HUFFINGTON POST – Feb 15 – Combosaurus, the website that launched in beta last month, tests all the data entered into OkCupid by users to see what clusters together. "OkCupid collects extremely sensitive … medical conditions, drug usage, and sexual preferences," Rainey Reitman, activism director at the the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Users who share this information are doing so to find relationships, likely not realizing the data will be mined for marketing purposes." "Of course it has advertising potential," said Yagan, who noted the team is still figuring out precisely what they're going to do with the product. "This is a treasure trove. Knowing what things are correlated with what. For instance, when someone buys an iPhone, what are the other 10 things they're likely to want to buy?"
Category: Outlets – Huffington Post
Dan Slater Interview
Q: What inspired you to write a book about online dating?
A: I become single at the age of 31. I started using online dating and
also found out my parents met through a computer dating service in the
'60s. I went to iDate in 2011 to learn about the business and wrote an
article in GQ, which became a launching pad.
Q: You take the position that online dating threatens monogamy.
A: People
who are in relationships, which aren't fantastic, might have stayed
together before. Online dating makes it easier to leave and find someone
better.
Q: Do you think the dating algorithms help to create better matches?
A: I believe online dating is getting better at predicting who would get along on a first date.
Q: Do you agree marriage will become obsolete?
A: No. People who are in successful marriages
will tell you that marriage is one of the best things that has ever
happened in their lives.
Q: With the announcement of Facebook's Graph Search, how do you think that will affect the traditional online dating sites?
A: It will help the industry. Once people experience dating on Facebook,
it sends society a huge message that any stigma attached to this is now
gone.
Q: What's next for Dan Slater?
A: I'm a journalist and I want to write. I will now be a lifetime follower of the industry and who the players are as well.
Online Dating Traffic Surges Between Boxing Day And New Year’s Eve
HUFFINGTON POST – Dec 26 – Mark Brooks, a dating analyst and consultant to the Internet dating industry, said it was the endless stream of awkward questions from family members that prompted many to search for love online this time of year. “The effect becomes more pronounced over the Xmas vacations and party season," he said. “Questions such as 'have you been dating anyone recently' and 'do you think you’ll ever marry’ become 'On your own, are you?'." Kate Taylor, a relationship expert at Match.com, said people look back at their achievements over the past twelve months, and think about their New Year's resolutions. On Match.com ~4M unique connections are expected to be made; with 3M email messages written; 2.5M 'winks' sent; and 500K IM conversations taking place. Brett Harding, managing director for Lovestruck, said registrations increase by 48% during this period. For eHarmony, the number of registrations was 3.5 times higher than the week immediately before Christmas. Cupid.com's Sean Wood also suggested that the pressure on couples in the Christmas period could also lead to more break ups – resulting in more singles on the scene by Boxing Day. AshleyMadison.com biggest spike came immediately after New Year's Eve. The first working day after New Year's there was a 413% increase in member sign-ups with a total of 9,857 new members. What's really interesting is that for many sites, the traffic then falls again drastically in the spring. “Internet daters tend to stick around for about three months," said analyst Brooks. "Then they bail, then they come back, or go to another site, or multiple internet dating sites."
by Charlie Thomas
See full article at Huffington Post
See all posts on Match.com See all posts on Lovestruck
See all posts on eHarmony See all posts on Cupid
See all posts on Ashley Madison
Google’s Most Searched Singles Sites Of 2012
HUFFINGTON POST – Dec 14 - Google Zeitgeist — the search engine's annual online presentation of the year's top "trending" and "most searched" terms — includes a list of the top 10 most searched dating sites.
- PlentyofFish
- Match.com
- OkCupid
- eHarmony
- DateHookup
- Zoosk
- ChristianMingle
- AdultFriendFinder
- JDate
- Singlesnet
by Christina Huffington
See full article at Huffington Post
Manhunt Ad Appears In New York’s Times Square
HUFFINGTON POST – Dec 14 – Manhunt new ad campaign features three rotating billboard ads, situated near the southeast corner of Broadway and 47th Street in Manhattan, and will run through New Year's Day.
Online Dating Is A £2bn Industry
HUFFINGTON POST – Oct 26 – The online dating industry is estimated to be worth more than £2bn world-wide. The industry's growth has continued despite the recession in the global economy. Huffington Post interviewed a number of industry executives including Matthew Pitt, operations director at Global Personals, who believes the market is difficult to get into unless you have a “very deep pockets and a differentiated dating offering”.
