TECH CRUNCH – Jan 12 - GameCrush is launching its own take on the Chatroulette-like experience with Crush-O-Matic. The new service is a random game generator where users click “Go!” and automatically get matched up with another user in a two-way cam-enabled game session. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Month: January 2011
Single Dads Have Little Value In Dating World
THE STAR – Jan 12 – ~ 70 % of childless Canadian women seeking love on eHarmony decline to be matched with men who have children. “Children add an extra layer of challenge to dating,” says Dr. Gian Gonzaga, senior director of research and development for eHarmony Labs. “The concern women have is that they can never be the only person in his life because there is a child who is going to take some of his attention.” eHarmony membership data shows 63% decline matches with single moms. FULL ARTICLE @ THE STAR
Mark Brooks: When singles with kids date, they need to fall in love with both the man/woman they're dating AND they're kids. Perhaps eHarmony should profile the kids as well. Its a package deal.
Muslims In France Torn Between Tradition And Modernity Over Relationships
NATIONAL POST – Jan 12 - France’s Muslims, regularly accused by the country’s right-wing politicians of not adapting to the culture here, are torn between tradition and modernity when it comes to relationships and marriage, according to a new poll. 84% opposed the legalization of polygamy in France, while 83% reject the notion that parents should choose spouses for their children. 73% are against sex outside marriage, while 53% were unwilling to marry a non-Muslim. France has the largest number of Muslims of any European country. FULL ARTICLE @ NATIONAL POST
Mark Brooks: The Qu'Ran allows men to have up to 4 wives. ~2% of muslim men have multiple wives. The men must have the means to furnish each wife with their own separate living arrangements and treat them equally. He's not permitted to sleep with multiple at once, rather share his time among them. The age-old idea is that when men are in short supply, after a war, moral depravity would result. Therefore, it was more acceptable if men took additional wives. So perhaps in China, women should be taking multiple husbands?
Match And eHarmony Go Head-to-head To Attract Consumer Love
MARKETING WEEK – Jan 11 – Match is promoting its ’Affinity’ service through a series of unscripted documentary-style TV advertisements. At the same time, eHarmony is running a TV, radio and print campaign promoting its “real UK success couples” and its UK country manager says the company is likely to trial a crowdsourced ad in its next TV promotion. Advertising of online dating sites has evolved, according to Match managing director Karl Gregory, changing from humorous ads trying to dismiss online dating taboos to more emotional marketing. The UK online dating industry is predicted to be worth 150m GBP annually by 2014, according to Mintel and currently harbours over 1,400 dating websites. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKETING WEEK
Badoo.com Chose Geolocation Technology From Digital Element
PR NEWSWIRE – Jan 11 – For the social dating network Badoo.com, location is an important element. Badoo runs a location-based social website service in ~200 countries around the world and needed a way to provide users with access to services focused on their locality and local language. To meet these location-based needs, the company turned to Digital Element, the leader in IP Intelligence and geolocation solutions. FULL ARTICLE @ PR NEWSWIRE
ManPlay Launches And Explodes Onto The Net
PRESS RELEASE – Jan 11 – ManPlay, an online dating site for gays, has officially launched. The site is part of the Infinity Personals network of dating sites which has 35M members. The site features chat rooms, message boards, a virtual sex world, and an online theater to help members find their local hookups. FULL ARTICLE @ PR INSIDE
Infinity Personals Hits 35 Million Members
PRESS RELEASE – Jan 11 - Infinity Personals powers several casual dating sites, including SexSearch.com, ManPlay.com, and PassionSearch.com, and has hit the 35M member mark on January 8th. Infinity Personals powers some of the largest community sites on the internet.
The full article was originally published at Free Press Release, but is no longer available.
Oxytocin Hormone Appears To Know Some Bounds
NY TIMES – Jan 10 – Oxytocin has been described as the hormone of love. This chemical, released from the hypothalamus region of the brain, keeps male prairie voles monogamous and makes people trust each other more. The love and trust it promotes are not toward the world in general, just toward a person’s in-group. “Oxytocin creates intergroup bias primarily because it motivates in-group favoritism and because it motivates out-group derogation.” FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMESGames, Dating And Marketplace Do Well On Facebook
INSIDE FACEBOOK – Jan 10 - CityVille is once again the leader of our weekly AppData list of fastest-growing Facebook apps by monthly active users but several other apps also made significant gains. Dating app Badoo is doing better than ever with 2.6M new MAU. The Hot-or-Not style app has been battling with Are YOU Interested? for the top spot in its genre, but at this point, it appears to be breaking away. FULL ARTICLE @ INSIDE FACEBOOK
Match’s New Documentary Ads
MARKETING WEEK – Jan 7 – Match is launching documentary-style series of advertisements to promote its MatchAffinity.com relationship service. The “Going the Distance” TV campaign launches 1 February and will combine non-scripted documentary footage filmed throughout the month of January. MatchAffinity.com suggests compatible relationship matches based on results of an in-depth affinity test and was added to the Match brand portfolio in 2005. It has ~10 M users. Match says it has 50-60% of the UK online dating market share across its brands which include Match.com and Dating Direct. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKETING WEEK
Mark Brooks: Match Affinity is Europe focused and was Meetic's effort at a personality profiling site. A la Chemistry.com, in the USA.