USA TODAY – Nov 4 – Online daters prefer to contact those of the same race, but new research by sociologist Kevin Lewis of the University of California, San Diego suggests that online daters are often more willing to respond to interest from someone of another race. Lewis finds the strongest within-race contact among Asians and the weakest among whites. White women respond mostly to white men. Black daters tend to be ignored when they contact non-blacks. AYI.com found Asian women the most preferred by all men except Asians – who prefer Hispanic women.
Category: Reporters – Tomio Geron
ChirpMe Launches a Dating Site for Groupons
FORBES – Aug 3 - ChirpMe sources deals from 200 daily deals sites, from a golf driving range session to sky diving. People can click on an activity to indicate they’re “intrigued.” Then when someone is searching activities, he or she can see who is interested and click to invite that person to go on a date. People can also look at profiles and see what they have in common with them. “ChirpMe is a site about meeting people around hobbies and activities you enjoy doing,” founder Joshua Viner says. “We’re turning Groupons into dates.”
eHarmony’s Steady Growth
WSJ – July 12 – Founded in 1999, eHarmony started off in a space with sites like Match.com and Yahoo Personals that catered more to men, emphasized free services and enabled users to sign up and begin using the service quickly and easily. But eHarmony emphasized privacy, which made it popular among women. CEO Greg Waldorf would not discuss exact revenue figures but said reports of the company generating $250M in revenue annually are "in the right ballpark." There are no immediate plans for an IPO, Waldorf said. The company has raised ~$110M from Sequoia Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures and Fayez Sarofim & Co. and doesn't need any more venture funding, he said. "eHarmony has an advantage over other dating sites in that its users tend to be more serious about dating since they must fill out a long questionnaire. Therefore those people who are interested are willing to pay up front to subscribe", said Mark Brooks, a consultant and editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. eHarmony is now in the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Canada and is soon going to announce its move into more countries. However, can eHarmony be a victim of its own success if its users get married and leave the site? That is a challenge to the company, as its U.S. user base is already large and its U.S. user growth is probably flat, said Brooks, the industry consultant. The company is still growing in other countries though, he said. One small way eHarmony addresses this is through an "elongated" communication process, longer than other dating sites, which ensures safety but also makes it take longer for people to get to know each other, and thus stay on the site longer, Brooks said. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