POF BLOG – Feb 8 – Here are current POF stats in their 3 biggest markets.
The average age of a active daily user is now 35 years old. Down from 40 in 2009.
The full article was originally published at POF blog, but is no longer available.
IT WORLD – Feb 8 – Tallygram, a friend finder service, comes to us from the folks at OkCupid. Tallygram is the same basic idea. You log in using your Facebook credentials. Tallygram then asks you questions, you answer, then you rate other people’s answers on a sliding scale. From that data it determines who’s likely to be someone you want to meet, and who you’d really try to avoid. Unlike OkCupid, the “pre-beta” Tallygram doesn’t carry ads or use code from tracking companies – at least not yet.
PRESS RELEASE – Feb 8 – Agape Match, a matchmaking services for New Yorkers and Greek Singles, went online with AgapaMe.com. AgapaMe.com, which means love me in Greek, is an online dating site for Greek Singles designed by Greek matchmaker, Maria Avgitidis.
BBC.CO.UK – Feb 7 - Zhou Xiaopeng, a consultant at one of China's top three
dating agencies, Baihe.com, talks about marriage, love and dating in
today's China.
Q: Why do parents play such an important role in relationships between Chinese couples?
A: In China you also marry the person's family. It's important you get along with your mother-in-law.
Q: Why are so many singles in China having trouble finding the right one?
A: Women are becoming stronger now in all aspects, including in their
work, studies and hobbies. The main group of people who are seeking
marriages are born in the 1980s. Boys are overprotected, so some of
men's abilities have degraded, such as their sense of
responsibility. Also, for most men, they always want to find young and
pretty women. No matter if they are in their 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s, they
always find women under 30 years old.
Q: What kind of pressure do women in their late 20s face in China?
A: In China, parents are ashamed of the fact that their children are not married when they are 28 – 32 years.
Q: How does your consultancy help customers?
A: First, I ask them to let parents know how you are doing. I ask them
to tell their parents the efforts they have been making towards getting a
good marriage. I ask them to understand that parents only rush their
marriage because they care about them.
Q: Does the one-child policy play a role in this phenomenon?
A:
If you don't get married, it means you are not good enough. The
pressure to be "good" is far more than what you get from the one-child
policy.
Q: Is this going to get better soon?
A: This pressure will decline. t'll probably take 20 to 30 years.
MSTARZ – Feb 8 – According to recent reports, several young Chinese women are turning to a rent-a-boyfriend online "dating" services for the New Year. The holidays are stressful enough, especially for young, professional Chinese women who feel pressured by their parents to "marry young." Taobao currently has ~300 fake boyfriends listed on its site for rent. While a boyfriend-for-a-day typically cost ~$50, prices do vary.
by Danica Bellini
The full article was originally published at MStarz, but is no longer available.
OPW – Feb 7 – SpeedDate.com, the online webcam enhanced speed dating service that launched in 2007, has been sold to IAC. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. We will update this post with more information later.
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
OPW – Jan 30 – Please join me for an Internet Dating Executive Alliance soiree at
an upscale venue in New York in MidTown on 5th Avenue. Champagne and
hors d'hoeuvres will be served, and the event will run from 6:30-8pm, Thursday 7th Feb, in a
private room.
This is open exclusively to Internet Dating executives only. No vendors will be present. This soiree is kindly sponsored by ads.pof.com, AnastasiaDate, Dating Factory, Teligence.
Please email mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com to RSVP.
WSJ – Feb 7 – Tinder, a dating app, launched in September by cofounders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen and is quickly picking up traction. Users connect to their Facebook profile, and it grabs four photos to use as their profile photos on Tinder. It then shows them photos of other members, and tehy swipe left to say they don’t like them, or right to say they like them. If both members say they like each other, it’ll open up a chat prompt. According to AppData, the app has ~100K users connected through Facebook. The company said it grew by 700% last month.
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY – Feb 7 – Marital satisfaction, so critical to health and happiness, generally declines over time. A brief writing intervention that helps spouses adopt a more objective outlook on marital conflict could be the answer. New Northwestern University research shows that this writing intervention, implemented through just three, seven-minute writing exercises prevents couples from losing that loving feeling. The study involved 120 couples, half assigned the reappraisal intervention and the other not. Every four months for two years all spouses reported their relationship satisfaction, love, intimacy, trust, passion and commitment. The reappraisal writing task asked participants to think about their most recent disagreement with their partner from the perspective of a neutral third party. Both groups exhibited declines in marital quality over Year 1. But for the spouses who experienced the reappraisal intervention — who completed the writing exercise three times during Year 2 — the decline in marital satisfaction was entirely eliminated.
by Hilary Hurd Anyaso
See full article at Northwestern University
CNBC – Feb 6 – Neil Clark Warren is a Christian theologian who worked as a clinical psychologist for 35 years, counseling married couples. He formulated a set of 29 characteristics that he said define successful relationships. He called them the “Dimensions of Compatibility.” In 2000, he founded eHarmony with his son-in-law Greg Forgatch. Warren attributes some of the company’s success to advertising. eHarmony has been the target of numerous lawsuits for its refusal to match same-sex couples. In 2008, eHarmony reached a settlement and agreed to launch a new website that would cater to same-sex couples. "It has really damaged our company. I have said that eHarmony really ought to put up $10M and ask other companies to put up money and do a really first class job of figuring out homosexuality. At the very best, it's been a painful way for a lot of people to have to live. But at this point, at this age, I want America to start drawing together. I want it to be more harmonious.”
The full article was originally published at Yahoo Finance, but is no longer available.