SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — June 7 — Last week, a lesbian filed suit against eHarmony.com for not serving individuals "based solely on their sexual orientation." When I asked why Carlson didn't simply go to another dating service, her lawyer evoked the image of Rosa Parks, noting that "nearly every step in civil rights law, you could have said the same thing…There is a big difference between the sites that allow the customers to self-select who they are looking for" and a site that makes the decision "to exclude a minority group." But the answer isn't to make eHarmony be what it is not, but to let others create something like eHarmony for gays and lesbians. Mark Brooks, spokesman for the gay online matchmaking service myPartnerPerfect.com, said of eHarmony: "I think they're having a bit of an unfair time of it. I think it's their right to have a niche focus, but they've not quite said the right thing, and their underlying tone has riled people up."
The full article was originally published at TownHall, but is no longer available.
PRESS RELEASE — June 8 –While hundreds of couples fill countless television spots with stories of how eHarmony helped them find each other, thousands of men and women have been turned away from the process because the long-term relationship that they were seeking was with someone of the same sex. Enter Patrick and myPartnerPerfect.com. "It was actually partially because of the discriminating policy of eHarmony that I founded myPartnerPerfect. For far too long the industry has neglected the gay community and their pursuit for life-partners….a large segment of the gay community is looking for something that can last a lifetime." Patrick has worked in the field of human sexuality since 1997 developing and cultivating relationships for the LGBT community. He has a B.A. in Psychology, an M.A. in Human Sexuality Studies and a PhD in Clinical Psychology. While at Saint John's University, Patrick conducted internationally recognized research on Human Mating Preferences.
The full article was originally published at E-MediaWire, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Media can call me at 212-444-1636 to arrange interviews with Patrick.
BAY AREA REPORTER — June 7 — Carlson claimed that when she attempted to use the Web site in February 2007 she was "denied the ability to do so based on her sexual orientation." eHarmony allegedly violated California's Unruh Civil Rights Act. Said Schneider, with Schneider and Wallace. "Segregation in this country ended a long time ago and apparently eHarmony hasn't realized that gay rights is civil rights." Earlier this year a study, "The Close Relationships of Lesbians and Gay Men", by UCLA researchers, found that "lesbians, gay men, and heterosexuals seek similar qualities in their romantic partners. Regardless of sexual orientation, most individuals value affection, dependability, shared interests, and similarity of religious beliefs." LGBT dating services, such as the newly launched myPartnerPerfect.com and LavenderLiaisons.com provide services to gays and lesbians. In a statement released this week by Patrick Perrine, the founder of myPartnerPerfect.com and creator of its "Partner Perfect Compatibility" test, stated that he started the site "partially because of the discriminating policy of eHarmony." Warren was quoted in USA Today, "We don't really want to participate in something that's illegal" when asked about providing matchmaking services to lesbians and gays, referring to the fact that lesbian and gay couples aren't currently legally allowed to marry, except in Massachusetts. FULL ARTICLE @ BAY AREA REPORTER
PR NEWSWIRE — June 1 — myPartnerPerfect.com launches today as the first and only dating service with a compatibility system specifically designed for gay men. Patrick H. Perrine created the Partner Perfect Compatibility(TM) test and enhanced profile search engine specifically for the unique characteristics of gay partner selection. Members complete a free Partner Perfect Compatibility(TM) profile, use guided communication tools and begin conversations with other members, whilst learning the secrets of developing a successful relationship through Patrick's Dating Advice column, e-newsletters and articles. Membership is available for $37.95 a month through $16.95 a month with a year's commitment. Private Matchmaking services are available from $2999. Services include 'myProfilePartner,' a profile makeover and photo review service. 'weDate,' where relationship experts arrange private dinners in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and D.C. 'uQuickPick' allows a member to modify their searches by setting their own deal breakers. And 'myCall' a bi-directional anonymous phone calling system.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Fyi, I'm providing myPartnerPerfect with PR, bus dev and strategic advisement services. Watch this space. Press can reach me at 212-444-1636 to schedule an interview with Patrick.
REUTERS — June 1 — eHarmony (founded 2000, 12m users) was sued yesterday for refusing to offer its services to gays, lesbians and bisexuals. A lawsuit alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of Linda Carlson, who was denied access to eHarmony because she is gay. Lawyers bringing the action said they believed it was the first lawsuit of its kind against eHarmony, which has long rankled the gay community with its failure to offer a "men seeking men" or "women seeking women" option. They were seeking to make it a class action lawsuit on behalf of gays and lesbians denied access to the dating service.
