PR WEB – June 19 – ndArtemis Technologies invested $250K into of 2LoveToda, a dating service powered by matchmaker Janis Spindel. The funds will be used to develop a transition from traditional matchmaking to free online dating & matchmaking through a Private Registry.
See full article at Digital Journal
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OPW – June 17 -The iDate agenda looks super strong now, and Marc's extended the deadline to Monday for buying tickets online at $975, vs $1250 at the door. So book online already, and save your company a few bucks.
I took a look over the iDate agenda and here's my top picks.
SinglesAroundMe was one of the first location based dating services and the CEO is going to speak about LBS dating's past, present and future.
Manhunt have gone the HTML5 route, rather than using a native app. The founder, Jonathan Crutchley will explain the why's and their challenges with HTML5 vs using a native app.
If you haven't gotten your head around Social Discovery yet, you need to. The CEO of Yoke.me will speak on this subject.
I'm really looking forward to seeing Geoff Cook, the CEO of Quepasa / MeetMe speak on social dating. He's one of the movers and shakers in the industry, and the COO of one of the few public companies.
Google and Bing are talking about mobile dating marketing. And the inimitable Ted Verani, who's worked for Trillibis for several year now, will give you the skinny on getting usability right on mobile dating. These two sessions alone should make the conference for you. Then there's startup pitches and an overview of mobile payments.
And that's just the first day! A few years ago that would have been an entire two day conference.
On the second day, HTC is speaking, no less. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have in the works. I love HTC phones. I must admit I'm carrying a Samsung Note now (plus iPhone). So I wonder how HTC will convert me and mdating users away next year?
IBIS World are doing reports on the idating industry now. They'll be attending and sharing numbers and analysis on the industry.
The afternoon Wednesday pre-conference session looks exemplary, with executives form Jumptap, Leadsmob and IM Grind giving the lay-of-the-land in marketing techniques. And I've knocked myself out to pull together a 3 hour pre-conference session on mobile dating strategy in a very different format than ever before. More on that later.
We hope you can make it. This is a conference you can't afford to miss. Mobile dating is the future, so we'd better get our heads around it.
TECH CRUNCH – June 17 – Grindr has surpassed 4M users (with 500K new users in the last quarter alone), and 1M active daily uniques. Blendr, the gender-open counterpart to Grindr, has also picked up steam.
HERALD SCOTLAND – June 17 – Cupid is lining up more deals as increased use of smartphones and social networking boosts the market. Cupid chairman George Elliott said: "We are currently investigating several acquisition opportunities." Cupid, originally called Easydate, operates brands including girlsdateforfree.com and planetsappho.com. Cupid has made several acquisitions recently, including Brazilian websites AondeNamoro.com, a traditional dating site and SolteirosComFilhos.com, a site for single parents, IndianDating.com and two German websites. Analysts at house broker Peel Hunt tip Cupid to post £16.5M of EBITDA. This would present a 50% increase YOY.
CONSUMER AFFAIRS – June 17 – The average dating scam victim loses nearly $9K, not counting the emotional cost. According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), Americans were robbed of $50M in online dating scams in 2011. The IC3 said it fields an average of 15 date-site-related complaints a day.
LA TIMES – June 14 – While some couples have tried creating a single Facebook account to share between the two of them, which can get a little messy, an upcoming eHarmony app will let couples share their blended life. It's not limited to users of eHarmony. eHarmony's Facebook app capitalizes on Facebook's Timeline by culling from users seperate accounts, shared check-ins, posts between the two of them and photos they're both tagged in. From that information, it puts together a timeline of their romance from their first meeting.
by Michelle Maltais
The full article was originally published at LA Times, but is no longer available.
WSJ – June 15 – 15M people had downloaded Skout. ~15% of the users were 13 to 17 years old. On Tuesday, that all changed. Skout suddenly shut down its teen community amid reports that predators allegedly connected with minors and raped or sexually assaulted them, using Skout’s app to facilitate the meetings. “We would ban all users from Skout if we had to, if we felt their safety was at risk, and we wouldn’t wait to do it,” CEO Wiklund said. Could Skout have prevented the situation with better technology? According to Wiklund, Skout’s security measures already included algorithms and bots that automatically looked for “bad behavior” by users. Skout also used crowdsourced photo moderation provided by Crowdflower to monitor profiles for pornographic content. The teen community generated about 20% of the company’s revenue, the CEO reports. Revenue was not a consideration in shutting it down, he said. Social networks, from Skout to Facebook, have yet to crack the code of accurate age verification online. Credit cards might be a potential avenue to online identity verification. But Wiklund says, “Teens don’t generally have credit cards.” Instead, Skout is considering other approaches. These may involve verifying a user’s identity against their profiles on Facebook.
OPW – June 15 – If You're Single is a new dating site that was launched by Larry Goodman. After being a member of several online dating sites without success, he created If You're Single. There is no algorithm involved in pairing members together. There are relationship coaches employed by If You're Single who walk members through how to create and project the best image of themselves. There are no simple questions to answer on If You're Single. Every question asked peels away layers so that members can get to know one another and find the match that is right for them.
OPW – June 15 – Today (Friday, June 15th) is the last day to register online for the mobile dating conference (iDate) and save $275. The conference is taking place next week in Los Angeles (June 20 – 22), at SLS Hotel Beverly Hills. This event has a strong focus on mobile technology, marketing and strategy for dating + the social discovery industry. Speakers include Robinne Burrell, Director of Mobile Products at Match.com, Joel Simkhai, CEO of Grindr, Alex Harrington, CEO of MeetMoi, Geoff Cook, COO of MeetMe, Tanya Fathers, CEO of Dating Factory and more.
HUFFINGTON POST – June 14 – One-year-old dating site Grouper connects people based on their Facebook profiles.The service requires the two people it connects to each bring along two friends on the date, creating 3-on-3 outings. Grouper partners with local hot spots and gets a discount on each party's first round of drinks in exchange for providing the venue with foot traffic. Grouper founder Michael Waxman declined to share revenue figures, but said that Grouper has organized "thousands of dates so far at over a hundred Manhattan venues" and is now "cash-flow positive."