LA TIMES – May 18 – Online dating through smartphone apps is driven mainly by photos and proximity. There are about a dozen smartphone apps which use location-based GPS technology to allow people to connect at public venues. The apps facilitate real life meetings in places of common interest. While most apps are free to download and use, many offer subscriptions for premium features at around a few dollars per month. Mark Brooks, a consultant to online dating services, said premium levels could eventually be a significant source of income for the apps but only after they reach a critical mass of users.
Category: Courtland Brooks Press
The Big Business Of Online Dating
AD AGE – Feb 14 – Online Dating is clearly big business: In the U.S. alone, internet dating is a $1.3 billion market, and PlentyofFish alone had 122M visits in January, according to Experian. The number of people scrambling for romance via online dating starts growing in November and peaks at Valentine's Day. "People realize sitting around the Thanksgiving table with their family and think, 'Hey, I don't have my other half' or 'My sister's married and I'm not,' so it's a cyclical event," said Mark Brooks, dating industry consultant at OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. The sector has also seen some matchmaking of its own: Just a few weeks ago, Match.com purchased OKCupid. Mr. Brooks said that Match.com has been acting like the Google of the dating world and gobbling up smaller dating sites at a quick pace.
by Irina Slutsky
See full article at Ad Age
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Online, Is Dream Date A Scam?
WSJ – May 4 – Many of the profiles on dating sites are scams, fake profiles people put up as a tool to trick people into giving them money. eHarmony spokesman Paul Breton says the company tries to educate members about safety, and a full-time team reviews profiles using technology and their instincts. The online dating industry says scammers represent a small fraction of all profiles. "But scammers are aggressive," says Mark Brooks, an industry consultant who has worked with Cupid and PlentyofFish. At the FBI, one Cyber Division section chief, Tim Gallagher, says most scammers operate from abroad, especially West Africa and the former Soviet republics. Brooks said: "Online-dating sites use three lines of defense against scammers. There's technology: An automated system will track how many messages a profile sends per hour, or searches for words like "wire." A security team may scan suspicious profiles. Most reputable sites encourage users to flag inappropriate behavior, including money requests." Global Personals, the British owner of U.S. sites including Texasdating.com and Theseniordatingagency.com, says it has a person—not a computer—check every photo, profile and message. Global Personals estimates it identifies about a dozen scammers a day and pulls their profiles down immediately.
by Elizabeth Bernstein
See full article at WSJ
"The issue of scammers is a pressing problem and has been a major source of concern for most of our clients. Without an effective screening mechanism, it would spell big trouble for expanding dating sites" says Siamak Ayani, CEO of OculusAI, a company that provides Image Moderation services to Dating Sites. He adds that his company has been developing an intelligent system to flag scammers based on their images by comparing them with known scammer images.
(Full Disclosure: Global Personals and OculusAI are clients of Courtland Brooks)
Digital Romance: The Business Of Online Dating
ATLANTA POST – May 3 – Online dating is now the third most popular way for singles to meet, ranking behind the workplace and school (#1) and friends and family (#2), but ahead of bars (#4), according to an eHarmony study. ~113M people visit dating sites each month. 6 out of 10 African Americans are unmarried, according to Packaged Facts, while according to the 2004 U.S. census, 42% of all black women have never been married. Such statistics make the black community a prime target for the online dating industry. BlackPeopleMeet.com, was the 11th most visited dating site in March, reaching 4% of the total U.S. black population, according to Experian Hitwise. Other sites targeting African Americans include BlackSingles.com, AfricaSingles.net, BlackPeopleLove.com and SoulSingles.com. ~90% of online daters stick to the top 100 dating sites though, according to industry consultant Mark Brooks. Among the world's top sites are PlentyofFish, Zoosk, Manhunt, eHarmony. These sites offer relationship services that social networks do not, Brooks pointed out. "Dating sites protect the name and identity of people until they're ready to give it up. Facebook is a handy tool for researching people. You can look them up on Facebook and see what kind of company they keep. So the two work hand in hand."
How are Internet dating sites changing society? In a number of significant ways.
People are able to weed out people with show-stopping attributes. Second, dating sites have leveled the playing field for men and women. Women are not penalized for making first moves. Third, as a research paper by Brooks points out, singles are becoming more picky because online dating allows them to be more selective.
Online dating has a well-known downside. People online tend to lie about themselves. According to a study by OKCupid, men fib about their height. Half of all daters lie about their weight, and most people inflate their salaries by ~20%. A danger to avoid is a tendency to mask faults by creating the perfect date in the mind's eye. "When you start talking to somebody and you really want them to be the perfect match, you might start projecting qualities onto them that you would most desire, and that's called the halo effect," said Brooks. "There's a huge fantasy element to this, which is one reason why the virtual world sites are big," he continued. "There's a mental need for this, for believing that virtual worlds are better than the real world. A lot of Internet daters are disappointed. And ultimately people need to get out on 20 dates before they ever make their choice. They need to go experience the real world first." Chemistry counts, and daters must meet in person to develop a close relationship. "Personally, I do not think we will ever take the mystery out of dating and intimate connection," said Dr. Thomas Bradbury, eHarmony advisor, professor of psychology and founder of the Marriage and Family Development Lab at UCLA. "We are hard-wired to connect, and the daily challenges of creating, maintaining, and improving that connection are likely to be always just outside our grasp."
by Steven Barboza
The full article was originally published at Atlanta Post, but is no longer available.
