TECH CRUNCH – Aug 8 – The problem with Tinder is women don’t trust strangers, so matches don’t turn into meet-ups. Hinge uses the same hot-or-not style but only shows you trustable friends of friends based on its “romance graph”. That’s led to insane retention in D.C., upcoming funding, and now an expansion to New York City with plans for Boston and Philadelphia. The app is focused on young professionals and grad students. It’s got 30K total users with an average age of 27, and has made 200K matches. 85% of those who download it are still active a week later, and 75% are still active a month later. You can only join if you already have friends on the app. Hinge will look to monetize through premium subscriptions that give you more insight into who is checking you out, or put you in front of more potential dates.
Month: August 2013
Mark Brooks To Speak At European iDate
WEBWIRE – Aug 8 – Mark Brooks will provide the State of the European Online Dating Industry at the next iDate in Cologne. The event takes place on September 16-17, 2013 at the Barcelo Hotel in Cologne, Germany.
iDating Industry Charity Initiative
OPW – Aug 6 –
Would
you, as an owner or executive at an iDating company, consider
supporting a multi-company charity initiative targeting underprivileged
children? When relationships fail, families can suffer. Kids suffer,
and that's just rotten for society as a whole. It seems fitting that
the iDating industry would support a select list of charities that
target underprivileged children. What's your thoughts? Care to help? Please email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com with your thoughts, or comment under this post.
ThreeDayRule.com Interview With CEO/co-Founder Talia Goldstein
OPW INTERVIEW – Aug 6 – I really like ThreeDayRule. They’re discerning about their membership, and offer events and reasonably priced matchmaking. Here’s my interview with the CEO, former VH1 TV show producer Talia Goldstein. – Mark Brooks
ThreeDayRule.com has been around for a couple of years, right?
It has. It started as a city search for girls. We would tell girls where to go based on their guy type. That became really popular among girls but also among the guys. From there we started hosting singles events. We had about 500-600 people at each event. At that point I quit my job as a TV producer, and started Three Day Rule, the matchmaking service. In September 2012, we built the online version.
What are the pitfalls of events, and what do you do differently?
We have singles events for men and women, and the ratio has to be even. We find really cool locations, offer them free drinks or appetizers, and we let them mingle among themselves. Those make for the best events. We also do events just for men or just for women. For example we had an event called The Night of Beauty, where our single girls get their hair, makeup and nails done.
How do you monetize, and what do you do for members?
We have the online division, which is a curated dating site so not everyone is accepted. You have to apply or be invited to get online. Then we have our matchmaking service as well. We curate these events so we can go in with our matchmakers and meet the most quality people.
I know you turn people away. How do you cover that with them when they come back and say, “I really want to be a member”?
It is a little bit difficult, and just because somebody is denied from the site, it doesn’t mean that they’re not a great dater. They’re just not right for our dating site. We are really looking for busy professionals that are ambitious and have a great career.
What would be an example of somebody who wouldn’t be a good fit for Three Day Rule?
I can’t tell you the exact secret sauce.
How would you say your services differ from a traditional matchmaker?
We are in between mass market dating sites and matchmaking. On the online version, you are sent one match a day. Everybody is assigned a matchmaker. You can reach out to a dating coach, a stylist or you can do a photography session.
The typical matchmaker is 5K and the higher end are at $60K. What do you charge roughly?
It depends on what you’re looking for, but it’s about $3K in average,.
Do people come in for an interview, or is it done online?
We have matchmakers in the cities we are open in, and we will continue to do that. So, they meet with our matchmaker in person.
Where would you like to be at the end of 2014?
We are in Los Angeles and New York, and this month we will be launching San Francisco. So, we are really hoping to launch a different city every couple months; Chicago, Dallas, Boston.
Are there any business development type folks you’d like to reach out to that can help?
We are doing a lot of partnerships with brands. So, any partners who would be interested in working with our members we’d like to reach out to.
