Mark Brooks: Shaadi is a power house in matrimonials and is doing some very innovative work meshing online services with 'real world' bricks and mortar services which will eventually make waves in the US market 😉
Category: Hot Stories
LockandKeyEvents.com Purchased From Cupid.com
PR WEB — Mar 9 — Darren Waldholz today announced the acquisition of LockAndKeyEvents.com, the world's largest organizer of Lock and Key parties, from Cupid.com/Predating, Inc. Lock and Key Events runs local events in 10 cities with plans to expand. Eric Straus, President of Cupid.com "We know how to do online dating and Speed Dating. Darren Waldholz is a genius at organizing and running Lock and Key Events. We need to attend to our knitting, and look forward to helping Darren greatly expand the Lock and Key business." "The premise of Lock and Key Events is to create interaction among single people at a large scale event," Waldholz stated. "Many large parties fall short on fulfilling that goal. Lock and Key Events make that happen." RELEASE @ PR WEB
Mark Brooks: The real money in singles events is in large parties. Lock and key events allow large numbers of people to meet each other to gage chemistry in one night.
Avalanche LLC (Date.com) Acquires Matchmaker.com
Meetic Pays $20 million for Stake in China’s Top Online Dating Site
Mark Brooks: If you want a piece of Asia, you should consider coming along to iDate Asia.
Great Hill Partners Takes 19.8% Stake in Spark Networks
PRESSE PORTAL — Dec 5 — Great Hills Partners, a Boston-based equity management firm with $1.2 Billion under management, purchased 6,000,000 shares of Spark Networks representing a 19.8% stake in the company.
The full article was originally published at Presse Portal, but is no longer available.
Think Partnership Acquires Vintacom for $2.75M, 1.1M Shares
YAHOO NEWS CANADA — Dec 5 — Think Partnership has bought Canadian-based online dating company Vintacom Media Group Inc. in a cash-stock deal valued at about $5.2 million US. Vintacom hosts over 120 online dating sites in Canada and the U.S. Vintacom CEO Brad Hogg will continue to head the business, which employs 100 people.
Online Daters Sue Match.com, Yahoo
REUTERS — Nov 18 — Match.com is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees. In some instances, the suit contends, people on the Match payroll even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy. Match spokeswoman Kristin Kelly said the company "absolutely does not" employ people to go on dates with subscribers or to send members misleading e-mails professing romantic interest. In a separate suit, Yahoo's personals service is accused of posting profiles of fictitious potential dating partners on its website to make it look as though many more singles subscribe to the service than actually do. The Match lawsuit was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by plaintiff Matthew Evans, who contends he went out with a woman he met through the site who turned out to be nothing more than "date bait" working for the company. The Yahoo suit was filed last month by Robert Anthony, of Broward County, Florida. The suit, brought in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, accuses the company of breach of contract, fraud and unfair trade practices. The lawsuit also claims the company violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, a law best known for being used in prosecuting organized crime. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
Mark Brooks: Small players, one man bands and new sites that are scrambling to get to critical mass may well send bogus emails. Larger, established top ten players don't. Date bait emails are very bad practice. As an industry we should work to stamp it out. These services don't 'send' their employees on dates. However, I've not heard of many dating services banning their employees from using the services they work on.
Online Daters Sue Match.com, Yahoo
REUTERS — Nov 18 — Match.com is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees. In some instances, the suit contends, people on the Match payroll even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy. Match spokeswoman Kristin Kelly said the company "absolutely does not" employ people to go on dates with subscribers or to send members misleading e-mails professing romantic interest. In a separate suit, Yahoo's personals service is accused of posting profiles of fictitious potential dating partners on its website to make it look as though many more singles subscribe to the service than actually do. The Match lawsuit was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by plaintiff Matthew Evans, who contends he went out with a woman he met through the site who turned out to be nothing more than "date bait" working for the company. The Yahoo suit was filed last month by Robert Anthony, of Broward County, Florida. The suit, brought in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, accuses the company of breach of contract, fraud and unfair trade practices. The lawsuit also claims the company violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, a law best known for being used in prosecuting organized crime. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
Mark Brooks: Small players, one man bands and new sites that are scrambling to get to critical mass may well send bogus emails. Larger, established top ten players don't. Date bait emails are very bad practice. As an industry we should work to stamp it out. These services don't 'send' their employees on dates. However, I've not heard of many dating services banning their employees from using the services they work on.
Match Launches Chemistry.com
Pssst! Check this out. www.chemistry.com. Match has 8 patents on this new relationships site. Their answer to TRUE, eHarmony…and Yahoo Personals Premier.
Man Sues Online Dating Service After Being Rejected
NBC4 NEWS — Sept 20– Soheil Davood claims his paid subscription to JDate.com, billed as "the world's largest Jewish singles community," guaranteed that he would find "high-quality, successful Jewish personals without wasting precious time." The subscriber, who is a co-defendant in the case, made sexual remarks during the chat, claimed to work for the nation's largest lingerie manufacturer, and told Davood that "she might have found her man in the plaintiff," the suit states. When the plaintiff called, he "received a taunting automated message telling him that he was rejected." Davood is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for "serious psychological injury."
The full article was originally published at NBC4, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: It's unfortunate this user was left at the alter. He can't possibly have any legal standing. Online dating sites are a vehicle for search and communication. We can vet for bogus profiles and inappropriate pictures, but not much more. TRUE.com has, however, taken the vetting process one step further by performing background checks to check if users are felons or are married.