NY TIMES – Dec 14 - Before there were hip dating sites like OkCupid, Grindr and Grouper, there was Nerve Personals, the racy dating section of the online magazine Nerve.com. They slowly faded into obscurity as younger, sleeker rivals arose. Nerve then teamed up with a site called FastCupid to handle the day-to-day operation of the personals. When that partnership expired earlier this year, the company decided to throw its hat back in the ring with a revamped site and concept, called Nerve Dating, which is available to the public beginning Wednesday. To design the new site, the company looked to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Interactions are based around status updates and mini-reports about meals eaten, concerts watched and places visited.
Category: Outlets – New York Times
Love, Lies And What They Learned
NY TIMES – Nov 13 – There are millions of Americans seeking love on the Internet. Little do they know that teams of scientists are eagerly watching them trying to find it. These scholars have gathered data from sites like Match.com, OkCupid and Yahoo! Personals to study attraction, trust, deception. ~81% of people misrepresent their height, weight or age in their profiles, according to a study led by an assistant professor Catalina L. Toma. In a different study she found that women’s profile photographs were on average a year and a half old. Men’s were on average six months old. Liars use more negative words like “not” and “never,” yet another way of putting up a buffer. Liars use fewer negative emotion words like “sad” and “upset,” and they write shorter online personal essays.
Instant Date With An App
NY TIMES – Nov 3 - The idea of meeting someone through a mobile app may seem like a risky proposition. But the operators of these services say they are aware of the potential pitfalls and allow users to control how much information they divulge. Some of the apps are stand-alone, while others are new features of established dating sites; including Blendr, OkCupid Locals and HowAboutWe. OkCupid Locals is part of OkCupid, a larger dating site, which says a tenth of its 2.5M active members use the location features in the mobile app. HowAboutWe began a little over a year ago as a site where people post suggestions for dates they would like to have.The trailblazer among these services is Grindr, which is geared toward gay men and has signed up 2.6M members. In late summer its creators released Blendr, aimed at a broader audience.
by Jenna Wortham
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Second Love at First Click
NY TIMES – Oct 6 - Now, people 55 and older are visiting dating sites more than any other age group — up 39% in the last three years, according to Experian Hitwise. Greg Liberman, CEO of Spark Networks said that for the first eight months of this year, Spark had a 93% YOY increase in new members 50+ across all of its dating sites. Niche sites like SilverSingles and OurTime (which also includes dating profiles from SeniorPeopleMeet.com and SeniorsMeet.com) are capitalizing on the demand.
Finding an Instant Date Nearby With Blendr
NY TIMES – Sep 8 - There are online dating sites, and then location-based social sites like Foursquare. A new app called Blendr combines the two, letting users cut to the chase and find someone to meet nearby, right now. Users create a simple profile featuring a photo and a short description of themselves. The app then shows people nearby who have also used the app recently and share similar interests. The app’s creator, Joel Simkhai, is also the entrepreneur behind Grindr, a popular app that helps gay men locate others near them.
Cloud Girlfriend: Dating Site With Fake Profiles
NY TIMES – May 26 – New dating site, Cloud Girlfriend, proposes that completely faking it can be the start of a relationship. Users build fantasy profiles by selecting a photo from a bevy of attractive people and creating a fictitious biography and name. A series of questions shapes a personality and matches it with other fantasy profiles. If the match agrees to “date,” they can start sending messages to each other. From there, the relationship can remain a fantasy; or, if the users decide to reveal their true selves, it can progress or die. Users would receive the emotional benefit of sweet talk without being in a relationship, said David Fuhriman, a founder of the site. In the month preceding the site’s start in late April, 85K people signed up.
For Many Chinese Men, No Deed Means No Dates
NY TIMES – Apr 14 – Chinese men increasingly find themselves lovelorn and despairing as a growing number of women hold out for a mate with a deed. More than 70% of single women in a recent survey said they would tie the knot only with a prospective husband who owned a home. Among the qualities they seek in a mate, 50% said that financial considerations ranked above all else, with good morals and personality falling beneath the top three requirements. (Not surprisingly, 54% of single men ranked beauty first, according to the report, which surveyed 32,000 people and was jointly issued by the Chinese Research Association of Marriage and Family and the All-China Women’s Federation. Zhang Yanhong, a matchmaking consultant at Baihe, one of the country’s most popular dating sites, said many disheartened men had simply dropped out of the marriage market.
by Andrew Jacobs
See full article at NY Times
Are Irrational Design’s Ideas Strong Enough To Bootstrap?
NY TIMES – Mar 30 - Irrational Design is a technology start-up that is determined to bootstrap. Its co-founders, Jared Cosulich and Adam Abrons, say they believe they will be freer to take risks and experiment without pressure from investors seeking a quick return. That means releasing imperfect products – a dating site The Matching Game, an app that serves as an online suggestion box for businesses, and a goal-sharing message board.
Q: A better-funded competitor could easily replicate your simple products. Does that concern you?
Mr. Cosulich: It’s not a matter of copying features. Look at Craigslist. It doesn’t have a lot of features, and yet no one’s been able to copy it because it’s about community.
Q: What’s the biggest misconception about bootstrapping?
Mr. Cosulich: While V.C.’s do bring a lot to the table, there’s no proof that a bootstrapped company can’t grow and build long-term value. Our philosophy is that it takes time and patience to build a fantastic business.
by Adriana Gardella
See full article at NY Times
Mark Brooks: Case in point, PlentyofFish, World Singles, Christian Cafe… All bootstrapped and home spun. All successful and devoid of VC money or meddling.
College Dating Site
NY TIMES – Feb 25 – Date My School, a site which just received $500K from private investors, went live for Columbia last November and New York University in December, restricting membership to those with .edu e-mail addresses at these two institutions. Within a week, Date My School had attracted ~ 1,300 users (5% of Columbia’s student population). It now has 7,000 users.
by Hannah Miet
See full article at NY Times
Oxytocin Hormone Appears To Know Some Bounds
NY TIMES – Jan 10 – Oxytocin has been described as the hormone of love. This chemical, released from the hypothalamus region of the brain, keeps male prairie voles monogamous and makes people trust each other more. The love and trust it promotes are not toward the world in general, just toward a person’s in-group. “Oxytocin creates intergroup bias primarily because it motivates in-group favoritism and because it motivates out-group derogation.” FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES