OPW – Apr 9 – eHarmony's Senior Research Scientist, Dr. Gian Gonzaga, is no longer working at eHarmony Labs, we've learned. Dr. Gonzaga was appointed back in 2005 to be part of the team of scientists working on research for the site. He has presented and published extensively on topics of relationships, love and health, and has received numerous awards for his work. Gonzaga's departure comes 4 months after Neil Clark Warren came out of retirement to take over as CEO in December 2012. Since then, the company has revamped its management team and laid off some 100 staffers.
Month: April 2013
Special Mobile Dating Pre-Conference At iDate L.A.
WEBWIRE – Apr 9 – Mark Brooks will provide a special 3 hour session entitled "Developing a Mobile Dating Strategy" at iDate which takes place on June 5-7, 2013 at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. The session will cover: an overview of mobile dating apps and sites, business models for mobile dating, demographics, software choices, mobile marketing strategies, latest social discovery trends, pitfalls other dating apps have faced and buyout opportunities.
Tinder-like Apps Boom
WSJ – Apr 9 – The past few months have seen a slew of new dating apps launch, eager to cash in on the success of Tinder. The app seems to have taken off. First a hit on college campuses, the app now boasts ~20K downloads a day and ~1.5 billion profiles ranked. Another app named Bang With Friends advertises that with their Facebook-based app, you can “anonymously find friends who are down for the night.” WouldLove2 allows you to choose which of your friends you might be interested in dating by putting them in your “locker.” If they in turn select you for their “locker,” you’re both contacted. EmbarrassNot allows you to choose four options: Labeling your friends with one heart means “I’d like to go on a date with this person,” Two hearts means “I’d like an Advanced relationship with this person,” Three hearts, “I’d like to start a family with this person,” and the broken heart – “I’d like to break up with this person.” Dating apps are catching on precisely because they’re so practical.
by Eric Sasson
See full article at WSJ
App Developers?
OPW – Apr 8 – Could you recommend a mobile app developer? Please comment in this thread, if so. Sheri at HealthDate.com is looking for a good app developer, so please be a sport and help her out by commenting.
UK Dating Site ‘Muddy Matches’ Is For Farmers
FOOD BEAST – Apr 8 – MuddyMatches.co.uk which caters exclusively to farmers. The dating site is the brainchild of Lucy and Emma Reeves, two English sisters who were less than satisfied with the dating pool in their local farming communities. MuddyMatches launched in 2007 and is now “the UK’s premier farmer dating site.”
by Erika Grant
The full article was originally published at Food Beast, but is no longer available.
On Matrimony.com, India’s Arranged Marriages Hit The Web
BUSINESS WEEK – Apr 5 – Bharat Matrimony has brokered ~2M marriages. It helps parents arrange marriage by caste, complexion (dark to fair), and religious values (orthodox to liberal). Its Elite Matrimony unit, an offline service for the wealthy who don’t want their children’s profiles floating around the Web, can cost up to 400K rupees ($7,370) for a three-month subscription that provides a “relationship manager”. For the less affluent, the company is rolling out new products such as lists of 10 potential suitors for 1K rupees. The BharatMatrimony.com website has had 20M customers to date, with 10% finding partners via the site. Marriage is the stated goal, many posts are managed by parents. Matchmaking via the Web has become a big part of India’s $37 billion wedding industry.
Interview With Saïd Amin, Founder Of World Singles Network
ARABNET – Mar 27 – World Singles Networks (WSN) recently announced the launch of ArabLounge in Arabic. ArabLounge had so far been available in French and English, capturing ~600K unique visitors and 18M page views per month and ~1M registered members.
Q: What is your background?
A: I was born in Tehran, Iran. I lived there for 3 years before moving to Paris, then US. I attended Clark University in Worcester, where I received my degree in International Affairs.
I also co-founded EventNow, an online service connecting users who are having an event or party with pre-screened vendors. I have also recently started doing some angel investing. Some of the startups that I am involved with include BrokerRoster, Kohort, TrekTraka, a soon to be launched music streaming service for the MENA region.
Q: Concerning WSN, how did it all begin and where you are now?
A: In my mid to late 20s I became increasingly interested in connecting more meaningfully with my Middle Eastern roots and meeting like-minded Iranian expatriates. I created IranianPersonals in 2001. From there we launched ArabLounge, HyeSingles (Armenian), JamaicanDating, EligibleGreeks, IslamicMarriage and many others. We are profitable, growing and have a few media partnerships that will soon be announced.
Q: Why did it take longer to get WSN and Arab Lounge to the Arab region?
A: Our initial company focus was on Diasporas, but has expanded beyond serving expats. It’s important that we strategically expand our footprint to countries that have mature online payment systems. While there are still hurdles in this regard, the timing is right.
by Wael Nabbout
See full article at ArabNet
See all posts on WorldSingles Networks
See all posts on ArabLounge
Netherlands iDating News
OPW – Apr 8 – If you'd like to stay on top of the iDating business news in the Netherlands, see http://www.datinginsider.nl.
