CBC — Feb 15 — Andrew Lekas is a busy man looking for love and tired of the bar scene. So he's hired a matchmaker to do all the leg work. Ruth Fox, an It's Just Lunch Matchmaker: "What we basically do is set up fun first dates, easy first dates." It's Just Lunch hand picks a blind date and no need to worry about choosing a restaurant, its all taken care of. Now let's say you want to meet people in a bar but not leave home. Omnnidate is a virtual date where singles can interact in a simulated dating environment online from the comfort of their own home. SEE THE VIDEO HERE
Category: OmniDate
The Hottest Trends In Online Dating
NETWORK WORLD — Feb 7 — No one knows online dating better than Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. Brooks is a modern-day Cyrano — he's a consultant to many of the Web's largest online dating sites as well as traditional matchmaking services. Network World interviewed Brooks about the hottest trends in online dating.
Q:How many online dating services are there?
MB: Hitwise has estimated there are 800-plus. I think that's about right for the U.S. A lot of them are affiliate sites that are driving traffic to the main dating sites.
Q: How has online dating affected traditional matchmaking services?
MB: Internet dating has warmed an entire generation of users to the prospect of getting help in dating and paying for that help.
Q: What new technologies are you are seeing in online dating?
MB: One of the biggest innovations is avatar-based instant messaging. One site that's pioneering the use of avatars is OmniDate.com. Another emerging technology is iovation, which helps online dating sites battle fraud. With iovation's Reputation Manager, one dating site can flag a person as abusive and throw them out and then let other sites in the online dating community know about it.
Q: How has online dating technology changed in recent years?
MB: Actually, online dating is in about the same place that it has been in for the last three years. One of the things I'd like to see is more technology being applied to personality profiling. In this area there are four companies worth mentioning: Perfectmatch.com; eHarmony.com; Chemistry.com; and True.com.
Q: Have social networkings like Facebook and MySpace cut into online dating traffic?
MB: The numbers show that less people are coming to Internet dating sites. According to ComScore the number of people who came to Internet dating sites in December 2007 was down 10% over the prior year. But I don't think it's the end of online dating. I think the lookilous have gone away.
Q:What are the hottest trends in online dating?
MB: One is the rise in Baby Boomers and also rise of free dating sites, such as Plentyoffish.com, DateHookup.com, OkCupid.com, Matchdoctor.com, Bookofmatches.com, Smooch.com and CrazyBlindDate.com.
Q: What do you see as the future of online dating?
MB: It's difficult to enter the market and be a large generic dating site at this stage. The only thing you can build today is a niche dating site, and even niches are hard to build. That's why we're seeing the rise of a bunch of companies that offer white-label dating services. One of these companies is Whitelabeldating.com.
Internet Dating 2.0
TIME — Jan 19 — HonestyOnline takes the lie out of online. "It's an extra layer of protection to determine if a guy is Jack the Ripper with three wives," said William Bollinger, EVP National Background Data, a database used by HonestyOnline. At iDate 2007, vendors demonstrate ways to meet, court, virtual date and even marry without ever leaving home. OmniDate can place you in a virtual restaurant with an animated date. On Mobilove, I scrolled through profiles and sent text messages. Already 500,000 Americans have posted their pictures and mini profiles on their cell phones, and users are growing by 20% every month, according to Mobilove VP Nils Knagenhjelm. Thanks to Vumber you can get many numbers with only one phone. If the person dialing one of the numbers turns out to be a less than desirable caller, poof! the number disappears with a few keystrokes. "You can vanish without a trace," said Geoff Schneider, Vumber's EVP. Plenty of Fish, with 400,000 hits a day, was created by Markus Frind, who still runs it out of his apartment. He figured out people essentially exaggerate on profile answers. He follows a more sensible creed: actions speak louder than words. For example, Susie says she wants a solid, stable man who earns $100,000-plus but keeps clicking on profiles of muscle-bound bad boys. Plenty of Fish makes sure she meets plenty of underemployed weightlifters, and some of the stable ones she ignores. "People don't even realize we do this. They just know they are getting results," said Frind. Chris Walker is experimenting with behavioral matchmaking. An early innovator, he started in the 1960s with punch card computer dating. After years of matching people, he now focuses on how people choose to spend their time. "The personal touch still blows away everything else out there," says Paul Falzone, CEO of The Right One and Together, an old-school matchmaking dating service.
The full article was originally published at Time, but is no longer available.
Internet Dating 2.0
TIME — Jan 19 — HonestyOnline takes the lie out of online. "It's an extra layer of protection to determine if a guy is Jack the Ripper with three wives," said William Bollinger, EVP National Background Data, a database used by HonestyOnline. At iDate 2007, vendors demonstrate ways to meet, court, virtual date and even marry without ever leaving home. OmniDate can place you in a virtual restaurant with an animated date. On Mobilove, I scrolled through profiles and sent text messages. Already 500,000 Americans have posted their pictures and mini profiles on their cell phones, and users are growing by 20% every month, according to Mobilove VP Nils Knagenhjelm. Thanks to Vumber you can get many numbers with only one phone. If the person dialing one of the numbers turns out to be a less than desirable caller, poof! the number disappears with a few keystrokes. "You can vanish without a trace," said Geoff Schneider, Vumber's EVP. Plenty of Fish, with 400,000 hits a day, was created by Markus Frind, who still runs it out of his apartment. He figured out people essentially exaggerate on profile answers. He follows a more sensible creed: actions speak louder than words. For example, Susie says she wants a solid, stable man who earns $100,000-plus but keeps clicking on profiles of muscle-bound bad boys. Plenty of Fish makes sure she meets plenty of underemployed weightlifters, and some of the stable ones she ignores. "People don't even realize we do this. They just know they are getting results," said Frind. Chris Walker is experimenting with behavioral matchmaking. An early innovator, he started in the 1960s with punch card computer dating. After years of matching people, he now focuses on how people choose to spend their time. "The personal touch still blows away everything else out there," says Paul Falzone, CEO of The Right One and Together, an old-school matchmaking dating service.
The full article was originally published at Time, but is no longer available.
