PRESS RELEASE — June 12 — WooMe, the online video speed-dating service, raised a $12,5m round led by Index Ventures with existing investors Atomico and Mangrove Capital Partners also participating. The new capital will go toward supporting user growth, expanding internationally and introducing new functionality to the site.
The full article was originally published at Earth Times, but is no longer available.
BUSINESS WIRE — June 10 — iovation, the device reputation authority for the Internet, has helped customers stop more than a million online fraudulent and abusive activities in the first half of 2008. In Q1 2008, iovation reported performing more than 100m reputation checks on devices coming from the U.S. The U.S. topped the list of countries with the most reputation queries, followed by Canada and the U.K. with 11m and 8m, respectively. For iovation customers in the Online Social Networking sector, devices coming from Belgium had the highest % of denied transactions at 15%. The Philippines and Nigeria followed with 11% and 7%. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE
Mark Brooks: iovation helps internet dating sites share information on the bad guys: scammers, spammers and those that would be abusive towards other users. Devices are identified and associated with behaviors. iovation subscribing companies then have the benefit of that tagging so they can catch the bad guys at the gate. (Full Disclosure: iovation is a client of Courtland Brooks and a sponsor of this blog)
SUN SENTINEL — June 9 — Cable television provider Comcast is trying to woo crowds of singles to area bars and sign them up for a new dating service, called Dating on Demand, that allows men and women to create free video personal ads that will air in households in South Florida. Singles must first sign a waiver agreeing to release their video and personal information to Comcast, which runs background checks on candidates before airing edited five- to seven-minute profiles, said Comcast spokesman Spero Canton. Dating on Demand is live in 21 U.S. markets, including Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco.
The full article was originally published at Sun Sentinel, but is no longer available.
THE HARTFORD COURANT — June 9 — eHarmony expanded into couples counseling in the past two years with eHarmony Marriage, an online therapy for people who are married or in committed relationships. Couples answer an extensive questionnaire and receive a computerized assessment of their relationship's strengths and weaknesses. Based on that information, the service prescribes a series of videos that target their trouble areas. The company claims the service has so far been a success, drawing between 300 to 500 new registrations daily. Its preliminary in-house study shows that 19% of couples considered "at risk" for serious marriage problems were no longer considered such after completing the three-month program.
The full article was originally published at Journal Gazette, but is no longer available.
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK — June 7 — Boasting
10m members and a million marriages in 11 years, Shaadi (400 employees)
has
been a runaway success. Shaadi.com was launched in 1997 by Anupam
Mittal, a business graduate of Boston College in the US. Now Shaadi is
one of India’s five most popular
sites. It boasts 300m page views
each month and 6,000 new profiles are added every day (60% of
which are male). Despite having the second fastest-growing economy in
the world,
India remains a deeply conservative society, especially where marriage
and relationships are concerned. A recent magazine survey revealed that
more than 60% of young unmarried Indians disapproved of the
idea of sex before marriage; 40% said they wanted to marry
within their own caste. An estimated 95% of all marriages in
India are arranged, usually after lengthy negotiations between two
families. Shaadi.com also provides additional services: a
directory listing of wedding-related services; a lifestyle website, shaaditimes.com, with features on travel, fashion and health; and a sister site, secondshaadi.com,
for divorcees and widows. There are also more than 150 Shaadi.com
Centres in 87 Indian cities, where parents and children can sit down
with a relationship adviser and trawl the company’s database. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
Mark Brooks: Bharat Matrimony is Shaadi’s main competitor in India. I interviewed Bharat Matrimony’s CEO/Founder here (Dec’ 2006). Both companies use a network of agents to service those without computers and the internet across India.
PR NEWSWIRE — June 6 — Anastasia International, the international introduction and romance company has recently launched video chat. Language is not a barrier, since Anastasia International offers live interpretation done by professional interpreters. FULL ARTICLE @ THE EARTH TIMES
Mark Brooks: Most dating sites have IM now. Userplane and OmniDate are great options for plug-in IM's. OmniDate is avatar based. (Disclosure: OmniDate is a client of Courtland Brooks)
OPW — June 9 — Match is now 60 years old! See http://www.match2055.com. The French contingent of Match.com made a movie set in 2055 where two people tell how they met on Match.com in 2008 and are still in love 50 years later. They mention how the site worked back in 2008 when people met without DNA matching. The event was covered in Journaldunet. – Mark Brooks
OPW — June 6 — OKCupid is being a good sport and is sending traffic to some of its competitors, for free! If you take the OKCupid’s "dating-personality-test", at the question 43. they ask about genital diseases and state "if yes, click here" and link out to a leading dating site. In Germany the link used to take users to FriendScout24. After FriendScout24 complained, they swapped the link out with "parship.de". In France OKCupid sends people with genital diseases to meetic.fr, in Spain to amigos.com, in the USA to eHarmony and in Brazil to Terra.com.br. – Mark Brooks
SEATTLE PI — June 5 — Two years ago, there weren't any online dating sites specifically designed to help gay men find long-term partners. Patrick Perrine, the founder and CEO of myPartner, saw a niche and went for it, expanding his private yenta business into a full-blown online dating and matchmaking service that he launched last June. Today, the site has nearly 75,000 members nationwide, 95% of whom are looking for a sexually monogamous relationship.
The full article was originally published at Seattle PI, but is no longer available.