TECH CRUNCH – Dec 23 - Skout, a social dating service with a strong
mobile component, conducted a study to see how hesitant people are to
make the move from mobile messaging to in-person meetups. 51% of the
consumers surveyed have met another single person in the Real World
that they initiated contact with on their iPhone. The survey findings
show that:
– 69% are comfortable meeting up with someone they met on their iPhone
– 40% are using a mobile dating service while out in bars, clubs and restaurants
FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Category: Skout.com
Mobile Dating On The Rise
LONDON EVENING STANDARD – Dec 14 - 15M people in Britain are single, and ~5M are shopping for love online. The next dating revolution is happening in your pocket and it's all about location. Soon, Apple's iPhone and other touchscreen mobile devices will replace PCs as the main way we engage with social media. In 2007 the global mobile dating market was pegged at £200M, that figure rose to £332M worldwide in 2008 and is expected to more than double over the next five years, reaching ~£784M by 2013. Grindr, which launched in March this year, is presently most popular in San Francisco, with its dense concentration of gay men and iPhone customers, but gained more than 30,000 British users. GPS-enabled dating apps aimed exclusively at the straight market have just arrived, StreetSpark, Skout and Are You Interested being some of the latest.
The full article was originally published at London Evening Standard, but is no longer available.
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App And Mobile Dating Market Continues To Skyrocket
CHICAGO NOW – Nov 3 – Worldwide, the mobile dating market, which included app, mobile Internet services and text-based services, has grown from $330 million in 2007 to $550 million in 2008. That figure is expected to more than double to $1.3 billion by 2013, according to Juniper Research. Skout, SpeedDate, DateCheck, Zoosk, Grindr, Radaroo and Gelato are but a handful of offerings in this market. Traditional online dating sites are also realizing the need for a mobile dating solution. Match.com and OkCupid have made strides in this direction. Traditional online dating sites must offer a mobile solution in order to remain competitive.
The full article was originally published at Chicago Now, but is no longer available.
Radar Love
THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Sep 18 - Mobile dating apps such as Skout and Are You Interested let users download software onto their phones that alerts them when a potential match is within a few hundred metres. The pioneer of GPS dating was Lovegety, which originated in Japan in 1998 and notified users if a match was nearby by vibrating their cellphones. Lovegety inspired Bluedating, spontaneous matchmaking via Bluetooth. Soon after came “geosocial” networking services such as Loopt and Brightkite.com, which allow people to keep track of friends and explore social communities around their favourite venues. Even though the apps are all explicitly opt-in, they've raised safety concerns. With stalker risks in mind, most will only reveal the distance between users, not their exact location. They also let users block others if they become pesky.
The full article was originally published at Globe and Mail, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: It will take a major iDating site to integrate LBS before Location Based Dating will really take off.
Skout Hooks Up with Billing Revolution
WEBWIRE — Aug 5 – Billing Revolution, a mobile payments and billing solutions company, partners with Skout, a location-based dating company, to enable both mobile and web based transactions. Billing Revolution will provide its single-click payment solutions to simplify the consumer checkout experience for Skout users. FULL ARTICLE @ WEBWIRE
A Matchmaking Jukebox
FSB MAGAZINE — June 24 — When Christian Wiklund lauched Skout in 2008, he had no idea he was getting into the dating business. Skout developed a free social network that allowed anyone with a GPS-ready cell phone to view photos uploaded by nearby Skout members, along with their geographic distance. Skout became a dating database that more than 2,000 people browse every day (out of a total of 500,000 members). Skout OUT is a new service that will be in 10,000 bars across the U.S. later this year. Those bars have already installed 42-inch plasma touch-screen computers. The touchscreens will show pictures of Skout users within a mile radius who have agreed to be listed on Skout OUT. Users can send messages to prospective hookups, send a virtual "drink" or the name of the song the jukebox is about to play — dedicated to the object of their affection. FULL ARTICLE @ CNN MONEY
Skout Homepage Relaunch Reflects New Focus
TECH CRUNCH — Apr 20 — Skout has revamped and simplified
their homepage to reflect their new focus on location-based dating, which
shifted earlier this year. With one of the iPhone’s earliest dating apps, the
new homepage now serves as an extension of that app with simple navigation and
very basic functions. The updated ‘hotlist’ function allows you to follow
updates for people you find interesting in a very Twitter-like manner. Plans
are in the works for a new program called Skout OUT that will be implemented in
clubs and bars, and is beginning to white label its network. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Internet Dating Weekly News Summary – 3 Minutes
Online Personals Watch News Summary #1, 4 3 09 from Mark Brooks.
This weeks news covers Skout, eHarmony, IC3, and Mobestar along with my favorite April 1st joke, Steve Wozniak in the new Footloose movie.
Mobile Dating
WASHINGTON POST – Mar 27 — Skout, changed its business model and joined a growing wave of firms trying to turn smart phones into dating devices. Right now the service is free, but the company will soon charge a $5 to $10 monthly subscription. A January report by Juniper Research predicts the market for mobile dating and chatrooms will grow to nearly $1.4 billion by 2013. "I see usage going through the roof because it's no longer a compromised experience," says Mark Brooks, a consultant to the online dating industry. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST
Skout Introduces Real Time Online Dating
PR NEWSWIRE — Mar 2 — Skout, the mobile location-based dating company, launched Skout OUT, an interactive new dating tool that helps singles find, flirt and connect with other singles in their immediate vicinity. Skout OUT will be available in bars and clubs across the United States beginning in Q2 '09.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.