Mark Brooks: I created ace-club.com in 1998 to help small groups of people, professionals typically 30-45, 50% female, get out and play. It's a singles club that won't admit to being a singles club and enjoys a healthy little membership in the Silicon Valley.
Mark Brooks: News Corp and Myspace, now NBC and iVillage.
USA TODAY — Mar 5 — An estimated 16 million Americans have used a dating site or other site to meet people, the Pew Research Center reports; 45% of these have never been married. 79% say online dating is a "good way to meet people", 52% say the experience was mostly positive, 29% say it was mostly negative. 24.6 million people visited personals sites in January, comScore Media Metrix says. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
Mark Brooks: I've heard it said, there are two kinds of internet daters. Those who met someone and are happy and those that didn't, and are unhappy. Online dating takes a significant investment of time and energy. Sites such as eHarmony, TRUE, Chemistry and others are popular because they promise more compatible matches…and the promise of saving time.
USA TODAY — Dec 11 — When it comes to misrepresentation, when an online date says he's 5-foot-10 and turns out to be more like 5-foot-6, "everything kind of goes back to the beginning. Everything that was communicated by e-mail or phone just kind of goes out the window, and you wonder, 'Oh, my gosh. Is this the person I thought it was?' " As a result, blind dating is more popular than before. "The technology of Internet dating, while it may seem like a great thing in terms of multiplying your opportunities to meet people, more options does not necessarily translate into a better chance of meeting The One," says Jillian Straus, author of the forthcoming Unhooked Generation: The Truth About Why We're Still Single. "Sometimes having so many choices makes people hesitant to commit." Daters and dating analysts agree there are two kinds of people trawling the Internet and the speed-dating circuit: those shopping for sex and those shopping for a mate. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
USA TODAY — Dec 1 — Of almost 127 million Americans age 40 and over, more than a third are unattached. They're either casualties of the divorce explosion (13%); widowed (11%); or never married (8%). Match.com says registrations by people over 50 are up 340% since 2000. Those over 50 account for 21% of visitors to Yahoo Personals. A Yahoo Personals survey released in September found that 51% of men and 56% of women say it's acceptable for a potential date to be up to 10 years younger. So more older women are taking a cue from celebrities who are linked with men who are years or even decades their junior. "Women of a certain age want to date but don't necessarily want to be married," Carr says. "Women don't feel middle-aged. They feel there's a long life ahead." FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
USA TODAY — Sept 27 — AirTroductions bills itself as "JDate meets the Mile-High Club." Passengers who already have airline tickets enter flight information and a short personal profile and notifies them if there's a match on the same flight. There were just 800 members signed up at the time of this story. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
Mark Brooks: Same old story; entrepreneur starts online dating site…"now we 'just' need to find people." Starting an online personals site has the same draw and sex appeal (well, almost) as starting a restaurant. It's just massively more difficult (expensive) to get to profitability. It's not about the site, it's not about technology, online personals sites are in the business of selling people to people. No people, no product. These days, building a credible online personals 'restaurant' requires several million dollars in advertising and/or an extreme niche focus.
USA TODAY — July 28 — BeautifulPeople functions more like an invitation-only social club. The criteria are shamelessly superficial: a recent photograph (bikinis and bare biceps encouraged) and body statistics. The site also accepts "people with personal/professional qualities that stand out from the majority" – like "Sandhill," an entrepreneur with a goofy grin who says his income is $1 million-plus. An applicant’s photo and profile is posted for three days. Members grade candidates of the opposite sex.
Mark Brooks: How wonderfully shallow.
USA TODAY — July 2 — You’ve no doubt seen Neil Clark Warren on TV commercials. "He’s like the grandpa who wants to set you up," says Nate Elliott, an online media analyst with Jupiter Research. Warren, 70, really is a grandpa. Born on an Iowa farm, he’s quick with a down-home hug and a smile. His pale blue eyes grow misty when he speaks of his love for his wife of 46 years, Marylyn, the senior VP at eHarmony. He really does want to set you up – but only if you’re emotionally healthy, heterosexual and want to get married. Nothing in Warren’s TV or radio ads ($50 million spent last year, $80 million projected this year) hints at his Christian background. The Web site doesn’t play it up, either.
Mark Brooks: eharmony excludes the outliers. True and Perfectmatch are non exclusionary.
USA TODAY — May 19 — "He’s like the grandpa who wants to set you up," says Nate Elliott, an online media analyst with Jupiter Research. He really does want to set you up – but only if you’re emotionally healthy, heterosexual and want to get married. A psychologist with a divinity degree, Warren has emerged from the Christian community – three of his 10 books on love and dating were published by conservative Focus on the Family – to become one of the Internet’s most unlikely entrepreneurs. Nothing in Warren’s TV or radio ads ($50 million spent last year, $80 million projected this year) hints at his Christian background. The Web site doesn’t play it up, either. eHarmony increasingly is seeking out secular audiences through online partnerships, including promotions on USATODAY.com and other news sites owned by USA TODAY’s parent company, Gannett. As part of that effort, Warren is trying to distance himself from Focus on the Family and its founder James Dobson, a longtime friend. Of the leading dating sites, eHarmony is the most expensive, starting at $49.95 a month. Match begins at $29.99, Yahoo at $19.95. Spark Network’s largest site, American Singles, starts at $34.95. But at least 7.5 million people have registered to take eHarmony’s test, which is free. Users must pay to get contact information for matches. Some also criticize eHarmony’s decision to refuse to provide matches for gays and lesbians – a policy that differs from Yahoo, Match.com and many other sites. It "calls for some very careful thinking. Very careful research." He adds that same-sex marriage is illegal in most states. "We don’t really want to participate in something that’s illegal." Warren says he rejects 16% of those who take his patented personality test because they’re poor marriage prospects. Weed-outs include people under eHarmony’s 21-year-old age limit and those whom the site decides are lying on the test. It also removes those believed to have certain types of emotional instability, such as obstreperousness (they just can’t be pleased) and depression, because "depression is pretty highly correlated with emotional problems," Warren says.
Mark Brooks: Watch this space. Next week OPW will feature an interview with Duane Dahl, CEO of eHarmony’s #1 competitor, Perfect Match.