Category: Outlets – Daily Mail

NoLongerLonely.com: Dating Site Aimed At Adults With Mental Health Concerns

Posted on April 18, 2011

Nolongerlonely logo DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Apr 17 – NoLonger Lonely.com is a dating site especially for adults with mental health concerns. 'I think there is a relief in getting to know someone when both parties are open about their psychiatric issues,' says the site's owner, Jim Leftwich. "The site has been a slow build since 2004 but we've had at least 30 marriages now." Professor Stephen Palmer, director of the Coaching Psychology Unit at City University London, says: 'The downside of a relationship between two individuals with a diagnosis is that sometimes you have to be resilient to support a friend with mental health issues and if you are feeling negative yourself, it can be a challenge.'

by Erica Crompton
See full article at DailyMail.co.uk

Mark Brooks: There are niche dating sites for most every niche these days. This particular site is a great public service. Dating sites excel at helping people get the tough questions out fo the way right up front. One of those questions is, in this case, what kind of mental health conditions do you have?

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Funpie.co.uk: Slim People Need Not Apply

Posted on January 11, 2011

Funpie uk logo DAILY MAIL – Jan 7 – funpie.co.uk is a new UK dating stie for those blessed with 'natural curves'. ~1K applications to join the site were submitted within the first 12 hours. The agency is the latest venture for serial dating entrepreneur Howard James, the creator of The Ugly Bug Ball – the dating site for the 'aesthetically challenged'. Mr James said it will offer the UK's estimated 12M overweight men and women a 'much-needed' service. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILY MAIL

EasyDate Poised For Rapid Growth

Posted on October 18, 2010
Easydate logo male DAILY MAIL – Oct 16 – EasyDate was founded five years ago by Bill Dobbie, an entrepreneurial Scot who already knew a fair bit about the potential of the internet, having set up and sold an online DVD rental business. Dobbie was looking for a new venture and hit on online dating. Since then, internet dating has mushroomed and EasyDate has developed into a company valued on the stock market at £85m. EasyDate operates in 29 countries and recently bought cupid.com in the US. ~20% of the group’s revenue comes from outside Britain and Dobbie hopes to increase that to 50% in the next few years. Analysts forecast rapid growth for the firm as profits are expected to more than double from £2.3M in 2009 to £5.2M this year and £8.5M in 2011. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILY MAIL

Mark Brooks: I made the intro for EasyDate to Cupid.  ;-)

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eHarmony Says It’s Found The Formula For Love

Posted on August 26, 2010

Eharmony-logo DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Aug 26 - There are more than 1,400 UK dating sites and the industry is
expected to be worth ~£150M by 2014. Of the 16M singles in the UK, 60%
have tried online dating at some point. Dr Warren spent 35 years
counselling patients on relationship issues. Before launching eHarmony,
he says he spent three years working with a team of scientists to define
the characteristics that determine successful relationships. Dr Warren
and his team use scientific methodology to try to discover how
relationships work. They repeated the process with researchers at
Oxford University, who analysed 1,000 married British couples. The work
highlighted interesting cultural differences. Happy U.S. couples say
they do a lot of laughing and kissing, but admit to regularly making
excuses not to have sex. Successfully married Britons report having more
sex, are better at dealing with in-laws and dividing chores. 800 of eHarmony 's UK members are already in long-term relationships after
meeting on the site. They say there's also been more than 100 marriages
and engagements among British members, too. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILYMAIL.CO.UK

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Chatroulette: The Most Disturbing Internet Craze?

Posted on April 26, 2010

Chatroulette picture DAILY MAIL – Apr 26 - When writer Olivia Lichtenstein's daughter told her about a 'cool' new teen website, she decided to investigate. What she found was the most worrying internet craze to date. Chatroulette is the fast-growing, latest fad among teenagers – a quick and easy way to communicate online with people from all over the world. It works like roulette. Users log on, press a big button labelled 'Next' and it then randomly connects you to any one of a number of people across the world currently logged on. What may have started as the innocent game of a Moscow schoolboy has quickly become a potential tailor-made portal for perverts and paedophiles. It doesn't require you to log in or register (despite the fact that the site states it is for over-16s only) and all you need is a computer with a webcam. It's entirely free and once you've clicked a button to allow the site to access your webcam, your face appears in one of two boxes. Many of the people on this site are exhibitionists, some of them showed their faces – others angled the computer in such a way as to mask their identities and, all too often, to reveal their genitals. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILY MAIL