Life As An OkCupid Moderator
HUFFINGTON POST – Oct 22 - Christopher Cantwell
never asked to become a moderator of online dating site OkCupid. Many
OkCupid moderators are pulled from the site’s userbase and just six
months after signing up for the singles site. They review posts flagged
by OkCupid users and are tasked with marking the profiles “deleted,”
“left alone” or “can’t tell.” Moderators can see comments from other
moderators and how they ruled on an issue, but not who those moderators
are or what ultimately happened to each of the posts in question.
Q: What did you have to do to become qualified to be a moderator?
A: Absolutely nothing. They notified me that I had been made a moderator.
A: Absolutely nothing. They notified me that I had been made a moderator.
Q: What kinds of things do you see getting flagged?
A: Users can flag a profile and then the
profile gets put into what’s basically a queue for the moderators to go
through. And most of it is kind of frivolous.
Q: It’s remarkable that people have access to private messages, in some cases, and get to weigh in on them.
A: Yes, it is.
Q: What have you learned about people since being a moderator on OkCupid?
A: I’ve learned that people are nitpicking and if they see something they don’t like, they’ll flag it for no good reason.
Q: What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen during your time as a moderator?
A: I’ve seen some nude photos, but I’m no stranger to that, and I’ve seen scammers.
Q: What would you do when you came across something illegal?
A: In the case of child porn, we would contact the FBI.
Online Dating In Tandem
HUFFINGTON POST – Oct 10 – Tandem, a new dating site, lets singles bring their friends along on their hunt for love. "People are a lot more at ease when they're with someone they know, and so we wanted to build a site that leverages that," said founder Will Tungpagasit, who formerly served as the lead engineer at TaskRabbit, a startup offering pay-per-task personal assistants. Users don't need to be single to sign up for Tandem, they need to know someone who is. New users are required to add at least one "wing" — Tandem lingo for the friend with whom one is pairing up — to register for the site. Tandem, which is free to use, will be available in New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Madison, Wis., and Austin, Texas, at launch.
How To Land An Angel Investor
HUFFINGTON POST – Sep 24 - The Small Business
Association estimates there are ~250K angel investors in the USA. Angel
investors are drawn to Chicago's tech renaissance of app developers,
game developers, a large Drupal community, product developers for mobile
devices and much more. Most — but not all — startups are losing
money.
The Don'ts
- Insist it's a $1 Billion Company
- Pretend You Don't Need Funding
- Miracle Marketing: Tell investors your marketing plan is to eventually create a video that will go viral
- Have an Unoriginal Idea in Need of Talent
- Pitch a dating site that sounds like 20 other dating site pitches in the last month
- Throw Away Success
- Take Credit for the Angel Tax Credit
How to Close an Investment
- Barrier
to Entry: If you have a provisional patent, if you've developed
proprietary information, if you have a sustainable competitive
advantage, if you have previous industry experience, mention it right
away - Skin in the Game: If you've invested your own
money, mention it. Explain how far your investment took you and why you
need more funding to take your business to the next level - Show Off: If you have a developed product, demonstrate it
- Have a Business Plan: No one expects you to have all the answers, but if
you know the right questions, you're head and shoulders above other
pitches - Value Your Company: Explain how much of an investment you
think you need and how much of the ownership of the company you're
willing to give up.
by Janet Tavakoli
See full article at Huffington Post
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Grouper Expands To 10 More Cities
HUFFINGTON POST – Sep 13 – Grouper is an online "social club" that launched more than a year ago in New York City. The site expanded to 10 more cities: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia and Seattle. Signing up takes about a minute because the site creates a profile for you by pulling information from your Facebook page. Then you send an email inviting two friends to be your wingmen or wingwomen. Lastly, you answer five questions on a sliding scale. Then you wait two to three weeks for an email from Grouper. There's a waiting list because matches are determined by staff members in addition to a computer algorithm, according to the company. The email sets the location for your meeting and offers various times for you and your friends to choose from. Each of the six people must pay $20, which goes to pay for the first round of drinks and the site's fee. Grouper dates are more enjoyable because when you're with your friends, you're going to behave more comfortably and naturally.