PR WEB – Feb 15 - Over 4,900 members of the free online dating website, Smooch.com, were asked if they would cancel Valentine's Day, to which a surprising 54% said they would if they could. In contrast, just 46% wanted to preserve the special day. The survey revealed that women (58%) were more likely than men (51%) to cancel Valentine's Day. Those who are married or widowed were the least likely to cancel Valentine's Day. Respondents with a ‘very high salary' were the most likely (60%) to cancel Valentine's Day. FULL ARTICLE @ BENZINGA
Month: February 2011
Anastasia International Breaks World Kissing Record
PRESS RELEASE – Feb 14 – Guinness World Records has recognized Anastasia International as the new world record holder for Most Kisses Received in One Minute – 118 smackers. The new record was set this Valentine’s weekend in the popular Black Sea resort of Odessa, Ukraine, where a small army of Ukrainian women precision smooched a single American man and together broke the existing record. American-Russian owned and operated Anastasia organized the records breach as part of an extravaganza charity event. Proceeds benefit the Ukrainian Red Cross Society.
Cheating, Incorporated
BUSINESS WEEK – Feb 14 – Noel Biderman is the CEO of Avid Life Media, based in Toronto. "Monogamy, in my opinion, is a failed experiment," he declares. Adultery has been good to Biderman, but defending his product is a full-time job. After spending several years as a sports agent at Chicago's Interperformances, Biderman founded Ashley Madison in 2002, naming the company after the two most popular names for baby girls that year. AshleyMadison is by far Avid Life's most successful brand with 8.5M members, 1.3 million of whom have actually paid something. Avid Life is expected to generate $60M in revenue this year and $20M in profit. Biderman is quick to explain why his business isn't hurting anyone. "You eradicate Ashley Madison, you're not going to eradicate infidelity.Do you think if you stop allowing divorce attorneys to advertise, we would stop people from getting divorced?" he says. According to Justin Wolfers, an economist, Ashley Madison provides liquidity to an illiquid market, which may make the market bigger. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK
How Has Internet Dating Changed Society?
OPW – Feb 14 – We sent out a survey asking the 400 executive members of the Internet Dating Executive Alliance about how they thought Internet dating had changed society, and how it might change society it in the future.
This white paper is a compendium of their responses. Executives from Match, People Media, Shaadi, Bharat Matrimony, Baihe, Fling, Parship, Friendscout24 and Christiancafe responded, among many others. 39 in all. Please take a coffee, take 10, and soak this up and let us know your thoughts at mark at courtlandbrooks.com.
Love In The Time Of Smartphones
PC WORLD – Feb 14 – These days, it is even easier to find your future partner on the Internet thanks to mobile versions of your favorite dating sites. Sites like OKCupid, Match.com, and Plentyoffish all have compatible mobile apps. Flirtomatic is part social network and part dating site. More popular overseas than in the United States, Flirtomatic lets you “flirt” with strangers via either the dedicated mobile app or the mobile Web. Location-based apps that allow you to check in to a bar or restaurant, like Foursquare or Gowalla, are all the rage right now, especially since Facebook has jumped on the bandwagon. They can help friends find each other during a night on the town, and they’re useful for sharing tips about a hot-drink special in the neighborhood. But these apps are also a good way to keep tabs on your partner. FULL ARTICLE @ PC WORLD
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Dating Sites For Entrepreneurs
ENTREPRENEUR – Feb 14 – Looking to explore the online dating industry, Benji Kurtz launched a handful of niche dating sites in 2001 focused on everything from religious backgrounds to physical stature, such as height and size. Over the next 10 years, Kurtz's love businesses grew to include more than 1,000 sites in about 100 different niches. In 2005 that Kurtz recognized the need to launch an entrepreneur-specific dating site, which he aptly named EntrepreneurDate.com. Today there are 160K members on EntrepreneurDate.com. Kurtz uses a freemium business model. MatchmakingInc.com is another site focused squarely on entrepreneurs.
The full article was originally published at Reuters, but is no longer available.
Elizabeth Falzone To Lead eLove’s East Coast Offices
PRESS RELEASE – Feb 14 – Elizabeth Falzone, professional matchmaker, has recently been appointed as Regional Director of eLove and will oversee the Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey offices. Ms. Falzone will be collaborating with her husband Paul A. Falzone, CEO of eLove, in running matchmaking operations on the East Coast. She will be responsible for hiring, training and motivating the staff as well as ensuring that sales goals are met.
The full article was originally published at DBusiness, but is no longer available.
Love May Be The Drug, But Work Is No Longer Place To Score
GLOBE AND MAIL – Feb 13 – According to a new U.S. survey of 5,200 single people, only a third would be willing to date someone they met on the job. And only 12% said they actually do date a colleague. “Office romances are few, short and not usually destructive,” said Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist. Only 6% of single women said they had ever dated their boss. People now have many other opportunities to meet potential partners aside from the workplace, most notably via the Internet. Citing another survey of more than 11,000 married people, Dr. Fisher said: “One out of six marriages made in the past three years were between people who met online – more than twice the number who met in bars, clubs or other social events and many more times than through church or place of worship.”
By Susan Pinker
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.
New Phone App For Christian Dating
PRESS RELEASE – Feb 13 – ChristianCafe.com has launched an app that connects Christian singles using Android powered phones. Android smartphone users can browse dating profiles of Christian singles and communicate with them using their phone. The Android app experience fully integrates with a member’s account on ChristianCafe.com. FULL ARTICLE @ OREGON FAITH REPORT
Looking For Love? Cupid’s Got Apps For That
MIAMI HERALD – Feb 14 – The most popular are apps that use Global Positioning System to find a date near your typical hangout spot. Skout, an app for iPhone and Android, claims 3M active users. With an average user age of 25, the free app is more youth friendly than sites like eHarmony and Match.com. Such established sites have yet to incorporate such GPS tags; the idea of getting alerts from strangers who are physically nearby seems creepy and stalker-like to many users, says online dating business consultant Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. Still, the category is growing. Grindr, an app for gay men, boasts 1.4M users and 300K log-ons a day, according to Grindr’s founder and CEO, Joel Simkhai. Though GPS-based tagging is this year’s hot trend, other technology-based matchmaking tactics may also facilitate finding the love of your life. For those who are shy, OmniDate.com lets users use an animated avatar of themselves and plops it into an animated chat room on the first date. OmniDate co-founder Ravit Abelman said it has been picked up by several dating sites, including Lavalife, TangoWire, JDate in Europe and the Facebook app Social Connect. She said it has been successful because it’s a way to break the ice beyond a bullet-list profile and lifeless e-mails.
The full article was originally published at Miami Herald, but is no longer available.
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