Mark Brooks: Many dating sites are inundated with profiles of genitalia pictures. Adult dating sites such as Fling and AdultFriendFinder allow them. Most don't. But the abundance of people willing to show their private bits and bobs is quite amazing. Andrew Conru started AdultFriendFinder circa 1996 when he saw so many risque pics coming in for FriendFinder. Then numerous risque-photos-are-ok internet dating competitors started up once they saw how lucrative and in-demand the sexy internet dating services were becoming. (Full Disclosure: I worked with Andrew in 2003-2004, and Courtland Brooks has been working with Webdate and Fling since 2005).

DNA Matching

Posted on January 11, 2010

Dna matching picture MAIL ONLINE – Jan 11 – DNA matching offers the chance to pick a partner with the widest possible variety of genes and therefore the best immune system for any potential children,’ explains Eric Holzle, a former engineer-turned-matchmaker who runs ScientificMatch. DNA testing can ascertain whether or not you will have ‘a more satisfying sex life with less chance of cheating’. Both ScientificMatch and Swiss company, GenePartner.com, which provides a DNA matching service for a variety of dating sites in Europe and the U.S., cite the infamous 1995 ‘sweaty T-shirt’ experiment in which women were asked to sniff the T-shirts of similarly aged men and rate their body odours as proof that DNA matching works. ScientificMatch offers life membership site for ~£1,200. Meanwhile, GenePartner’s tests start at ~£60. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILYMAIL.CO.UK

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Any Woman Should Be Able To Find Love In Less Than Two Years

Posted on January 6, 2010

Online_woman_dating DAILY MAIL – Dec 31 – Women are making the most terrible mistakes when
they date. A particular issue for women who date online is what they
put in their profile. It's often too negative. This negativity often
continues on dates, particularly for those women who are not over their
ex-partner. They are also pushing their age down by a decade and their
weight down by a stone, and filling their profile with pictures taken
eons earlier. There is another school of women who feel so positive
about themselves they end up with a huge checklist of things they 'must
have' and quiz their date as though he were a candidate for a job
interview. Women like this should take a good, long, hard look at
themselves, and what they have to offer. Women even make mistakes once
they've found a man they really like and have started a relationship.
Often, they become obsessive and the man feels not that he's got a
delightful new girlfriend, but a stalker. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILY MAIL

Psychometric Testing

Posted on October 19, 2009

Raymond cattell DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Oct 19 – Over the past year a number of online dating sites have
launched psychometric testing to identify compatible partners.
Psychometric testing scientifically analyses how you interpret
situations, the way that you make decisions and react to problems to
create a personality type on a much deeper, psychological level than
have previously been used in dating. 'Psychometric assessment allows us
to take the pool of all potential partners, narrow it down and
introduce only those you're highly compatible with,' says Dr Gian
Gonzaga, a senior research scientist at eharmony.co.uk. Developed
in the early 20th century by scientists, these tests were used to
recruit spies by the British during World War II and were then later
taken up by the CIA. In the Sixties, Professor Raymond Cattell
invented questionnaires that
looked at a range of personality traits in the workplace. The Civil
Service still uses the system today both in recruiting and to help its
managers find the best way to mange their staff according to their
psychometric profiles. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILYMAIL.CO.UK

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The Boom In Websites Offering Illicit Encounters

Posted on April 7, 2009

Infidelity picture DAILYMAIL.CO.UK — Apr 6 — David Rees is founder and director of marriedandlooking.co.uk, one such site aimed at facilitating affairs among married people. 'In the past 6 months, we've seen a 25% increase in members versus the previous 6 months, and it's certainly being driven by the recession,' says Rees. Howard James is marketing director of one of the newest sex-driven matchmaking websites, forgetdinner.co.uk, aimed at those who want to bypass dating and get straight to the bedroom. 'Although we are aimed at singles, there are almost certainly married people using Forget Dinner to facilitate affairs right now,' he says. Andy Felton is cashing in on infidelity. He developed Your-Spy.co.uk, a computer software programme that monitors your spouse's email and internet activity once downloaded discreetly onto their computer or laptop. 'Research we've conducted with almost 600 office workers across the UK reveals that, with concerns over money and job security, people are more likely to engage in illicit affairs right now than ever before,' says Felton. FULL ARTICLE @ DAILYMAIL.CO.UK