GAY STAR NEWS – Sep 11 – According to the gay rights group, Istanbul’s Criminal Court of Peace blocked the app as a ‘protection measure’. ‘It is most likely related to “general morality”, an ambiguous term used often against trans sex workers.’
by Joe Morgan
See full article at Gay Star News
BUSINESS INSIDER – Sep 9 - HowAboutWe launched in 2010 by Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout. Users post date ideas, and those who are interested in specific dates can then contact the person and meet up. Schechter and Schildkrout launched the site because other sites don't push people to meet offline. Their idea almost worked too well. Realizing that they were losing the successful matches, they launched a product for couples. HowAboutWe for Couples aims to curate, book, and set up dates for couples. So far 13k couples have signed up.
MASHABLE – Sep 9 – Swoon, a social discovery site, overhauled its mobile dating app, opting for a new design that will resonate with its female users. Swoon also announced a new "Look Back" feature that lets users recall people they may have accidentally rejected. In October, the app will debut its first female-only feature: a messaging service that allows women to share a profile via text message with friends. Swoon isn't just built for women, it's also being built by women.
WEBWIRE – Sep 9 – The next European Internet dating conference (iDate) will take place on September 16 – 17, 2013 in Cologne. Executives from some of the largest dating companies in Europe will speak, including eDarling, Be2, Mail.ru, Dating Factory and Przeznaczeni. Check out the agenda.
OPW – Sep 10 – MPwH.net was started in 1998. Its a valuable public service. The
owners are burned out and ready to hand over the reigns to someone
willing to revamp and regrow the site. Here's the letter they sent to
members. They're
not willing to hand over their member database because of privacy (and the fact their main competitor PositiveSingles.com was sued)
but will happily market and refer them over. They have a strong list
of domains. The domains and some
business advisory are for sale for $35k. The code base and members
aren't for sale. The owners believe the site needs a refresh, and some
TLC from an existing and trustworthy dating site operator. Email jodi@antopia.com if you're interested.
WASHINGTON POST – Sep 9 - Julie
Spira and Northwestern University psychology professor Eli Finkel tell
Nia-Malika Henderson where online dating sites' matching algorithms fall
flat. "I'm
skeptical that you can learn from browsing profiles and skeptical that
anyone has yet cracked the mathematical code for love," said Finkel,
"really the only way that you are going to know if somebody is
compatible with you is meet up with them, and mobile dating is a really
efficient way to do that. It resurrects the spontaneity in dating".
MARKETING WEEK – Sep 9 – UK's leading dating sites including eHarmony, Guardian Soulmates, Match.com, MySingleFriend, Dating Factory, Lovestruck, FreeDating, are founding members of the Online Dating Association (ODA), a new industry initiative. Members of the ODA will sign up to a code of conduct which insists that members are transparent with consumers over pricing models, whether they are billed on a repeated basis, data privacy, and the authenticity of dating profiles on its site.
FORBES – Sep 8 – Janis Spindel has been a high-end matchmaker for over 21 years now, taking on 200 – 250 clients per year. Her matches have led to ~1K marriages. Her company has 17 employees and a yearlong contract in New York (12 introductions) costs $50K upfront plus $50K on the backend if that client is successfully matched. Out of state contracts cost $100K plus another $50K on the backend. Elite services – where Spindel and select staff personally travel to a client and conduct an expansive search – are $250K, plus another quarter million on the backend if successful. Ladies pay a smaller fee – up to $1,000+. In the summer of 2012 Spindel opened up a gay division.
FT – Sep 9 – 1/3 of people who married between 2005-2012 met their spouse online, up from 19% 5 years earlier. 5.3M Britons use internet dating according comScore. Matching someone with their perfect partner is a matter of processing enormous amounts of information. Cupid's 20M active users may have up to 100 characteristics associated with them. That comes to ~20M characteristics. "Finding love is one of the hardest things to reduce to a formula, but with vast stores of data and complex algorithms that allow them to be processed fast, online dating companies such as Cupid are getting close to turning it into a science." - Maija Palmer
NY TIMES – Sep 6 – People don’t think of themselves as a walking, talking set of scores. We can be scored these days for our quality and disposition as a taxi passenger. Uber's taxi drivers scores its passengers. Uber has said the two-way ratings are about “maintaining an excellent experience for both the rider and the driver.” This can be interpreted in two ways: Uber can use the ratings to avoid certain passengers, or the ratings could inspire customers to refine their behavior. Klout measures your influence on social media. A matchmaking service Tawkify is going to use Klout scores to connect people with similar levels of influence. You can imagine scenarios in which employers, insurers and prospective in-laws start to employ the scores as proxies for your character.