THE GUARDIAN – Apr 7 – Ukraine's internet romance industry is booming, despite the unrest. Odessa is the biggest hub. There are legions of western men in town meeting with young women they have met online. Anastasia International is one of the companies organizing romance tours to Odessa. Men pay for every minute they chat online to a woman and ~$5K for a week in Odessa hoping to find a wife. Many of the men on the tour are patently unrealistic. The majority of them fall victim to a number of sophisticated scams. Anastasia International, while not directly colluding in the scams, runs a highly profitable business model (annual projected revenue of $140M) that allows them to flourish. The company insists that it weeds out scams whenever it finds them, and has banned some women from the site. It also says it will reimburse clients who fall victims to scams, and provides advice on how to avoid them.
Month: April 2014
“You & Me”: New Couple’s App From HowAboutWe Founders
NY TIMES – Apr 5 – Apps like Avocado, Couple and Between help couples stay close. You & Me is a new app is scheduled for public release in early May. It was created by the founders of HowAboutWe. The app lets two people send photographs and voice messages and play a selfie-exchanging game called “Halfsie.” Although the app will be free, the company may eventually add features that let their users ask each other out on prepackaged evenings or events sold through the app.
Foodie Dating Sites – HowAboutWe, HiDine And SamePlate
GOOD MORNING AMERICA – Apr 4 – More dating sites cater to people with a big interest level in food and restaurants. Serious Eats, a food blog & community, has recently partnered with HowAboutWe. HiDine is another dating site for food lovers. Only men can ask women out on a date, and in doing so they commit to picking up the tab. The site has ~3K members with a ratio of two girls to every guy. SamePlate was founded in 2012 by TV producer-writer Jeff Nimoy, after he wanted to find a partner to eat Paleo with him. Users can use the free site to find a gluten-free pizza lover or any other mix of diet and food combinations.
by Stefanie Tuder
See full article at ABC News
See all posts on HowAboutWe
See all posts on HiDine
See all posts on SamePlate.com
Seeking Arrangement Hit With Pimping Lawsuit In France
THE LOCAL – Apr 4 – The group Équipe d’Action (Action Team) is suing SeekingArrangement, which they accuse of operating a disguised prostitution racket. A landmark bill that aims to punish clients of prostitutes with hefty fines is currently snaking its way through the French parliament.
Wyldfire Fuels Up For Launch
PR.COM – Apr 4 – Wyldfire, a new dating app where women invite men, raises 100K to make dating better for women. The Wyldfire app is currently in beta, and is projected to launch in San Francisco by mid-April 2014.
Highly Paid Consultants Are Getting Disrupted
COURTLAND BROOKS – Apr 5 – This article on Digital Tonto describes how companies are hiring freelance consultants directly to circumnavigate the big agencies and consultancies.
Big agencies and consultancies are prime for disruption. We know, we're doing it! Courtland Brooks is a highly focused niche agency. We JUST work for Internet dating companies, and occasionally for companies that want to talk to the industry.
We add in the layer of talent identification and project management. We don't do overheads, so our clients can be sure they're getting the pure value of people-time.
Our team love working for Courtland Brooks because they have a lot of flexibility over their workplace and work time, and we only engage interesting clients. It's win-win all round.
We're a value shop, and we hire great people, with industry-specific experience, that are available to our clients on a rotating basis. And we handle the project management.
Want to know more? Email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com.
OkCupid ‘Satisfied’ With News Of Mozilla CEO’s Resignation
MASHABLE – Apr 3 – Count OkCupid among those celebrating the resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich on Thursday. OKCupid protested Mozilla on Monday by discouraging users to visit its site via Firefox because Brendan Eich is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples.
JCrush Is Tinder For The Jews
THEJC.COM – Apr 3 – JCrush works just like Tinder. Users sign up to view photos of other people living in their area. They are then able to rate them by clicking on icons with the options: Oy Vey! (forget it) Maybe, (I need time to think) or Crush (let’s date). If someone else viewing their photos also chooses Crush, the two are put in contact. The app launched a month ago and has been downloaded 5K times.
Dating App Created For Bravo’s Reality Show Goes Mainstream
LOSTREMOTE – Apr 3 – Bravo’s latest show, ‘Online Dating Rituals of the American Male,’ follows two men each episode as they explore the world of online dating. The men don’t use traditional dating sites. Instead, they use Tryst, an app created specifically for the show by Sway Network. Tryst has attracted ~150K users.
Japan’s Desperate Housewives Opting For AshleyMadison.com
THE DAILY BEAST – Apr 2 – Japan is a country where ~$19.3B are spent each year on the legal sex industry. AshleyMadison launched in Japan in June 2013 and signed up ~120K members in just ten days. As of March 27 of this year, that membership had grown to 1M people. Japan was the fastest counry to reach one million members. The ratio of women to men is about two to one. According to AM survey, Japanese women lead the world in their rush to have affairs, and 55% of them have an affair because they’re not having enough sex with their husband.
by Angela Erika Kubo & Jake Adelstein
See full article at The Daily Beast