Government Matchmaking Events In South Korea
NY TIMES – Aug 6 – In South Korea, the Ministry of Health and Welfare began promoting the idea of dating parties in 2010. Under the enthusiastic leadership of its minister at the time, Cheon Jae-hee, it held four parties that year that brought together its workers and employees at local corporations. Since then, sponsorship of the parties has shifted mainly to ministry affiliates and local governments, which can win financial rewards for activities that promote marriage and childbirth. One government-financed agency, the Planned Population Federation of Korea, claims a different kind of victory: by hosting parties, it is working to undo its past success when it encouraged vasectomies as a booming South Korea feared being held back by population growth. Corporations, fearing critical shortages of workers in an aging society, have begun ending informal bans against office romances, with some now paying for dating services for their workers. In 2011, the average age of a first marriage for South Korean women hit 29.14, up from 24.8 in 1990; for men it jumped to 31.8 from 27.9 in 1990. The birthrate sunk to 1.15 children per woman, the lowest among the world’s most developed countries.
by Su-Hyun Lee
See full article at NY Times
Vacation Dating Makes Debut In Miami
MYPRGENIE – Aug 5 – VacationDating is a new concept to help singles meet new friends and find love while on vacation. The first 3-day event is being held at Alexander Ocean Suite Resort in South Beach (9/20/13 to 9/22/13). It is a specially coordinated weekend designed to cater to single professionals and includes speed dating, party bus, beauty services for women and VIP treatment in the night clubs. The three day singles event costs $2750.Risky Business: An Interview With Noel Biderman, Ashley Madison
SHALOM LIFE – Aug 5 – Ashley Madison claims 20M members in 26 countries, $90M in revenue in 2012, and a new member every nine seconds.
Q: A lot of people peg you as the 'King of Infidelity', but you didn’t always bear this moniker. How did your career trajectory change so drastically?
A: I’m incredibly competitive and argumentative. My temperament helped me see gaps in product development and business consumption. Even though I was in the career of my dreams (athletics), there was a siren out there calling me to fill that market void.
Q: How do you brainstorm ideas for advertisements that society is still finding hard to stomach?
A: Sometimes society has its head in the sand. It truly doesn’t want to believe that people behave atypically. We want people to know that other people think and feel like the same way; that there’s a community to join for comfort.
Q: Which of the dating communities that Avid Life represents is gaining the most traction and traffic. Why?
A: Ashley Madison. Building site that caters to extracurricular relationships is more universally feasible. Because of this, Ashley Madison will always be the largest.
Q: When countering your critics you often object with, "We're just a platform. No website or 30-second ad is going to convince anyone to cheat." Can you elaborate?
A: The notion of monogamy goes against our DNA. Is it any wonder people look to find comfort in the arms of another?
Q: Coming from a Jewish pedigree, does Ashley Madison target the Jewish community?
A: We target women. Socioeconomics, ethnicity, and age doesn’t come into play when narrowing our demographic.
Q: What would people be surprised to know about you?
A: I think people are surprised to know I’m an avid fisherman and a family guy.
Q: Where do you see the future for Ashley Madison and Avid Life within the next 5 years?
A: The goal is to be the best you can be. Ultimately, we strive to be the biggest dating website on the planet.
by Ashley Peters
The full article was originally published at Shalom Life, but is no longer available.
Internet Dating Conference Testimonials
OPW – Aug 5 – In case you’re on the fence considering attending iDate Cologne, here’s the new testimonials video from iDate.
A Year Of Spam: The Twoo Experience
TECH CRUNCH – Aug 3 – Twoo's users have been complaining that they get unsolicited emails from the app, that the app messages all of their contacts without their understanding, and that it’s unclear how to delete their accounts. Twoo uses confusing tactics, from auto-selecting every address in your contacts book to making a “next” button that looks like it skips the email connect step but actually is just another “connect” button, to grow its user base. According to the site, Twoo has 15M active users.
1Mind Launches Question-based Matchmaking Platform
THE NEXT WEB – Aug 2 – 1Mind is a newly launched social discovery startup. The company uses an algorithm to help users find new friends based on answers they’ve provided in a series of questions. 1Mind offers two modes: vote or discover. With vote, users can offer their opinion about certain questions. With the other mode, it will display users based on their likeness score. 1Mind says that likeness score is a combination of user's personality type, votes he/she made in the app, and Facebook profile data.