The full article was originally published at Gulf Times, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Match.com's ad program for Chemistry.com sure sparked a fire. I wonder how far it will burn. Patrick is welcoming eHarmony gay member-denials with open arms at myPartnerPerfect.com.
EBAR — May 31 — Increasingly, gay men are seeking out life partners and starting their own families. Call it the gay marriage effect. myPartnerPerfect launches Friday, sort of the gay version to the anti-gay eHarmony site. myPartnerPerfect claims to be the first and only dating service with a compatibility system specifically designed for gay men. Patrick H. Perrine, the founder of MyPartnerPerfect and creator of its "Partner Perfect Compatibility" test, said, "Our goal isn't necessarily to be a dating site. With most users our goal is to help gay men develop relationships," said Perrine, who earned a master's degree in human sexuality at SFSU in 2004. "We are not trying to put Gay.com out of business. There is a need for what Manhunt.net does and what Gay.com does." Perrine, 28, is marketing his site "to sophisticated, cultured, and professional gay men." Its mission is "to assist extraordinary men in finding their true love and life-partnership." The test stems from his undergraduate studies at St. Johns University where he took Darwinian evolutionary theory on mating preferences and applied them to the LGBT community. For the last three years Perrine has offered a national private gay matchmaking service. Now he plans to focus more on his new site. Some portions of the site will be free to use, while others will cost up to $2,000. It will also have a phone call service called MyCall where men can call each other using anonymous phone numbers supplied through the site. FULL ARTICLE @ EBAR
Mark Brooks: I’m handling Patrick’s media relations. Press can contact me directly at 212-444-1636, or at mark@courtlandbrooks.com to interview Patrick.
OPW — May 25, 2007 — I’ve yet to see online services successfully integrate traditional matchmaking services. They need to. They’re leaving money on the table. Users want choice AND service, and are willing to pay for it. Actually, the nearest I’ve seen so far is the MyPartnerPerfect.com service which will go live in the next few hours. It’s niche targeted at the gay male population. I know The Right One/Together Dating is looking for online partners now. Here’s my interview with Jason Tian, who has been quietly pioneering an online/offline amalgamation of services in China with Baihe.com, the eHarmony of China. I conducted four video interviews at the Asian internet dating and social networking conference. Here’s the first one. Click on the image to play the video. – Mark Brooks
Can you tell me more about your new pricing system and matchmaking services? At first we wanted to allow the user free profiling and free search or free match. But if they want to communicate they need to upgrade to a membership. That's what we needed to understand. But after we tried it for 9 months we found it very difficult to work in China because there are some people who want to pay but the percentage is much lower than in the U.S.
We found that users pay a lot for offline matchmakers. They pay thousands of U.S. dollars. So want to combine the off line and online. When we changed the pricing model we also hired some matchmakers. They interview the customers and do identity verification and recommend matches. But compared with the offline matchmakers, we have a very large online user base and can provide more high quality matches to them.
With the online model the users are reluctant to pay 30 RMB ($4) a month but for this offline model they will pay up to 30,000 RMB ($4,000). So our average pricing is 5,000 RMB ($700) per user.
After 3 to 4 months of service, 30% to 40% of our web users find somebody they want to stay with for at least several months and there are many couples that get married. So we deliver a high service with a high success rate and privacy protection and the users feel they are well treated. So that's why the users want to pay us.
But the difficulty for us is making it scalable. You can have good love consultants but how to manage hundreds of love consultants and still deliver service at a common standard. So we built a training program and a CRM system and we have an independent QA team. By the end of this quarter we will have established the majority of the services and infrastructure, including the IT system, the training system, the people system and some of the branding. So that's our new model. Of course, I think there is a gap. We need to develop a medium tier. So that's what we want to try.
What is your regular online pricing? Current pricing online is zero but they can upgrade to 1,000 RMB ($140), which allows them to use the matching system. A self service system. Then there's the gold membership, which is 3,600 RMB ($500). Our consultants will recommend the matches to them. Then there is a platinum service around 7,000 RMB ($1000) for the users have very high requirements. The highest price is something like a headhunters service. They pay 30,000 RMB ($4,000) and we will help them find someone. If we cannot do it in one year, we will return 2/3's of the fee. So that's our current pricing scheme but I think we can have something between that zero and the 1,000 RMB. Maybe 100 RMB. I think a mid tier service will attract more users and will be more scalable.
