,000 make it to 9 months with at least one person
7. fiance/prolonged relationship/15 month – 100,000 have prolonged committed relationships
8. marriage – 50-75,000 marriages will result from online dating introductions this year
What do you think? Way off? Close? Your comments please… Please add your informed opinion and have your own stab at the numbers. – Mark Brooks
Perils of Online Dating Prompt Safety Efforts
REUTERS — Mar 21 — Josie Brown never had a chance against her 6-foot-6-inch killer. John Gaumer, confessed and led Baltimore County police to Brown's body on February 7, listed his height and other attributes in his quest for dates on MySpace.com. "There are millions of people we're dealing with here and somehow people think they are all preachers," said Paul Falzone, CEO of Together Dating, a brick-and-mortar company that performs background checks on all members. Falzone says background checks result in 10% of applicants being rejected. For most of the 40 million people using Internet sites for dating and socializing each month, a disastrous 15 minutes over coffee at Starbucks is the worst they will suffer. Only a small percentage of "intimate partner violence" — nearly 700,000 such incidents were reported to the U.S. Dept of Justice in 2001 — originate from Internet dating, according to Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch, which monitors the dating industry. "To think a felon could find a victim, especially for a heinous crime, gives me the heebie-jeebies. I do all I can do to prevent that," said Herb Vest, TRUE.com CEO. So far, California, Florida, Texas and Michigan have considered (background checks) legislation. Yahoo! and Match.com, the industry leaders with 6 million and 15 million monthly visitors respectively, continually stress dating safety. "The Internet has its dark side and they are not doing everything they can to keep sexual predators and gold diggers off these sites. If you don't police yourselves, the government will come in and police you," said Michigan state Sen. Alan Cropsey. "There are other ways to get to who that person is, rather than have the government ram a business model down your throat," said Abe Smilowitz, CEO of Webdate. Webdate uses real-time video as a safety measure, allowing prospective dates to chat and get a look at each other via Webcams. Companies like Safedate and Honestyonline are springing up to run background checks for individuals. According to Dr. John Gray, education is the solution. "The warning signs often come out right away. Beware of someone who can solve all your problems or who comes on really strong," said Gray.
Relationships.com; Christian Singles Find More Ways to Connect
PR NEWSWIRE — Mar 21 — Formerly known as ChristianMingle.com (owned by Spark Networks), the new Relationships.com offers a unique online community created for Christian singles. The new Relationships.com launches with added features, including: 100 new uplifting and spiritual messages eCards to communicate, aearchable scriptures, a new Photo Shuffle tool.
Love in a Cold Climate
HEALTH TELEGRAPH — Mar 20 — Tired of indoor speed-dating, singles are seeking out mates on country walks. Welcome to the speed-dating walk. The idea started when the Isle of Wight Tourism was looking for something new to publicise this year's annual walking festival in May and noticed that loads of singles always turned up for walks. FULL ARTICLE @ HEALTH TELEGRAPH
Mark Brooks: Hikes, wine tastings, speed dating and table for six dinners are my favorite singles events. I started http://www.ace-club.com in 1998 in Silicon Valley and the club still runs 20+ events a month.
Online Ad Start-Up Raises $48 Million With Eye On Google, Yahoo
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES — Mar 17 — With help from the former president of Intermix Media, an online contextual-advertising start-up has raised $48 million in venture capital (Technology Crossover Ventures) to quickly take a bite out of market giants Google and Yahoo. Adknowledge, which places behaviorally targeted ads in Web pages and emails, aims to provide an alternative to text ads tied to keyword searches.
The full article was originally published at Smart Money, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Adbrite is one of my favorite ad companies and does well for online personals ad buys.
Comscore, Nielsen//Netratings Rankings and new UK Hitwise Rankings for
Hitwise is now also providing UK top 5 online personals rankings to Online
Personals Watch in addition to USA rankings.
Comscore Mediametrix: Spark Networks roll up moved up one spot to take 3rd place from Perfect Match which moves down to 7th place. TRUE moves up from 6th spot to 4th. Date.com moves up 4 places from 14th to 10th spot. SinglesNet enters the rankings at 13th place.
Nielsen//Netratings: Yahoo takes #1 spot from Match, Tagworld falls from the chart, eCrush moves from 12th to 8th spot, Netscape Love & Personals enters the charts at 9th place. Thirty Plus Singles enters the chart at 13th spot.
*Why is Nielsen providing only the top 14 this month? Here's the official word…
Our audience measurement service is based on a set of panelists recruited through random digit dial. Based on this projected US online population, we are able to estimate how many people are visiting each of these sites. However, we do maintain a reporting cutoff to ensure that our data is as accurate as possible. If we do not have enough panelists visiting a site, the site runs the risk of increased statistical variability. Therefore, this is the reason why our service is only reporting 14 top personals sites for the month of February 2006.