WIRED — Sep 17 — eHarmony partners with AOL to share its online dating advice to readers of AOL Personals. AOL users will be able to register for eHarmony's singles matching service directly from AOL Personals, but in keeping with AOL's new aggregation format, eHarmony will share the screen with competing services like Match.com. FULL ARTICLE @ WIRED
Category: Outlets – Wired
Committing MySpacecide
The full article was originally published at Wired News, but is no longer available.
Antisocial Networking Gets Hip
WIRED NEWS — Apr 5 — The founder of a new anti-social networking site is finding that shared hates can be an equally effective bonding tool. Bryant Choung satirized social discovery services when he launched Snubster last month. Members create public lists of people and things that rankle them.
The full article was originally published at Wired, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Other Friendster satire includes Fiendster (now defunct) and Dogster (which is actually taking off!?)
Best Way to Date: Collaborate?
collaboradate WIRED NEWS — Mar 17 — Collaboradate does for online dating what Trillian does for instant messaging: It combines multiple services so you can manage everything from one place. When you create your Collaboradate profile, you enter the user names you registered at other dating and social networking sites. Then when someone searches Collaboradate and finds you, she can click through each site on your list to view your dating profiles. If the external dating site requires membership to view profiles, she'll have to sign in. But if it doesn't — like Yahoo Personals, Friendster and MySpace — she can see your page immediately. Andy believes the subscription model for dating is doomed, and suggests that Collaboradate will be a positive force for online dating as a whole.
The full article was originally published at Wired News, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Paid subscriptions help sort out the more committed online daters. When you're paying $20-$50 a month, your attention is pretty much ensured. I'd like to see more sites where ONLY paid members are visible and can play.
Who’s Afraid of Google? Everyone.
The full article was originally published at Wired Magazine, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: At $500 million revenue a year, the internet dating industry is still off Google's radar…we hope
Who’s Afraid of Google? Everyone.
The full article was originally published at Wired Magazine, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: At $500 million revenue a year, the internet dating industry is still off Google's radar…we hope
Dating Sites Rekindle the Flame
— July 29 — Seeking someone who's a "giver," a "rebel" or an "observer"? Yahoo Personals now lets you search for them. Dying to know if Ms. Right is a philanderer or a felon? True will run a background check. Online-dating sites raked in $473 million from American customers in 2004, according to JupiterResearch, which expects revenue to reach $516 million this year. At the same time, it's becoming more expensive for dating sites to advertise online and woo enough new customers to create a viable site, said Mark Brooks, an industry consultant who blogs about the business. "We're going through the big squeeze," he said, "One in which consolidation looms and innovation is key to survival." True, for one, allows so-called "bidirectional blocking": Users can block other members forever and decide who can peruse their own ads. "Basically," said True chief psychologist Jim Houran, "you're really empowering clients." Big deal, sniffs Nate Elliott, an analyst with JupiterResearch. The bells and whistles "don't really matter to customers," he said. "If you give them a large number of photos and profiles, they're happy. Beyond that, it's all incremental." Niche marketing sites include BlackPeopleMeet.com, Christian Mingle and BBWHarmony (BBW stands for "big beautiful women"), along with "adult" sites for the instant-gratification crowd. The quickie-oriented sites are growing rapidly, but "they've flown under the radar," said Brooks. Mark Thompson, CEO of weAttract.com, thinks short video clips are the future. "Jump ahead 10 years, and it will all be video-based." FULL ARTICLE @ WIRED NEWS
Net Dating Is Painful Reality TV
WIRED NEWS– July 22 — Reality TV is so terribly fake. Still, I thought it was important that I watch ABC’s new series Hooking Up, which follows a dozen New York women on their year-long online dating journeys. The show barely pays attention to the internet. The show ends up as just a series of dates caught on camera. And it’s like watching a handful of your most clueless acquaintances stumble through one botched romantic encounter after another.
The full article was originally published at Wired News, but is no longer available.
Where the Gang Goes to Bang
WIRED — June 21 — Harriet turned to Tribe.net and started a "tribe" called Gangbang Girls to promote frank, uninhibited discussion of her secret fantasy. "I decided to…demonstrate that even the most stigmatized stuff can be discussed publicly, if done right." Gangbang Girls is just one of dozens of sexually themed tribes on Tribe. Other examples include Nymphomaniacs and the Smart Girls' Porn Club. Perhaps because of its San Francisco roots, Tribe has always attracted an artistic membership, one that seems more comfortable delving into alternative lifestyles than some of its more mainstream competitors.
The full article was originally published at Wired, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Wired has been turning out some racy articles of late. The top adult personals sites are listed in the left bar. Craigslist also has it's casual encounters. The adult sites are some of the most trafficed personals corners on the net.
We’ll Always Have ICQ
WIRED — Apr 22 — It has almost become mainstream to start relationships on the internet. Dr. Marilyn Volker, a Miami-based sexologist who has been in practice more than 30 years, estimates that 90% of the newlyweds she talked to on her Hawaiian vacation last year — and there were a lot — said they met online. There's the Match.com girl you dated three times and have no interest in seeing again. There's the guy who keeps e-mailing you long after he should have given up. What's the etiquette for ending these nontraditional arrangements? Do three dates with someone you met online obligate you to a breakup phone call? Or is e-mail enough? Lynn Harris, co-founder of Breakup Girl, believes that "the only time it's OK to break up by text message is if the entire relationship consisted of text messaging. That goes for e-mail, too."