PC WORLD – Feb 12 – OkCupid's fans were not reassured by the immediate disappearance of an OkTrends blog entry from last April. OkCupid's CEO, Sam Yagan, says that he decided to remove the blog post on his own, deeming it to contain inaccurate assumptions about the other sites' data. He also maintains that OkCupid will continue to operate separately from Match.com and be free for most users. OkCupid is extremely data driven. The site's OkTrends blog employs sophisticated statistical analysis. Now all of that data is in the hands of Match.com's parent company, InterActive Corp (IAC). According to Match.com's privacy policy, the company reserves the right to share personally identifiable information with "other IAC businesses". However, Yagan insists that OkCupid's privacy policy–which limits the amount of data it shares with third parties–will continue to govern the data that the site collects. "We are not planning to share any personally identifiable information with anyone," he says. "Just because we were acquired doesn't mean we're handing over any user data." FULL ARTICLE @ PC WORLD
Month: February 2011
Valentine, Don’t Sweat Online Dating: Outsource
CNET NEWS – Feb 11 – Virtual Dating Assistants makes heady promises on its site. For example: "We do it. You date. Online dating, simplified." For the lowest price of $360 a month, VIDA will scour between one and three online dating sites and do all sorts of things that make you look better than you really are. They will write your profile, choose your photos and correspond with all potential candidates. $1,440 a month VIDA will give you an executive briefing before you go on your date and date concierge services.
The full article was originally published at CNet News, but is no longer available.
Meetic 2010 Annual Revenue
OPW – Feb 11 – Meetic's 2010 consolidated annual revenue came to €186M, an increase of +17.8% YOY. Annual subscription sales were €183.6M, up +19.8% on 2009. Revenue for the Q4 of 2010 came to €48.3M, an increase of +6.1% compared to Q4 2009. This quarter, like the previous one, saw dynamic sequential growth, notably doped by the increase in Matchmaking. Over 2010, the Group thus acquired 40K additional subscribers on the Matchmaking segment, giving a total of 140K clients at the end of 2010. Matchmaking contributed ~€34M to the Group’s total revenue in 2010, an increase of +34% compared to 2009. Download the full press release HERE.
Internet Dating Scamming Survey
OPW – Feb 11 – Scamming and date baiting is in the press again. OculusAI, a company that helps dating sites speed up the image moderation process, and IDEA (Internet Dating Executive Association) conducted a survey to understand how extensive the problem is. They asked CEO's and executives of internet dating companies the following questions:
Here are the results.
1. Do you currently allocate manual or automated resources to monitor member photo scams?
11 out of 15 (73%) respondents currently use manual or automated resources to monitor photos. Most of them do it manually.
2. Do you have a method to identify scammers using bogus photos?
Only 5 out of 15 (33%) respondents use some kind of method to identify scammers who used bogus photos.
3. Do you have a database of known photo scammers?
8 out of 15 (53%) respondents have a database of scammers who used a bogus photo.
4. Would you collaborate with other dating sites by sharing your scammer images to create a global scammer database to more effectively prevent fraudulent behavior?
The majority (73%) of respondents are willing to share the scammers images to create a global database of scammers.
Documentary “When Strangers Click” Premieres On HBO On Monday
OPW – Feb 11 – The documentary "When Strangers Click: Five Stories from the Internet," directed by Robert Kenner, director of last year's Oscar-nominated FOOD, INC, will be premiering this coming Monday, Valentine's Day, on HBO. The producers are also collecting new stories on their Facebook fan page.
You can watch the trailer here.
Group Dating Startup Ignighter Raises $3 Million
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 11 – Ignighter, the group dating site, has raised $3M from a number of well-known investors. This brings the company’s total funding to $4.2M.Ignighter allows groups of friends to collaborate on a group profile, where they can include photos and specify their interests. The site then presents a list of possible matches with other groups and helps them arrage get-togethers in the real world. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
San Francisco Home To Online Dating
NBC BAY AREA – Feb 10 – When it comes to online dating, San Francisco is at the center of the action. “We have the most fans in San Francisco, as a percentage of the population, and probably our biggest penetration of any market,” says Sam Yagan from OK Cupid. Industry leaders Match.com and eHarmony maintain a high profile in Northern California as well, but the Bay Area is also home to the next generation of dating services, like DateBuzz and Skout. DateBuzz, which launched in December, positions itself as a place where busy young professionals can meet. Skout works on on smartphones with GPS to help people flirt with each other based on proximity. The advantage of this approach is that it is quicker – people can meet on impulse. FULL ARTICLE @ NBC BAY AREA
See all posts on OkCupid See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on eHarmony See all posts on DateBuzz
See all posts on Skout
Online Dating For Nerds
PC WORLD – Feb 11 – Geek 2 Geek calls itself "the best place on the net to meet geeks." It boasts ~200K members, growing by 6K members each month. OtakuBooty is for fans of anime, manga, gaming, and cosplay. OtakuBooty is part online dating and part social networking. The name comes from a Japanese slang term for "nerd". Cupidtino describes itself as the first (and only) "Mac-inspired" dating site. That's right–if you love Apple products and the people who love Apple products, this site is for you. On Sweet on Geeks you can expect to find geeks, especially girl geeks. The 27K-member site is particularly balanced in the male-to-female ratio, unlike a lot of places on the Internet. OKCupid, a completely free dating site, is full of young singles–~70% of its users are between the ages of 18 and 35. On OKCupid, 55% of the users are men. FULL ARTICLE @ PC WORLD
Some eHarmony User Information Stolen
CNET NEWS – Feb 11 – eHarmony is advising some of its customers to change their passwords after being informed of a security breach. eHarmony said it had repaired the vulnerability and was notifying customers who may have been affected. Although the site did not reveal how many customers were affected, it did say it was less than 0.05%t of its user base of 33M users since its inception. The hacker from Argentina also reportedly approached eHarmony with an offer to sell his security services to the site to fix the flaw–an offer the dating site said it declined. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS
We Were Not Hacked, Said eHarmony
EHARMONY BLOG – Feb 10 -Some data was obtained without authorization from an ancillary informational site we operate, eHarmony Advice, which uses completely separate databases and web servers than eHarmony.com. From one eHarmony Advice database, the hacker obtained a file that included user names, email addresses and hashed passwords. User names and passwords are needed to gain access to the message boards on the eHarmony Advice site.
The full article was originally published at eHarmony blog, but is no longer available.