Category: All UK & Europe

Online Daters To Win Protection From Cheats And Frauds

Posted on February 11, 2013

Online dating24GUARDIAN.CO.UK – Feb 10 – Industry action aims to stop agencies setting up fake profiles and targeting vulnerable people. Last year a study by the universities of Leicester and Westminster, working with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, estimated that 200K people had been victims of online dating fraud. Representatives of the market leaders, including match.com and eHarmony, have met the Association of British Introduction Agencies to discuss developing an industry code of conduct to reassure customers and guarantee standards of behaviour. Agencies have been prompted to demonstrate their honesty after revelations that some had set up "fake profiles" and employed staff to flirt with people to encourage them to continue their subscriptions. The UK online dating industry generated £169M in 2011, ahead of Germany with £164M and France with £99M.

by Conal Urquhart
See full article at Guardian.co.uk

Lovestruck: Geo-Targeted Matching

Posted on January 23, 2013

EXPRESS.CO.UK – Jan 23 – Lovestruck.com is growing 40% a year with a £2.5M turnover. Lovestruck specialises in geo-targeting, matching busy singles who work, live or are close by to each other. Personal details given by prospective members are cross-checked with social networking sites allowing verification that people are who they say they are. Once past the screening, Lovestruck’s in-house algorithm matches on hard data, such as interests, age and location. A third party behavioural analytics system also kicks in analysing interactions such as winks, favourites and messages.

by Maisha Frost
See full article at Express.co.uk

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Gaydar Closes Profile Bar And Club In Soho

Posted on January 8, 2013

Gaydarspravne logoGAYSTARNEWS – Jan 7 – Just days after closing its radio station, Gaydar pulls out of the nightlife business. Profile and Lo Profile, in the heart of the British capital’s gay district on Wardour Street, will shut today (7 January). They said that was so they could focus on their core digital dating brands – Gaydar and Gaydar Girls.

by Tris Reid-Smith
See full article at GayStarNews

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Meetic: New Offline Events & Daily Six Matches

Posted on December 28, 2012

Meetic logo new01AMOUR – Dec 28 – Meetic now offers its members to attend weekly parties that are being held in ~30 cities in France in clubs or hotel bars. Meetic has also developed an algorithm to predict the best matches and is going to send each member 6 daily matches.

See full article at 01Amour

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Two Thirds Of People ‘Facebook Stalk’ Before A Potential Date

Posted on December 19, 2012

Parship logo Sep 16MARIE CLAIRE – Dec 18 – Two thirds of potential dates check out Facebook and Twitter before a first date, with three quarters of these cancelling if they find something that paints their prospective love interest in a bad light, according to a survey by Parship. The top "turn offs" were bad profile pictures, a lack of humour, aggressive online behaviour, flirting with others via profile and over sharing.

by Claudia Canavan
See full article at Marie Claire

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DoingSomething Secures Six Figure Investment

Posted on December 19, 2012

Doingsomething logoGROWING BUSINESS – Dec 17 – London-based dating site DoingSomething has raised a six figure investment through the Highgate EIS Tech Fund. Launched in 2011, DoingSomething promotes local interesting things to do on a date, such as ping pong or bike riding.

by Abigail Van-West
The full article was originally published at Growing Business, but is no longer available.

See all posts on DoingSomething

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Lovestruck.com Founder Brett Harding Talks Chemistry

Posted on December 12, 2012

Lovestruck brett hardingLONDON LOVES BUSINESS – Dec 12 – Lovestruck.com launched in 2010 and is turning over £2.5M. Back in 2006, Lovestruck.com founder Brett Harding was working at marketing agency The Forward Group, and using online dating. “I realised that daters know within a few minutes of meeting people whether or not there was any chemistry. I started meeting people on my lunch break, that way if you’re not interested you have the excuse of getting back to the office.” He also realised that there could be hundreds of suitable partners working in a small radius of where you work. With this in mind he set up LunchdateLondon.com, based on short dates over lunch with people in your working vacinity. He started to look for investment. With $465K in Series A funding on-board – Lovestruck.com was born. Lovestruck.com has been rolled out to other cities including Sydney, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.

by Gabriella Griffith
See full article at London Loves Business

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Lovestruck Readies TV Debut

Posted on December 7, 2012

Lovestruck logo July 12MARKETINGWEEK.CO.UK – Dec 7 – Lovestruck.com is poised to launch its first TV advertising slots this Boxing Day . This will be accompanied by a poster campaign to run on public transport hubs of the UK’s major cities. Lovestruck is launching the campaign over the holiday season as January is normally a peak season for sign-ups to online dating sites as people re-examine their lives as part of New Year’s resolutions and in time for Valentine’s Day.

by Ronan Shields
See full article at MarketingWeek.co.uk

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Cupid PLC : Director Appointment And Broadening Of Exec Team

Posted on December 6, 2012

Cupidplc logo4TRADERS – Dec 6 – Cupid Plc has appointed Niall Stirling as its CFO. Niall has been working with Cupid since August 2012, leading the Group's five year strategic, financial and operational planning process. The current CFO, Mark Doughty, will remain on the Board and assume the role of Commercial Director, a role that has been created in line with the Group's focus on international expansion. Mark will focus on growing the Group's revenue and profits in Developing Markets. Phil Gripton is also a new Managing Director of Dating Services. Vladimir Levykin the current Head of Operations will assume the new role of Managing Director of Social Discovery.

See full article at 4-Traders

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Offline Is The New Online For eDarling

Posted on December 3, 2012

Edarling logo newVENTURE VILLAGE – Nov 28 – eDarling just opened a physical shopfront. The company went live in 2009 as a clone of eHarmony and now claims 13M users across 16 markets, most recently Chile and Mexico. It expects to break even for the first time this year. The new space in West Berlin will house trained consultants offering two levels of support. Basic customer service will be free. A premium service will pair customers with a personal matchmaker, who will search for possible matches, suggest them to the client and even make first contact. The test run in Berlin will prove whether it’s worth opening similar spaces in other cities or countries.

The full article was originally published at Venture Village, but is no longer available.

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