NY TIMES – Oct 15 – No one was more eager to advertise on the new ABC comedy “Cougar Town” than CougarLife.com. But ABC rejected the commercial. The site is urging visitors to sign an online petition to get the network to change its mind. The commercial has appeared during the broadcast on about 15 stations in cities like Miami, Denver and Pittsburgh. But Noel Biderman, president of Avid Life Media in Toronto, which owns six dating sites including CougarLife.com, said those were “not major metropolitan centers, which is not how you build dating sites. You really need to be in L.A. and New York and Chicago.” Cougar Town drew 11.4M viewers to its premiere on Sept. 23, and 9M and 7.8M for its second and third episodes, respectively, according to Nielsen. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES
Month: October 2009
Original Founders Re-Acquire Speed Dating Service From Cupid.com
PRESS RELEASE – Oct 14 - Pre-Dating.com, the “speed dating” live events service has been re-acquired by its original founders. Pre-Dating.com was a division of online dating site Cupid.com. “In the first week since taking over, we’ve already enacted new changes such as lower pricing, more customer friendly event cancellation policies and stronger joint venture and cross-promotional arrangements", says Sundrea Ryan, COO for Pre-Dating Speed Dating.
Psychometric Testing
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Oct 19 – Over the past year a number of online dating sites have
launched psychometric testing to identify compatible partners.
Psychometric testing scientifically analyses how you interpret
situations, the way that you make decisions and react to problems to
create a personality type on a much deeper, psychological level than
have previously been used in dating. 'Psychometric assessment allows us
to take the pool of all potential partners, narrow it down and
introduce only those you're highly compatible with,' says Dr Gian
Gonzaga, a senior research scientist at eharmony.co.uk. Developed
in the early 20th century by scientists, these tests were used to
recruit spies by the British during World War II and were then later
taken up by the CIA. In the Sixties, Professor Raymond Cattell
invented questionnaires that
looked at a range of personality traits in the workplace. The Civil
Service still uses the system today both in recruiting and to help its
managers find the best way to mange their staff according to their
psychometric profiles. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILYMAIL.CO.UK
A Question Of Sex – Boy / Girl / ?
OPW – Oct 18 – The male/female definition on dating sites may not be enough. Perhaps you read about the hermaphrodite, Caster Semenya, who won the women's 800m World Championship in August. The latest edition of the Economist makes an interesting case on
intersexuality and concludes that sex is a complicated thing to define.
This has implications for the internet dating industry. Your comments
please. – Mark Brooks
THE ECONOMIST – Oct 15 – At least 1.7% of people are born with one of
several dozen possible intersexual conditions. A few are apparent from
birth, some become visible only at puberty and many may never be
identified. Instead of two X chromosomes, some women have three. Men may
have an extra X chromosome or two on top of their normal XY
combination. Though legal systems assume that male and
female are indisputable categories, none defines them. A rare exception
is in Australia, where a Human Rights Commission report in March 2009
recommended that adults should be allowed to register their sex as
“unspecified” on documents such as passports. In 2000 a Texan widow sued her late
husband’s doctor for malpractice. But during the case, it was revealed
that she become a woman after a sex-change operation.
The judge ruled that the marriage was void. Just ask Ms Semenya, whose privacy
has been trampled and achievement undermined. Her “gender verification”
tests are due to be published next month. FULL ARTICLE @ THE ECONOMIST
Birth Control Pill Could Put Women Off Macho Men?
REUTERS – Oct 8 - Researchers said that women whose hormones are chemically controlled are less likely to seek out muscular, rugged men. Whereas ovulating women not on the pill are particularly attracted to men showing dominance and male-male competitiveness and prefer partners who are genetically dissimilar to themselves. The birth control pill could also throw a spanner in the works of the laws of natural attraction as it prevents women giving off monthly fertility signals believed to be subtly alluring to men.
The full article was originally published at Yahoo News, but is no longer available.
The WLD Team Get Their Groove On
WLD BLOG – Oct 16 – WhiteLabelDating.com team would like to share
this video which was put together under the auspicious leadership of
Miss Melanie Kirk, WLD.com's social media manager.
Caught In Love’s Cruel Web
BRISBANE TIMES – Oct 16 – Cupid Media is rejecting 3000 personal profiles each day suspected
of being created by fraudsters preying on singles. The figure
represents one fifth of profiles created each day on Cupid Media's
dating sites, the company's managing director Andrew Bolton said. Ways
to spot a fake dating profile include poor use of English on a profile
of a person purporting to be from an English-speaking background such
as America, or use of profile photos which looked unrealistic, he said. FULL ARTICLE @ BRISBANE TIMES
Mark Brooks: Manual methods are good for catching the most obvious scammers. But don't go it alone. iovation, a sponsor of OPW, helps the internet dating industry to work together to beat scammers. Over the last three years iovation has wrapped their arms around the dating business and work with several of the top 15 dating sites.
Internet Dating Industry Weekly News Oct 16th, 2009 – 4 mins
This is the news for the week of October 11th through October 16th, 2009. We hope you enjoy the new weekly news format. Please follow this link to enjoy the high-resolution version. Here is the news we covered for this week:
- False alarm: Match.com’s NOT hacked
- U.S. online dating rankings from September
- Update on FriendFriend’s IPO process
- Virtual goods market expected to hit $1 billion this year
- Match.com partners with Mother advertising agency
- Publisher Conde Nast teams up with Glamour and GQ sites
- White Label Dating’s new webcam feature
comScore U.S.A. Internet Dating Rankings Update
OPW – Oct 16 – comScore, which measures total unique visitors, has released their iDate rankings for September. Not only did Singlesnet hold strong at #1 (3,713), but the site actually saw an increase of nearly 450 unique visitors from August. Meanwhile, Yahoo Personals experienced a major downturn, falling from #2 to #4. The site hauled in only 2,705 unique visitors in September versus 3,132 in August.
Yahoo’s loss was PlentyofFish’s gain. The free dating site had 2,986 unique visitors last month, up more than 200 from August. As a result, PlentyofFish vaulted from #5 to #2 in the comScore rankings, just ahead of Match at # 3 (2,904). TRUE slipped a spot to #5 with 2,680 unique visitors.
The order of the #6-#10 positions remained People Media sites, eHarmony, Mate1, Spark Networks and DateHookup, respectively.
eLove Combines Online And Traditional Matchmaking
PRESS RELEASE – Oct 15 – eLove is a new dating site, different from other dating services. It combines online and traditional matchmaking services. Singles have the option to do everything – from browsing the vast online database in search of a date to eliciting the assistance of a professional matchmaker to help them meet their soul mate. eLove also provides the latest tools in video/audio/text chat IM; video profiles, voicemail, email and more. All matchmaking service members are pre-screened and undergo a mandatory criminal background check.