USA TODAY – Nov 4 – Online daters prefer to contact those of the same race, but new research by sociologist Kevin Lewis of the University of California, San Diego suggests that online daters are often more willing to respond to interest from someone of another race. Lewis finds the strongest within-race contact among Asians and the weakest among whites. White women respond mostly to white men. Black daters tend to be ignored when they contact non-blacks. AYI.com found Asian women the most preferred by all men except Asians – who prefer Hispanic women.
Month: November 2013
iDate Course On How To Start A Dating Business
OPW – Nov 3 – The registration for the iDate learning course is open until November 5th. The course include ~7 hours of video from online dating experts, weekly webinars for Q&A, 2-day pass to iDate Las Vegas and more. Register here.
Hinge Raised $4M
TECH CRUNCH – Nov 4 – Mobile dating app, Hinge, has raised a $4M Series A from Great Oaks, Social + Capital, and more. At first glance, the app looks like Tinder. It gives you one potential mate at a time that you can swipe right to approve or swipe left to dismiss. If two people approve each other, they’re allowed to chat within Hinge. Founder Justin McLeod believes that people use this app to find romance as opposed to Tinder, mostly known for hookups. Since expanding beyond its home city of DC in August to New York and Boston, Hinge has doubled its user count to 60K.
by Josh Constine
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Does Tinder Transform Dating Culture?
POPMATTERS – Nov 4 – The reason why Tinder is successful is simple. It helps people to get acquainted with new people they want to know. Tinder is successful among “the hypersocial millennials” who own smartphones. Eli Epstein of Askmen claims that the expectation of Tinder is “that you’re going to get laid.” He questions whether or not it can be classified as a “dating” app at all. But Tinder has become too popular to be used for one sole purpose. Some Tinder users look for a one night stand, whereas others hope to find their soul mate. Tinder is no more complicated than dating in “real life”. The major difference between Tinder and real-life dating is that Tinder eliminates the “meet-cute”. It removes any angst and excitement typically associated with a real-life encounter.
by Jon Lisi
See full article at PopMatters
Shanghai’s Marriage Market
CNN – Nov 3 – Each weekend, mothers, fathers and other family members come to Shanghai's People's Park to find Mr or Miss Right for their children. The city even organizes an "annual love and marriage expo" that attracts 18K people. The market has been around since 2004, says Li, who runs a professional matchmaking service from the park. Men can register for free, while she charges $500 for women. Men born after 1970 can sign up, but women must be under 33. There are now 34M more men than women in China. Chinese men tend to "marry down" both in terms of age and educational level.
HowAboutWe Goes Free In 30+ Countries
TECH CRUNCH – Oct 31 – HowAboutWe, a startup that recommends date activities for both singles and couples, is launching the first internationalized versions of its iOS app. The app is now available in 15 new languages covering ~30 countries, including Japan, France, and Russia. All features in the app are free for international users (US users pay $8-$35/month).
by Anthony Ha
See full article at Tech Crunch
Things You Need to Know Before Internationalizing Your App
HAW – Nov 4 -
- All of your translatable copy should be stored in strings. Make sure that all copy in the app is dynamic and represented in localized strings files.
- It is easier to internationalize a native app without addressing email or web interfaces, but it’s not easy. There are often many server-side changes to make. Don’t underestimate this part of a “native app only” translation project.
- Your backend systems will need to be translated and adjusted.
- Other languages often require grammatical differences for men and women. Modify copy to be genderless or add rules around gender.
- There aren’t great tools for figuring out string length requirements, especially when your UI is customized. Japanese is very wide in the iOS system font, you have to be more judicious with your copy to fit into your custom UI space requirements without awkward linebreaks.
- Location-based sign up flows built for the US often need reworking in other countries.
- It’s important for your translators to put significant time and thought into how culturally relevant your app is for each country to which you’re expanding.
- Be mindful of all unit-related aspects of your app such as distance, time, calendar date, and currencies.
- Some app features require significant market penetration in order to work efficiently.
- It will always take 3x longer than you think.
The full article was originally published at HAW blog, but is no longer available.
eHarmony Launches Counseling Service For $5,000
MARKETWATCH – Nov 1 – eHarmony members can now pay $5K and they’ll get a personal counselor to help sift through matches. The site will also approach them on their behalf. "After surveying 15K eHarmony members who earn ~$250K a year, it was clear there was huge demand for such a perk, says Grant Langston, eHarmony’s VP of customer experience. "When it comes to paying thousands of dollars — instead of eHarmony’s $60 monthly fee — dating sites need to manage the already high expectations carefully, says Mark Brooks, a dating-industry analyst. “It was only inevitable that free dating sites started to add these kinds of premium features,” he says. Others say it makes sense to combine a matchmaker with a dating site. “Match.com hired some matchmakers in Dallas to experiment with higher price points,” Brooks says. “Then things went quiet, and they let the matchmakers go.” “People point to the sting of rejection and the time it takes to sift through profiles as two of the biggest frustrations of online dating,” Brooks says. “But I wonder how many users have the disposable income for that kind of help.”