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Love And The Law: Online Dating Lawsuits
LEGAL TALK NETWORK – Apr 21 – Some estimates say 20M Americans use internet dating services. But when things don’t work out, should the dating service be held accountable and to what extent? Attorneys and co-hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams welcome Mark Brooks, an authority on the business of internet dating and Principal Consultant at Courtland Brooks and Brian Carver, Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Information, to discuss recent litigation against dating sites. Mark and Brian take a look at a recent lawsuits, background checks and online dating sites legal responsibility.
Looking For Love? Cupid’s Got Apps For That
MIAMI HERALD – Feb 14 – The most popular are apps that use Global Positioning System to find a date near your typical hangout spot. Skout, an app for iPhone and Android, claims 3M active users. With an average user age of 25, the free app is more youth friendly than sites like eHarmony and Match.com. Such established sites have yet to incorporate such GPS tags; the idea of getting alerts from strangers who are physically nearby seems creepy and stalker-like to many users, says online dating business consultant Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. Still, the category is growing. Grindr, an app for gay men, boasts 1.4M users and 300K log-ons a day, according to Grindr’s founder and CEO, Joel Simkhai. Though GPS-based tagging is this year’s hot trend, other technology-based matchmaking tactics may also facilitate finding the love of your life. For those who are shy, OmniDate.com lets users use an animated avatar of themselves and plops it into an animated chat room on the first date. OmniDate co-founder Ravit Abelman said it has been picked up by several dating sites, including Lavalife, TangoWire, JDate in Europe and the Facebook app Social Connect. She said it has been successful because it’s a way to break the ice beyond a bullet-list profile and lifeless e-mails.
The full article was originally published at Miami Herald, but is no longer available.
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Match.com Sued By Subscribers Who Say They Were Snookered
WASHINGTON TIMES – Feb 8 – Match.com says it has millions of “active” subscribers, but “well over half” of the profiles are inactive or fake, contends lawyer Jeffrey Norton who helped file the lawsuit Dec. 30. The lawsuit is based on the plaintiffs’ experiences, plus testimony from former employees and researchers who have “pulled tremendous amounts of ‘proof’ right off the site,” Mr. Norton said. But sources familiar with Match.com and the online dating industry say the lawsuit is what’s unbelievable. Match.com is a profitable company, so it’s a “natural target” for a lawsuit, said Mark Brooks, who runs the Online Personals Watch blog. Scammers hit every online dating site, so big companies such as Match.com have developed ways of identifying and purging the phony entries, said Mr. Brooks. About two-thirds of the Match.com work force are customer-service representatives, he said, and while these employees can recognize and remove phony images, “it’s a constant battle.” Mr. Brooks‘ advice to online daters is simple: “Buyer beware. Be careful of ‘too good to be true.’” FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON TIMES
Facebook Has Already Trademarked ‘Face’ In Europe
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 6 – Facebook is close to trademarking the term ‘face’, at least in relation to online social networking and related activities, in the US. But as far as I know, nobody has yet pointed out that Facebook has already pulled that stunt in the EU. Mark Brooks, an authority in the online dating industry, was kind enough to point me to the filing (screenshot below), which dates back to May 2004, when Facebook was still in its very early days. As you can tell from the screenshot, the EU-wide trademark was granted in October 2006, with the expiration date set to May 24, 2014. Like in the United States, Facebook is also pursuing a trademark for the term ‘book’ in the EU, notably in relation to online communities, social networking and Internet dating services. This filing was made more recently, in early November 2010. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Technology And Innovation Transform Online Dating
BUFFALO NEWS – Jan 25 – A host of new online dating services are transforming the online dating landscape with innovative new ideas, adding alternatives to traditional online dating. With more than 800 online dating sites, according to Mark Brooks, who edits Online Personals Watch, consumers have many decisions to make before the dating even begins. Launched in 2010, Cheek'd, provides members with cards, similar to business cards, containing an icebreaker message and a code. Cards are given to potential dates offline to hopefully initiate an online contact. Virtual world, Weopia, allows people to go on cyber dates prior to meeting in person. Other sites, such as SpeedDate, Skout, Goodwizz, and CanDoBetter, are all adding interesting alternatives for the estimated 20 million Americans who date online.
The full article was originally published at Buffalo News, but is no longer available.
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What Can Health Website Design Learn From Online Dating?
LISA GUALTIERI'S BLOG – Jan 12 – Online dating is one of the most successful online businesses. I was curious about the implications of the success of online dating sites for health website design. I contacted Mark Brooks, an analyst and consultant to the internet dating industry who runs the industry news blog, OnlinePersonalsWatch.com.
Lisa: What is the newest trend in online dating? Is there an online health parallel?
Mark: Niche dating sites are springing up. Support groups, similarly: whatever the illness, there’s a support group online.
Lisa: Online dating is trying new approaches to matching people. What works best?
Mark: Personality profiling sites like eHarmony allow people to ‘not fall in love with the wrong person.’ They do the hard work of fixing people up, and use the best information available today, on psychology, sociology, anthropology, a la matchmaking.
Lisa: Do you personally try out online dating sites?
Mark: I prefer speed dating, parties, and meeting people in real life.
Lisa: Which features do you like best in sites?
Mark: Personality profiling and webcam based dating, along with location-based services.
Lisa: Do you go online when you need health information?
Mark: When I am ill, I’m heading online to check what my doctor tells me.
Lisa: What can online health learn from online dating?
Mark: I’d love to see a search engine that matches people with other people in support groups, like them. Same illness, same geographic area.
FULL ARTICLE @ LISA GUALTIERI'S BLOG. Also read in PSYCHOLOGY TODAY.