THE GUARDIAN – Oct 13 – Lisa Hoehn's website, Profile Polish, offers editing of dating profiles. “Writing about yourself is really hard,” says Hoehn. She spends three to four hours on each client, rewriting their profiles to sound conversational, upbeat and interesting. Business is steady, if seasonal. Major dating sites tried to offer professional profile editing services themselves but failed, says Mark Brooks, an internet dating industry analyst. Match and eHarmony learned that people required all-around coaching on online romance. It’s a territory Brooks terms “hazardous” for the dating sites to do themselves. Evan Marc Katz has a dating coaching business that is focused entirely on women. He charges $5,250/4weeks and $7,775/12 weeks to teach women how to make a man commit. If that may seem like big money, Brooks is not surprised. It’s behavioural economics, he says. “When people do good [in dating], then they are willing to pay good in business.” More and more users are moving to mobile apps. The distant future, Brooks says, may be wearable computing. More data could lead to better algorithms. In 10 years’ time, dating websites may track everything that goes on when you meet your online date. “Do we know your heart rate? Do we know if you’re sweating. There’s going to be so many more observables,” Brooks says.
by Siri Srinivas
See full article at The Guardian
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THE GUARDIAN – Feb 9 – Taobao, China’s version of Amazon, offers virtual girlfriends and boyfriends for $2 per day. These are real humans, but they only relate with their paying customers via the phone to perform fairly unromantic tasks such as wake up calls, good night calls, and “sympathetically listen to clients’ complaints”. Similar services already exist in India, where biwihotohaisi.com helps bachelors “practice” for married life with a virtual wife. A new US app, Invisible Boyfriend, allows users to customise the looks, personality and interests of an imaginary male partner and pay $25 for his virtual company.
