PRESS RELEASE – Mar 15 – Match Latam operates in countries like Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and has ~60M users across the region. Match.com has appointed Navin Ramachandran, former Match.com Chief Strategy Officer as CEO for Latin America.
Month: March 2013
Modern Dating Is A Group Sport For The Hashtag Generation
NPR – Mar 14 – Modern dating is now a group sport, said Michael Waxman, CEO of Grouper, a dating site that uses Facebook profiles to set up blind dates of six. People in their 20s are used to experiencing and sharing things through social media. They're turned off by labels like "dates" and they hate being rejected. Users sign up for Grouper through Facebook. And it uses their Facebook profile to match them up with a blind date. Next, they recruit two of their friends. The blind date does the same. And then, Grouper sends all six of them on a group date. Everyone pays $20 — to make sure they show up, as well as cover the first round of drinks.
by Sam H. Sanders
See full article at NPR
HowAboutWe For Couples Revs Up Relationships
NY DAILY NEWS – Mar 13 - HowAboutWe caters to couples who are too busy or too lazy to plan their own dates. HowAboutWe for Couples is a spinoff of the company’s popular HowAboutWe dating site for singles, where date-seekers pitch a date idea and see if anyone bites. For $18 a month, couples can choose from a selection of pre-planned dates. Since it launched in November, ~2K couples have signed up for the service, which is only available in New York. It is launching soon in San Francisco.
by Rheana Murray
See full article at NY Daily News
Abuse Law Can Apply To Online Dating
ASSOCIATED PRESS – Mar 13 – Massachusetts' highest court ruled that substantive dating relationships developed and maintained using IM, Skype, emails and other electronic communications are subject to the state's domestic abuse laws. Its ruling Wednesday said the domestic abuse law "must be interpreted to protect all who are in a substantive dating relationship from abuse, regardless of whether the relationship was developed or conducted by theuse of technology."
Love Hunters In China
DAILYTELEGRAPH.COM.AU – Mar 14 – Love hunters exist in China. Their job is to chase people down in the street and set them with super rich clients. Yang Jing is one of the country's most prolific and highly sought after love hunters. Working as an agent for the Beijing branch of Diamond Love, her job is to scout shopping centres, parks and other public areas for women who fit her client's expectations. Diamond Love has 4M members, the majority of whom are wealthy men. Once an appropriate woman is found, she is subjected to rigorous testing to establish that she is truthful. She is then put through a series of "how to be a better wife" workshops. Here, women are coached on how to manage a wealthy household, how to read their husbands' moods, and educated on "the importance of sexual relations." The fee for two 14-day courses is $16K – the bill assumedly is footed by the prospective husband.
MySingleFriend Lets Users Create TV Ad For Single Friends
RADIOTIMES – Mar 12 – MySingleFriend lets friends try and pair off their friends on national TV. Users are encouraged to create and advert for their single friends. The person with the best sales pitch for their friend will be given a shot to do it on TV.
Zoosk Resets Some User Accounts Following Password Dump
ARS TECHNICA – March 12 – Zoosk.com is requiring some users to reset their passwords. The move comes after someone published a list cryptographically protected passcodes that may have been used by subscribers to the website.
A small but statistically significant percentage of the 29-million-strong password list contained the word "zoosk," an indication that at least some of the credentials may have originated with the dating site. Jeremi Gosney, a password expert at Stricture Consulting Group, said he cracked ~90% of the passwords and found ~3K had links to Zoosk. The cracked passcodes included phrases such as "logmein2zoosk," "zoosk password," "myzooskpass," "@zoosk," "zoosk4me," "ilovezoosk," "flirtzoosk," "zooskmail."
Going Ofline Is The Key To Dating Sites In Vietnam
SGENTREPRENEURS – Mar 12 – William Vu Huynh is the co-founder of Vietnamese dating site Noi.vn. Noi.vn has managed to build itself into one of the country’s largest online social dating networks. Noi.vn has ~750K registered users, out of which there are 400K monthly actives. From all of them,~ 4K couplings and 500 weddings have resulted. This year, the company will be creating dating shows on television to reach out to more single men and women. They will also be rolling out products that facilitate friendship building, reaching out to non-dating users to enlarge their total addressable market. Due to Southeast Asia culture, women do need motivation and trust to go out to meet a stranger from online dating. Offline activities are crucial to the success of a dating site in Vietnam.
by Terence Lee
The full article was originally published at SG Entrepreneurs, but is no longer available.
LikeBright Lets You Play Matchmaker With Your Friends Online
MASHABLE – Mar 12 – 2013 SXSW Accelerator Finalist LikeBright is offering a new way for people to meet potential dates: through online introductions from their friends. "Women don’t trust strangers on dating sites,” said Nick Soman, founder and CEO of LikeBright. Like Bright is backed by Microsoft’s Bing Fund and angels including Rudy Gadre, former general counsel for Facebook, and Dr. Galen Buckwalter, scientific founder of eHarmony.
Internet Dating Jobs Listing Update – March 2013
OPW – Mar 12 – New iDating jobs listing is live on the Internet Dating Jobs blog.
Below see a couple of this month's most interesting offers:
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From our esteemed Courtland Brooks clients:
AnastasiaDate.com
UX Lead (User Experience Lead/Human-Computer Interaction Lead)
POF.com
Director of Finance
Global Personals USA (Webdate, Fling, WealthyMen)
Product Manager
GuySpy
New Blog Contributors
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eHarmony
Marketing Director
HowAboutWe.com
Director of Public Relations
Match.com, Chemistry.com, People Media
VP, Engineering (Ruby)
MeetMe Corp
Sales Director
SpeedDate
Sr. Manager / Director of Marketing – Display
To see more open positions go here.
Do you have an idating industry job offer which is not included? Please, send it to petra@courtlandbrooks.com and we will add it to the list.