WEBNEWSWIRE – Apr 16 – The 10th annual iDate Conference will be held in Las Vegas on January 16-18, 2013. iDate has been moved from Miami to Las Vegas for several reasons. Multiple large internet and advanced technology conventions take place in Las Vegas during that time. Most noteable is Affiliate Summit. The internet dating industry’s most recognized CEOs and new startup founders will discuss their future business strategies, including marketing, acquisitions and new technology.
Month: April 2012
UCLA Professors Say eHarmony Is Unscientific
LA WEEKLY – Apr 17 – "If you're gonna make scientific claims, act like a scientist. Or don't make scientific claims," UCLA social psychology professor Benjamin Karney says. On Feb. 17, Karney and 4 co-authors published "Online Dating: A Critical Analysis From the Perspective of Psychological Science," a study that looks at established relationship science to critique dating sites that claim to have a scientific basis for matching singles, including eHarmony, Chemistry, PerfectMatch and GenePartner. eHarmony claims its methods are "scientifically proven to predict happier, healthier long-term relationships." Proven, Karney wonders, by whom? Though he received a Ph.D. in psychology from University of Chicago in 1967, eHarmony founder Neil Clark Warren admitted in a 2006 article in the Atlantic, "I hated doing research." The biggest problem with Warren's algorithm is that it seems to be based on conclusions drawn from already married couples: He says that similar people are more likely to form happy, long-term relationships. But Karney points out that successful couples tend to perceive themselves as similar, regardless of whether they would have done so as unacquainted strangers. "If I like you, I'll find a way to be similar," he says. So perceived similarities are a consequence, not a cause, of strong relationships. For eHarmony, affiliation with Gonzaga and Bradbury appears to be PR gold that creates the impression that the site's matching methods are based on hard science. The question remains whether the legitimate research Gonzaga has been churning out will be used for anything more than publicity.
by Amanda Lewis
See full article at LA Weekly
$1.22 Million Funding For TheComplete.me
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 16 – TheComplete.me launched a Facebook app in March that pulls in and analyzes data from Facebook and other social sites to figure out who you might be a good fit with. Led by Brian Bowman, the former VP of product at Match.com, it’s also announcing $1.22M seed round from Intel Capital, psuedo-rival dating site PlentyofFish, the CrunchFund, and a list of prominent angels. The app goes further than Facebook, too. Once you’re logged in, you can also connect with LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Photobucket, Flickr, Foursquare, GoodReads, and Instagram. It then pulls in unique data about you from each service to figure out even richer matches. In private beta testing so far, it has amassed ~1.5M profiles of users and their friends, which is already helping to shape recommendations. At the same time, theComplete.me preserves anonymity. Users only see each others first names initially, and nothing gets posted to Facebook for others to see (unless you manually enable it to do that).
by Eric Eldon
See full article at Tech Crunch
See all posts on theComplete.me
See all posts on POF.com
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Special Mobile Dating Pre-Conference At iDate, June 20th
WEBWIRE – Apr 16 – Mark Brooks, publisher of Online Personals Watch and CEO of Courtland Brooks, will provide a special 3 hour pre-conference session “Developing a Mobile Dating Strategy” on June 20th at the Mobile Dating Conference in Los Angeles. The event takes place on June 20-22, 2012 at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA.
No Scrolling Required At New Dating Sites
NY TIMES – Apr 13 – Me So Far is one in a spate of recently founded dating services that combine the power of the Internet with retro dating, with singles parties so big they are organized through Web sites, and real-life matchmakers who use Klout scores to help match couples. Me So Far costs from $20 to $30 a person. Amanda Hofman, CEO of Urban Girl Squad, a women’s networking group, said her parties are a result of the members’ desire to date through old-fashioned friendly introductions. So every few months, about 200 men and women in their 20s and 30s wear name tags and pay $15 each to sip drinks and mingle. Another dating concept being tested is Tawkify, a dating site without online profiles. Instead, Tawkify applicants submit photos and answer 10 questions about themselves. If they are accepted, a team of matchmakers interview them over the phone then set them up on a telephone date the following Monday at 10 p.m. Matches are told almost nothing about each other before the call, which is automated through a service that the Tawkify founders refer to as “Mr. Brooks,” because it seemed like a fine name for a dating butler. The company is billing itself as the first to use Klout scores, a measure of one’s digital influence, as a matchmaking metric. The higher your score, the more likely you are to be matched with someone of similar status. Hitch.me is a new dating site for LinkedIn members. Unlike most online dating sites, where users spend hours scrolling through profiles of strangers, on Hitch.me they can swiftly find someone — even someone who is in their business or social circle — then get off the site and meet.
