SCI FI CHANNEL NEWS WIRE — Online dating is going where no one has gone before: to fans of Star Trek and other SF through the TrekPassions.com Web site. RELEASE @ SCIFI.COM
Month: March 2006
Cropping Tool
Mar 16 — Users often submit poor photos and the most common shortfall is awful cropping. Merav and Dave, creators of LookBetterOnline, have created a cropping tool to help dating sites automatically crop user submitted photos. Nice. Check it out at www.croppingtool.com. Enter referral code 23994 to get a 10% price break. – Mark Brooks
Immigration Law Expert Identifies Major Flaw in Newly Passed Mail Order Bride Law Called IMBRA
PR WEB — Mar 13 — Lobbyists for the big Internet dating mega-sites succeeded in persuading the proponents of the new mail order bride law, "International Marriage Broker Regulation Act" called IMBRA, to carve out an exemption for them over other smaller online international dating services. IMBRA went into effect this month. IMBRA was quietly inserted onto the back of the widely-applauded Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to help prevent domestic violence. It quickly passed the Congress, and was promptly signed by the President. It requires any U.S. mail order bride company, now called an "International Marriage Broker" or IMB for short, to first secure from any gentleman customer extensive background information such as criminal and domestic violence history. next, the law mandates that the IMB provide a copy of this to the foreign lady client in her native language. Last, the IMB must obtain a signed, written consent from the lady as to that specific man before her "personal contact information" is released and the couple can communicate. Penalties on the IMB; up to $25,000 civil fine and up to 5 years in federal prison. Federal court has issued a Temporary Restraining Order against enforcement of the IMBRA law for now on the IMB in that case. RELEASE @ PR WEB
Mark Brooks: Small personals sites are relying on the big sites to lobby for them. Caution… Eventually a law might pass which more adversely effects smaller dating sites. Smaller sites should take more of an active role in lobbying against hindering/unfair legislation. http://www.ideaoasis.org could be a nice entity to assist in that coordinated voice. Your comments please…
The Role of Anti-Marketing Design
SCOBLEIZER — Mar 4 — At the Northern Voice conference I met Markus Frind, founder of Plentyoffish.com. He's Google's #1 Adsense user in Canada. His site is pulling in more than $10,000 per day from Google, he told me, and has millions of passionate users. Tens of millions of page views EVERY DAY. What's the secret to his success? Ugly design. I call it "anti-marketing design." He says that sites that have ugly designs are well known to pull more revenue. Google. Is it pretty? No. Craig's List? Pretty? No. MySpace? Pretty? No.
The full article was originally published at Scobleizer, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: It's not the fact that these sites are ugly. Consider further. The winning formula is that the sites appear anti-commercial, humble, and non-pushy. These sites appear to users like a person or group of smart people doing them a favor without hawking too hard to them. Most users don't realise that Craigslist makes $10 million+ a year from charging for job postings in a handful of cities…the average user never posts a job. Craigslist just looks like a cool nerd doing everyone a favor. How refreshing. Same deal with Plentyoffish. And Google? A lot of very smart, passionate, 'do no evil' nerds.
Dating Services Hire top Lobbyist to Fight Gender Pricing Bill
TORONTO STAR — Mar 13 – Lavalife and Quest, two competing Toronto-based firms, have retained the services of lobbyist to aggressively lobby MPPs to kill Bill 9 that would prevent retailers from charging men or women different prices for essentially the same goods and services. A class-action lawsuit was settled in California related to Californian gender-based price discrimination law in 2001. Lavalife agreed to pay California male customers between May 14, 2001 and Jan. 14, 2005, the equivalent of up to $706,464 US in phone credit minutes.
HonestyFirst.com: Who Is Lying to You and How can You Prevent It?
Mark Brooks: None of the larger sites have introduced background checks as yet, beyond TRUE. Honesty First makes a point with an animated first date gone wrong. Doesn't look like they have much in the way of traffic though. 315k alexa rank today and 500k for the last week.
Celebrities Dabble in Online Dating
FOX NEWS — Mar 13 — Stars like Joan Rivers and Halle Berry have confessed to checking out online dating sites – and Rivers even posted an ad on Match.com. "I love smart men, funny men, elegant men," Rivers’ profile reads. "If I had to choose between Brad Pitt stripped to the waist or an old George Clooney in a dinner jacket, George would win hands down." Rivers admitted to Howard Stern last month that she placed the Match.com ad. Beautiful Oscar-winner Halle Berry has admitted to spending a lot of time in chat rooms, and dabbling with dating sites. FULL ARTICLE @ FOX NEWS
Mobile Dating Watch Interview, CEO of Webdate, Abe Smilowitz
MDW INTERVIEW — Mar 15 — Webdate is blazing a trail with it's webcam based dating and mobile dating platform. It's taking a futuristic position. I caught up with Abe Smilowitz, CEO of Webdate…
What is webdating?
Webdating is the new safe and secure way to date where two individuals can go on their first date online using our patented video chat. They have the ability to meet each other and get a feel for each other’s personality and get to know each other a little better before they take it offline.With ‘webdating,’ you get a feel for chemistry and the ability to pinpoint each other’s personality and character; you can see them, see how they smile, see how they move and this gives you insight into what that person is really like as opposed to just reading a typed profile or chat with them on IM which is less personal.
What proportion of your membership is actively using webcams for webdating these days?
80% of our users have used videochat. At any given time, there are abut 1000 – 1500 people using webcams at one point or another. Webcams are inexpensive and easy to purchase these days. They usually run about $30.
Webdate is channel agnostic? What's that mean?
Users are able to meet in a variety of ways and methods. They are able to communicate and interact with each other online as well as through their mobile phones. Actually, they are able to interact from their mobile phones with people online as well. So, a user that is on their mobile phone can interact with people online at any given time. We allow users to interact with a variety of different methods and communicate regardless of what type of technology they have whether it be mobile or internet.
What cell phone carriers are you on deck with now?
We use Sprint, Nextel, US Cellular and Boost. We also are about to add Cricket and will launch with a major/top 3 carrier; but I’m not at liberty to announce that just yet.
Do you think mobile dating will overtake online dating one day?
No – I think they will work together. One won’t take over the other. I think there will definitely be more growth in mobile dating than the online stage. The online stage is more of a mature market place. The mobile area is starting to grow and hasn’t met its maturity level. It’s still a virgin market.
What are your estimates for the 2006 mobile dating market size?
It’s such an emerging market place…and it really depends on what deck placement you get and and what kind of compatibility you get with handsets. It’s difficult to estimate the market revenue for 2006; however, in the near future, I feel it will be in the billions of dollars in the mobile Space. Everyone has a mobile phone and not everyone has a computer or internet access. Cell Phone companies are giving out internet ready phones now, so as more people are renewing their contracts and time goes by, everyone is potentially a customer. Online is a different experience; you need a computer, high speed internet access…or dial-up. The cell phone market potentially has far more reach than online does.
What are you plans for webdate in 2006?
We will expand our global and online reach and work on some other projects that I cannot mention at this time.
Zorpia Social Networking
Brazil Tries to Seize Data on Users of Google’s Orkut
The full article was originally published at Yahoo, but is no longer available.