THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC — Nov 16 — Desert Introductions brings together career-oriented gay men for dinners and cocktail mixers. Members fill out a short online questionnaire and talk about their interests during a phone interview. Groups of six or eight are selected to have dinner at an upscale restaurant. Before each event, members receive biographies of the other dinner guests. Then they meet and mingle. Prices start at $99 for two dinners and go up to $795 for 15, meals not included. FULL ARTICLE @ AZ CENTRAL
Month: November 2008
Online Dating For Boomers And Seniors
AGELESS LIFESTYLES — Nov 15 — 23½ million single Baby Boomers are using
online dating and more than five million people over 55 have used online
dating as well. "Novices do best by
starting with large free sites like PlentyofFish.com to get a feel for
online dating. With that feel, they may want to move on to niche sites", said online
dating psychologist Dr. Jim Houran. FULL ARTICLE @ AGELESS LIFESTYLES
“Don’t Group All Gays Together” Says WhiteLabelDating.com
WEBIT PR — Nov 14 — The online dating industry should beware of grouping all gay communities together as it shows a lack of understanding for the complexities, nuances of and niches of the market, according to Ross Williams of WhiteLabelDating.com (WLD). WLD, which provides the backend system requirements for brands and individuals to start their own online dating communities, has seen a 300% growth in same-sex relationships websites. Recent additions include sites like: TheGayExchange.co.uk, GayDatingGroup.co.uk and MeTarzanYouGay.co.uk. "The gay community is often an afterthought in the online dating business and this results in poorly marketed, generic gay offerings. A one size fits all approach is often not appropriate," said Ross Williams. FULL ARTICLE @ WEBIT PR
Second Life Can Cause Heart-ache In Real Life
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK — Nov 14 — Around 15 million have become "residents" since it was
founded in 2003. You can start a new
career, own a big house with a pool and, increasingly, fall in love.
But while the house and the heels stay in Second Life, the real
people behind the avatars carry their heightened emotions back into
their first life – sometimes with devastating consequences for their
marriage or relationship. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Matrimonial Portals
KNOWLEDGE WHARTON — Nov 13 — Anupam Mittla, founder of Shaadi.com and
Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO of
BharatMatrimony.com say that over the past five years, the
online matrimonial market in India, which they estimate to be currently
around US$50 million, has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of
50% to 70%. The India Online 2008 Matrimony report identifies
Janakiraman and Mittal as market leaders with nearly 70% of the market
between them in terms of the user base. The industry has a host of
small players, including those with extremely niche positioning like secondshaadi.com (for second marriages), idontwantdowry.com (for those against the practice of dowry), h1bmarriages.com (for non-resident Indians and technical professionals), positivesaathi.com
(for HIV-positive people) and so on. FULL ARTICLE @ KNOWLEDGE WHARTON
See all posts on BharatMatrimony
See all posts on Shaadi
See all posts on SecondShaadi
Match.com Rolls Out Personality Testing
NMA.CO.UK — Nov 13 — The 30-minute test will take users through 56 questions, some based on images. Early results show 88% of members were completing the test. Earlier this year eHarmony launched a compatibility-matching product following a research partnership with the Oxford Internet Institute.
The full article was originally published at NMA.co.uk, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: 20-30 minute tests are ideal. Users are less likely to answer accurately much beyond a 30 minute test. They get bored and start rushing through. Having interesting questions helps.
Violet Lim, Co-founder Of Lunch Actually Interview
OPW INTERVIEW — Nov 15 — I met Violet at the Matchmakers Conference in September. She’s runs Lunch Actually in Singapore. – Mark Brooks
Tell me about Lunch Actually.
My husband and I started Lunch Actually in 2004. It’s a company that arranges one to one lunch dates for business professionals. Ever since we launched 2 other branches. One is in Malaysia and one in Hong Kong in additional to our office in Singapore.
How does it work?
Client comes to our office for a face to face consultation and this is when we screen them. Once they decide to join, we start looking for suitable matches for them. Once a match is found we will arrange everything from booking a restaurant to reminding them about the date. After each date we require feedback which is very important because this is how we fine-tune what they’re looking for and then we set them up with their next match.
What do you charge?
Our fee ranges from about 850 sing dollars 1650 sing dollars.
And you have another site, Interact right?
Yes that’s right. Interact is a company that does something totally different. Eteract.com is an online portal where singles can go online and interact with each other. We have online speed dating, 3D chat rooms, so singles can dress up their avatar and send gifts to each other and that has worked very well for us.
I think the government has had some involvement with that?
The government doesn’t have a stake in it but in the past years the government has been very interested in the dating industry. They have set up a funding for the dating industry. It’s called Partner Connection Fund. So new dating agencies or active dating agencies can tap onto this funding, outline what their plans are get 50,000 sing dollars max. Eteract has tapped onto this funding and received about 49,000 from the government to develop the site.
So what’s next?
We are looking to start another branch once the one stabilizes in Hong Kong. Our next destination will be in Shanghai. Eteract is currently available in Singapore and once we’re done developing it (we’re still in the Beta) we are going to grow it out regionally in Asia and eventually worldwide.
SNAP Makes $500k In Q2
TRADING MARKETS — Nov 12 — SNAP Interactive's focus is building applications on social networks. Their biggest application, "Are You Interested", is the leading pure dating application on the web and a Top 10 app on Facebook with over 11m users. SNAP reported $533,257 revenue for Q2. SNAP has 17m installations and ~1.4m visits a day. ~14-15m of the 17m users are currently on Facebook.
The full article was originally published at Trading Markets, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: SNAP anticipates revenues of $870k for Q3.
New OPW Sponsor – asesoft net
OPW — Nov 13 — Arthur knows how to build dating and social networking sites. He's created numerous specialty sites including Adam4Adam.com, ShopMania.com, Mary.com, myPartner.com and PeopleFishing.com. He's the latest new client of Courtland Brooks and sponsor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com (OPW). Please email me if you need the services of a super competent, super reliable, very reasonably priced development house. I've been using him for client work. Now I'm letting the cat out of the bag about asesoft net. I'm proud to be working with Arthur Radulescu and its great to have him as a client and sponsor. I hired him, now he's hiring us. Funny old world. – Mark Brooks
be2 Raises €15 Million
PRESS RELEASE — Nov 12 — be2,
a global matchmaking site with more than 12m members in 34 countries,
received an investment of €15m from the Index Ventures growth fund. be2
will use the capital to further international expansion and increase
its user base in existing markets.
Mark Brooks: Keep your eyes on this company. One to watch. 😉