Online Dating Startup Events In April & May
EXPERT CLICK – Apr 14 – 1. Life 3.0 Founders & Funders, April 18th, San Francisco - iDate is sponsoring the Life 3.0 Founders & Funders event. Over 50 dating startups and over 800 attendees will be there. Speakers include the Founder of Zoosk, Shayan Zadeh and Founder of TheComplete.me, Brian Bowman on the future of online relationships. One of the first people to build an online dating site, Will Bunker, will speak as well. 2. iDate Startup, May 2nd, Toronto – An evening of discussion on new dating technologies and marketing methods. A networking and singles party follows the event. Speakers include: Laura Bilotta (CEO) SingleInTheCity.ca, Evan Back (VP of Sales) Ashley Madison, Carmela Ray (Co-Founder) DatingLoveandSexTips.com, Pat Ness (Co-Founder) DatingLoveandSexTips.com, Dr. Lydia Belton (CEO) DateTherapy, Marc Lesnick (Conference Organizer) iDate.
3. iDate Startup, May 17th, New York - iDate is sponsoring Beverly May from MiniDates. The session takes place during Internet Week in NY.
Register here: http://www.idatestartup.com/register-form.php
Skyecandy Launches Introduce ME
PR WEB – Apr 14 – Skyecandy is moving away from Skype to the Web by launching "Introduce ME". Skyecandy Video Dating on the Web remains just like speed dating, but from the comfort of home. Users go for one to ten dates, face-to-face, to see where their webcam takes them. There is no hiding behind profiles or photos from years ago. They say Yes or No between dates to tell Skyecandy how it went. If it is a Yes both ways, they have found their match. They are free to exchange their chosen IMs or Social Network contacts and take their second dates anywhere. With Introduce ME users find people they like and send personal, one-to-one, introductions. If people say Yes to their introductions, they are free to exchange messages and contacts and off they go.
20% Of Gaydar Users Planning Civil Partnerships Next Year
PINK NEWS – Apr 3 – A poll released by Gaydar today says a fifth of its users are planning to become someone’s civil partner in the next year. 60% said they would wear an engagement ring, presumably consistently. 45% would like a religious ceremony and 48% intend to walk up an aisle at their civil partnership.
GlobalPersonals.co.uk Got A Facelift
OPW – Apr 13 – GlobalPersonals.co.uk, the parent company of WhiteLabelDating.com, has introduced a brand new company website. According to the live statistics on the home page, the company gains a new member every 4 seconds. GlobalPersonals.co.uk has now close to 12M members across 7600 partner sites.
Recommended Reading: Dating Sites Blogs
OPW – Apr 14 – We do a lot of reading every day. One of our valuable news sources are internet dating blogs. A lot of dating sites have them, written by their staff or owners. Some are good, some are so so. We recently listed most of them on our Company Index for your reference. Here's our top picks… Some are really worth reading.
OkTrends (by OkCupid) was a real star. We used to read it, often used the posts for OPW – and we weren´t the only ones. Data from their studies made it to the major outlets, were featured on Seattle Times, Time, NY Times and many more. They certainly did something right. Unfortunately the last post on this blog was published about a year ago, shortly after OkCupid was acquired by Match.com. But the blog is still live and you can read it´s older posts and a little birdie told us, that they´re collecting some unpublished posts and plan on making a book of them. As soon as we find out more, we'll let you know.
Another favorite is the Plenty of Fish blog, written by the occasionally controversial founder and CEO of POF, Markus Frind. This blog is different from the others. Its more internet dating industry focused. Not really for actual internet daters.
Up To Date is the name of Match.com´s official blog. It´s quite focused on the members of Match – it has a lot of "success stories" posts, but it also provides data based on studies conducted by Match.com, along with occasional guest posts. You can usually find something interesting there. Match.com US also runs a magazine called "Happen".
Badoo´s and Zoosk´s blogs are similarly focused. Zoosk uses videos a lot – we think, that´s a good move. Our blog posts always get more readers when we use a video in them.
Another big player, eHarmony, runs the eHarmony Advice blog. It´s tagline says: "eHarmony experts´ take on dating, relationships and the science of love" – and it pretty much explains what the blog is about.
These are the big ones – but not the only interesting dating blogs. Do you know why people are leaving dating sites? You'll know more after reading this post on the DateHookup blog.
Does your dating site have an interesting blog? Is it missing from our Company Index? Send us a link, we will fix it.
(Full Disclosure: POF is a client of Courtland Brooks)