Category: Outlets – Globe and Mail

Love The One Who Loves What You Love

Posted on February 4, 2011

Cupidtino logo THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Feb 3 - Creative Mates, 420 Dating, Veggie Connection, Date My Pet: All push partner customization one step beyond, matching users with specific careers, musical preferences, drug habits, etc. “These specialty sites pander to those people who are looking for this mirror image of themselves,” says psychologist Eva Fisher, “an idealized, enhanced version of themselves.” Cupidtino launched last June, and has attracted ~27,000 users across the globe. "Mac and Apple fans often have a lot in common,” explains Cupidtino founder Mel Sampat. Tastebuds.fm is another example of hyper-vertical dating sites. The site invites users to plug in the names of their favourite bands and artists for a matchup.

The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

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Does Social Media Speed Up Romances?

Posted on January 28, 2011

Texting GLOBE AND MAIL – Jan 27 – A survey of 1,200 men and women by Shape and Men’s Fitness magazines found that 80% of women and 58%of men said using social media accelerates the sexy times. 70% of women and 63% of men said they use Google and other online tools to screen potential dates. 65% said they had been asked out through SMS. 49% said they had been asked out through a Facebook message.

The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

Shaadi.com, A 20-million-strong Indian Matrimonial Site

Posted on August 9, 2010

Shaadi logo THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Aug 6 – Unlike Lavalife and eHarmony users, members on sites such as Shaadi.com often have a parent looking over their shoulder – if not running their profile outright. About 30% of the Canadian profiles on Shaadi are made by parents for their sons and daughters – and scrutinized routinely. Among other criteria, the site lets members search by community, religion, caste and sub caste. The company recently teamed up with FastLife International, which organizes speed dating and singles' events around the world. About two years ago, FastLife launched events for Hindus, Christians and Jews, as well as East Asians. For this community, they host four events monthly in Toronto and two a month in Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa.

The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

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Avid Life Media Pushes For IPO

Posted on January 26, 2010

Avidlifemedia logo THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Jan 25 - Avid Life Media, the parent company of dating sites such as CougarLife.com, EstablishedMen.com and AshleyMadison.com, a site for people seeking extramarital relationships, is raising $60M and is pushing for a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Avid Life posted $30M of sales and $8M of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (or EBITDA) in 2009. Avid Life will use part of the money in a private placement to acquire privately held Moxy Media, an online advertising sales company that runs more than 300 websites.

The full article was originally published at The Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

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IllicitEncounters.com Sees Spike In Bankers Seeking Affairs

Posted on December 3, 2009

Illicit encounters logo THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Dec 2 - IllicitEncounters.com said it has seen a huge increase in the number of financial workers signing up to have affairs after the collapse of the markets in October last year, and that “finance” continued to be one of the most represented professional areas on the site. IllicitEncounters.com has more than 380,000 members across Britain of which ~20,000 work in “financial services”

A list of the top 10 reasons bankers gave for having affairs follows:
1. To feel loved
2. For the thrill
3. Unstable home life
4. To escape the mundane
5. Ego boost
6. To avoid costly divorce
7. To lavish attention on someone
8. Because they feel entitled
9. Because they can/opportunity
10. Peer pressure

The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

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Noel Biderman Discusses AshleyMadison, Cheaters Prosper

Posted on November 6, 2009

Noel biderman globe and mail interview GLOBE AND MAIL – Nov 5 – In a
recent interview with The Globe and Mail, AshleyMadison CEO, Noel
Biderman gave his commentary on the evolution of modern marriage and
monogamy as a “failed social experiment.” The intriguing
discussion stems from Noel's book, Cheaters Prosper: How Infidelity
Will Save the Modern Marriage, and its
controversial outlook on infidelity in today's society. Follow this
link to read the full interview.

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Radar Love

Posted on September 18, 2009
Location dating THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Sep 18 - Mobile dating apps such as Skout and Are You Interested let users download software onto their phones that alerts them when a potential match is within a few hundred metres. The pioneer of GPS dating was Lovegety, which originated in Japan in 1998 and notified users if a match was nearby by vibrating their cellphones. Lovegety inspired Bluedating, spontaneous matchmaking via Bluetooth. Soon after came “geosocial” networking services such as Loopt and Brightkite.com, which allow people to keep track of friends and explore social communities around their favourite venues. Even though the apps are all explicitly opt-in, they've raised safety concerns. With stalker risks in mind, most will only reveal the distance between users, not their exact location. They also let users block others if they become pesky.

The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: It will take a major iDating site to integrate LBS before Location Based Dating will really take off.

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Lavalife Moves To Skype

Posted on April 5, 2009

LAVALIFE LOGO THE GLOBE AND MAIL — Apr 5 – Lavalife has introduced Lavalife World Chat available through Skype. The service will allow singles to connect with other singles by creating profiles from personal voice recordings, listen to other profiles, exchange voice messages and join the Lavalife World Chat room. After downloading Skype, users can dial +9907LAVALIFE to find and talk to other singles around the globe.

The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

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www.cheapdate.com

Posted on January 29, 2009

Online dating - heart on keyboard GLOBE & MAIL — Jan 29 — Lavalife, PlentyofFish, Match and PerfectMatch have seen their memberships soar after the stock-market plunge. Lavalife registrations are up 11% from last month, PlentyofFish enjoyed 77% growth in visits from Dec '07 through Dec '08. "Unlike the real world, dating sites offer the lovelorn a "completely refined, focused community", says Mark Brooks. Dating sites take care of the formalities. "If somebody wants to wander around and meet somebody, that's not a good idea on two counts: No. 1, it'll take them a long while and No. 2, they've got to get all the difficult questions out of the way." A survey by Florida-based Avalanche LLC – which operates international sites date.com, matchmaker.com and amor.com – found that 48 per cent of respondents were spending more time online or on the phone with a potential date before spending cash on a face-to-face meeting. Joe Tracy, publisher of Online Dating Magazine, agrees that bad economic times force people to "reprioritize their goals in life." Paul A. Falzone, CEO of LoveAccess.com agrees. "People, when they're confronted with any type of dilemma in their lives, tend to want to migrate back to what's comfortable to them. They go back to eating their comfort foods, they crank up the heat by the fire instead of going out all night, and they want someone to be able to share things with." FULL ARTICLE @ GLOBE & MAIL

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Single Boomers Won’t Get Married

Posted on September 15, 2008

Lavalife_prime_logo GLOBE AND MAIL — Sep 15 — In a new era of divorce, approximately 25% of Canadians born between 1946 and 1964 are single. According to a poll by the American Association of Retired Persons, only 15% of single boomer women and 22% of boomer men are looking for someone to marry or live with. But they are looking for friendship. Since last year's launch of LavalifePrime, an online dating service for people 40 and over, 65,000 people have registered. "They're looking for people they can do activities with," says Agneta Owen, who helped launch the site. "I'm sure a lot are finding romance as well, but it's a lot less about getting married."

The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.

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