Eric Klaassen also consults with iDating companies, and wrote the Dutch book 'Love In The Time of Facebook.' I'm hoping he'll translate it to English at some point, and will let you know as soon as he does.
Interview With Brian Donegan, Director Of Foreign Investment, Isle Of Man Government
OPW INTERVIEW – Apr 4 – Brian
Donegan is the Business Development Manager for IT with the Isle of
Man. He works for the IOM government. The Isle of Man is taking an
interest in the internet dating industry. – Mark Brooks
What do you do?
6-7
years ago the Isle of Man became involved in igaming and very quickly
turned that into a successful sub-sector of our IT industry. It’s
currently responsible for 10% of our GDP and employs 700 people with an
average income of £55,000. There are a number of things that made the
Isle of Man attractive for the igaming industry to locate here – no
corporate tax and a very strong IT infrastructure. We have a strong
interest in finding other verticals that can complement what we’ve been
doing . Internet dating is transactional based, there is no product to
ship, and it doesn’t seem to have a great deal of regulation. As a
government, we offer 40% grant assistance to companies that relocate to
the Isle of Man across a basket of headings like hardware, software and
setup costs.
Tell me about the infrastructure regarding the Internet.
We do very well. We only use 10% of our total Internet capacity.
To
enjoy the benefits of having a corporation in the Isle of Man you need
to have a couple of executives based in The Isle of Man. Is that
correct?
If
you’re going to have a business established in the Isle of Man, the
idea of having a brass plate is unacceptable. You need to have some real
substance, and so those two people should actually be middle management
caliber.
In general, what can you tell us about the Isle of Man?
The
Isle of Man sits in the Irish Sea, just off the northwest coast of
England. There are 85K people in the island. The island is a Crown
Dependency of the UK, but we are independent in terms of our economy.
How about VAT?
VAT
is at the standard rate of the UK, so it’s at 20%. VAT is not an issue,
largely because the lower cost associated with doing business in The
Isle of Man offsets the cost of VAT.
What are the personal taxes?
They start
at 10% rising into 20% at the highest for all employees. For high net
worth individuals we have a tax cap. If it exceeds £600,000 they pay no
more than £120,000 tax per annum. Whether you earn £600,000 or
£600,000,000, once you hit that benchmark you pay no more than £120,000.
How much does it cost for business-oriented property and personal, roughly?
You
can buy a very attractive four-bedroom detached executive home in and
around the capital Douglas for £500,000- £600,000. It equates very well
with the UK market.
There
is a selection of modern steell and smoked glass buildings in our
business parks, and they reflect very well in relation to
competitiveness compared to the UK, probably 30-40% lower than mainland
UK prices.
How
would that work for an American born company that relocated to the Isle
of Man that continue to do a majority of its business in the USA?
The VAT issue is really only an issue for European area, so out with the European it’ not an issue.
What should people do if they want to find out more?
Contact
me in the first instance, and I would be more than happy to help them
and give them additional information and advice. My e-mail is
Brian.Donegan@gov.im.
I
would also encourage readers to ask questions, and Brian if you’d like
to keep an eye on the posts when we run it for 2 or 3 days and that is
another way people can contact you I’m sure.
Q&A With Jason Chuck, eHarmony’s New VP, International
DYNAMIC BUSINESS – Apr 4 – Since joining eHarmony in 2009, Chuck has
overseen eHarmony's successful launch into the Australian market,
growing the number of registered users to ~1.5M in five years.
Q: Were there any changes that needed to be made to the US model?
A:
At first, we decided to launch in Perth only to test it. Although the
feedback was mostly positive, we realised that we need to localise the
brand. Parading happy couples on TV was a little too much for
Australians, they wanted to understand more about the shared
experiences.
Q: What are some of the main differences between Australians and people from other countries?
A:
In Japan, things like your blood type has to be a part of your
profile. Aussies prefer more shared experiences with their partners.
Whereas in the US, they’re more content with a partner with whom they
don’t need to share that many hobbies.
Q: How did you go about marketing and advertising in Australia?
A: We have TV ads, SEM (Search Engine Marketing), and social networks.
Q: What is the science behind compatibility and how are you incorporating that into eHarmony?
A:
It’s really about finding that balance between science and that spark.
We’ve analysed tens of thousands of relationships. Over time, we built
Compatibility Model which is part of our compatibility matching system.
The dimensions of compatibility include things like your values, your
energy levels, your need for sharing interests, how you resolve conflict
and your sexual passions.
Q: What does the future hold for eHarmony in Australia?
A: Right
now, mobile is a big thing. One of the products we have on the desktop
is called Secure Call which allows you to telephone your matches without
giving away your phone number, so maybe in the future we could turn
that into video chat without giving away too much information.