Month: February 2009

FriendFinder’s Latest Scandal

Posted on February 27, 2009

Friendfinder inc logo VALLEYWAG — Feb 26 — A porn star draping boobs over an employee's head. Lapdances on the company dime. $50m in back taxes. These are just some of the charges Penthouse publisher FriendFinder Networks is facing from an ex-employee Natalie Cedeno. FriendFinder filed to go public last year. It desperately needs the $460m it hopes to raise in an IPO in order to pay down $420m in debt. If the company has legal problems and labor issues beyond what it disclosed in its SEC filings, its executives could face heavy penalties, and the IPO would likely be scotched. According to Cedeno, Various operated Adult FriendFinder for seven years without drawing a single sexual-harassment lawsuit from employees.

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

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Recession Hits Paid Sites Hard

Posted on February 27, 2009

Plentyoffish logo PARADIGM SHIFT — Feb 26 — Rubicon ad network is reporting a 40% drop in Dating CPM’s. Now that Valentines day is over  I’ve seen massive swings in signups and paid sites are cutting back even more dramatically and payouts are going way down. In this last week Plentyoffish has been less than 1% way from having more market share than the #2 and #3 players combined in the US.  Plentyoffish hasn’t really grown much this month, we just haven’t lost traffic like many others.

The full article was originally published at Paradigm Shift, but is no longer available.

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2dn Annual Gay Bachelor Contest

Posted on February 27, 2009

Mypartner - contest PRESS RELEASE — Feb 26 — myPartner.com kicks-off the 2009 Most Eligible Gay Bachelor in America Contest on March 1st, 2009. Anyone can nominate themselves or their favorite eligible gay men starting March 1st through April 30. myPartner.com will select a winning bachelor for each state and one from the nation's capital to be voted for online.  The five top online vote winners will be flown to San Diego for final judging on June 20th.

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Four Reasons Why Online Dating Is Recession Proof

Posted on February 27, 2009

CNN — Feb 25 — One social activity that's NOT seeing a dip in participation is online dating. Here are four reasons why online dating is recession proof.

1. There's more fish in the pond
2. Narrow your options via e-mail, IM, and phone convos
3. Fit your financial lifestyle
4. You're that much closer to shared expenses
FULL ARTICLE @ CNN

Datopia Goes Social

Posted on February 27, 2009

Datopia logo PR WEB — Feb 25 — Revamped Datopia integrates social networking and web services, including text, video and e-mail chat.  Users can access Facebook, Twitter, AIM and Flickr in their Datopia profile and very soon be able to add Facebook and MySpace widgets, Youtube and iTunes feeds, and iPhone applications as well. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

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WLD Nominated At The National Sales Awards

Posted on February 26, 2009

Whitelabeldating logo
WLD BLOG — Feb 26 — Two partner managers from White Label Dating were nominated as
finalists in two separate categories at the National Sales Awards that
took place on Park Lane in London. Laura Cowell was a finalist in the category of “Account Manager of
the Year” and Gary Taylor in the category of “Young Sales Professional
of the Year”.

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No Single Way To Meet Your Significant Other

Posted on February 25, 2009

Online dating keyboard THE NEWS HERALD — Feb 25 — Ashton and Vanboxel met on PlentyofFish.com. Before they tried online dating, they found it pretty tough to meet other singles who shared their interests. There are other ways for singles to meet each other, said Lawrence Morrison, an event coordinator for Cupid.com. Along with speed dating, Cupid.com organizes singles events. "If nothing else, people are out there making a connection even if it's just a friendship." That's exactly what Ann DeMuth wanted to do when she started IndividuALLS, a Lake County-based singles club for people 50+ which does everything from hikes and picnics to dining out and theater.

The full article was originally published at The News Herald, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Singles events are a great way to meet people but are very high workload to organize. Match used to offer Matchlive.com but folded it in 2004. (Full Disclosure: POF is a client of Courtland Brooks, and I was VP of Cupid.com at the time they acquired PreDating.com, the speed-dating arm of Cupid)

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OnlineBootyCall.com Reaches 3 Million Users

Posted on February 25, 2009

OBCLOGO BUSINESS WIRE — Feb 24 — From January 1st through Valentine’s Day weekend, OnlineBootyCall has experienced a 38% YOY growth. Since the site launched in 2003, more than 75m bootycall connections have been made. FULL ARTICLE @ ONLINE BOOTY CALL

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Deciding To Ditch A Successful Ad Campaign

Posted on February 25, 2009

Eharmony-logo
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL — Feb 23 — eHarmony's successful five-year ad campaign was bringing
in millions of users and was so well-recognized that "Saturday Night
Live" parodied it. But eHamorny's CEO Mr. Waldorf worried the format – which featured
several daters per ad talking about the site – might be too
superficial. He wanted a way to focus more closely on individual
couples. He considered new commercials that featured one couple per ad
talking in-depth about their relationship. FULL ARTICLE @ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

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WhiteLabelDating.com Appoints Head Of Marketing

Posted on February 24, 2009

Whitelabeldating logo PRESS RELEASE — Feb 24 — WhiteLabelDating.com (WLD) enables brands to create their own online dating sites and has appointed Rick Jones to the new position of marketing director and board member. Jones has 11 years online marketing experience and joins WLD from Greenbee.com, John Lewis' services arm. Since August 2008 WLD has increased it's traffic by 23.35% and in Jan '09 the revenue was 73.48% higher than in Aug '08 according to Ross Williams, Chairman and founder of WLD. FULL ARTICLE @ REAL WIRE

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