How do users communicate with the matchmakers? The majority of the communication happens through the telephone and at the beginning we may interview them face to face.
PAID CONTENT — May 22 — The owners of PlanetOut hope to raise $15 million+ in new equity or subordinated debt as it tries to dig out from $26.5 million in debt. The trouble began two years ago when PlanetOut went on a shopping spree, acquiring the RSVP Vacations cruise business and LPI Publications, publishers of Out, OutTraveler, and The Advocate, as well as several pornographic magazines under the Specialty Publications brand. Several senior executives have resigned. Some of the problems besetting the company may be due to the migration of gay people to sites such as MySpace.
The full article was originally published at PaidContent, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Advice to PlanetOut: Divest the magazines and travel companies and stick to your knitting, online content and memberships and advertising. PlanetOut has been too busy trying to fill cruise ships and sell magazine subscriptions to focus on the future. Manhunt.net (casual adult) and MyPartnerPerfect.com (about to be launched, serious dating) are biting at PlanetOut's heels.
THE WASHINGTON POST — May 16 — A name-calling catfight, complete with accusations and counter-accusations, has broken out between eHarmony.com (13 million registrants since 2000) and an offshoot of Match.com over a subject familiar to any luckless dater. Rejection. Chemistry's (2 million registrants since 2006) TV commercials and magazine ads feature young men and women wondering why their applications to join eHarmony were turned down. No fair, says eHarmony, concerned that its rival's ads suggest that eHarmony is being arbitrary or discriminatory in turning people away. It wants Chemistry.com's ads changed or dropped. eHarmony’s legal counsel, Lanny Davis (who spun the media for President Bill Clinton during his “relationship problems” with Monica Lewinsky), last week asked NBC and People magazine to stop running Chemistry.com's current ads, or at least insist on some fine-print qualifiers about what “1 million rejected” really means. (As of Friday, NBC hadn't responded to Davis; People magazine said that it wasn't taking sides in the feud and that it would continue running the ads.) eHarmony turns people away for controversial reasons. One is being gay. CEO, Greg Waldorf says eHarmony's matching system is based on psychological research about heterosexual relationships. Because it doesn't have similar data on gay people, he says, the company isn't confident that it can offer successful matches to same-sex couples. “I'm not saying anything precludes us from going into the same-sex market in the future,” he says, “but it's not a service we offer now.” Firing back, eHarmony accuses Chemistry's parent company of hypocrisy. It notes that IAC made formal overtures to buy eHarmony in 2004, but a deal never came off.
Mark Brooks: These days the best kind of advertising spawns press, word-of-mouth, and riles up the competition. Match.com has kicked off on every level with their campaign. This year we should surely see a free version of eharmony startup. Perhaps the fresh faced (new) Mary.com or LTR.com, or the current dominant free dating market leader PlentyofFish.com. Beyond that, MyPartnerPerfect.com is due to launch shortly as the quality, long term focused, personality profiling, all gay matchmaking site, headed by the young Patrick H.Perrine.
QUEERTY — May 3 — Believe it or not, gay men and women actually find longterm lovers via the web. eHarmony refuses to help them. Founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren claims that since eHarmony's a "marriage" based-site, they can't cater to the homos. Homos, of course, can't legally marry and eHarmony goes by the book: The Bible. Now another dating site's looking to fill that gaping hole.
The full article was originally published at Queerty, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Actually, from a matchmaking perspective, eHarmony has a good point. Gay matchmaking requires a gay perspective and a profiling system more tailored towards gay relationships. Enter Chemistry.com and the more targetted gay-only, MyPartnerPerfect.com. Founder/CEO Patrick Perrine personally offers matchmaking services to complement the sites standard matchmaking.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — June 7 — Last week, a lesbian filed suit against eHarmony.com for not serving individuals "based solely on their sexual orientation." When I asked why Carlson didn't simply go to another dating service, her lawyer evoked the image of Rosa Parks, noting that "nearly every step in civil rights law, you could have said the same thing…There is a big difference between the sites that allow the customers to self-select who they are looking for" and a site that makes the decision "to exclude a minority group." But the answer isn't to make eHarmony be what it is not, but to let others create something like eHarmony for gays and lesbians. Mark Brooks, spokesman for the gay online matchmaking service myPartnerPerfect.com, said of eHarmony: "I think they're having a bit of an unfair time of it. I think it's their right to have a niche focus, but they've not quite said the right thing, and their underlying tone has riled people up." 
