PR WEB – Mar 13 – Social dating network, theComplete.me, launches Beta site. Members can meet each other through the real interests, experiences and friends from eight social networks, and via images and videos pulled in from around the Web. Founded by Brian Bowman (CEO), former VP Product Match.com & VP Community Yahoo!, and Shashikant Joshi (CTO), former Founder/CTO Perfode, theComplete.me startup team and Board of Advisors include Fran Maier, Co-founder of Match.com, Trish McDermott, former VP Public Relations Match.com, and other former Match.com and Internet executives.
Category: Social Dating
TheComplete.me Wants To Be The Pinterest Of Dating
GIGAOM – Mar 7 – TheComplete.me, formed by former Match.com executives, connects people through their interests using their real identity and encourages users to express themselves through Pinterest-like pinning of objects. TheComplete.me, which went public today at the Launch conference, pulls together a person’s profile using data from social networks. Their interests get visually represented on a FraME similar to a Pinterest Board. And like Pinterest, people can use a bookmarklet to add items to their FraME from anywhere on the web. The more a person shares, the higher their ME score is, indicating how authentic and real they are. Brian Bowman said he decided to leave Match.com after he realized that the company was not prepared to leverage the social web. Trish McDermott, former VP of Public Relations Match.com who is also on the founding team, said the old way of checking off boxes and creating lists of interests doesn’t reflect the true personality of people and actually keeps people from learning who someone really is. But with social networking, people are learning to be transparent and authentic.
by Ryan Kim
See full article at GigaOm
Badoo – The Hook-up Social Network With $150M In Revenue
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK – Mar 5 – Badoo is a social network that allows users to seek out new friends nearby. Ask its users, and they are more likely to tell you it’s a “hook-up site”. Like Grindr, the gay dating app, it uses location tracking systems in smartphones to enable customers to search for suitors close by. Badoo founder Andrey Andreev insists that the two services are miles apart. Badoo is more like a “telephone bar”, where he first hatched the idea, he says. In the telephone bar, customers are seated at numbered tables with telephones, which they use to ring up anyone else in the bar that attracts their attention. “There are more people that you don’t know than that you know,” Andreev says. “It is mainly about meeting new people for any type of adventure. According to Badoo, 12% of users have got into a serious relationship with someone they’ve met on the site, and 2% have subsequently got married. The app is free to use and there is no advertising, per se. Instead it makes its money from users effectively advertising themselves. A £1 payment will shoot them to the top of the site until the next user knocks them off – usually a couple of seconds – or they can pay to push their way up other users’ inboxes of messages by buying a virtual present. Its annual revenues now tip over $150m (£95m), and it has been in profit for the last two years. Andreev insists he has no intention of selling. “We are not sure about IPO, but never say never.
Is Social Dating The New Way To Find Your Next Date?
LOCKERGNOME – Feb 17 – Of course, as online dating has become mainstream, so has social networking. A recent white paper published by Courtland Brooks, “What is Social Dating?", says that “Social dating is more than simply having Facebook Connect as a registration and log in option on a dating site. It entails creating a social experience that allows users the freedom to discover and create any type of relationship they desire at any given time without a serious time commitment.” In an article published this past week in the New York Times, Dr. Eli Finkel and Co. refuted the science behind sites such as eHarmony, explaining that in an study to be released later this month they found these sites failed to take into account “things like communication patterns, problem-solving tendencies and sexual compatibility.” The ultimate conclusion of Dr. Eli Finkel and Co. was that “None of [their study] suggests that online dating is any worse a method of meeting potential romantic partners than meeting in a bar or on the subway. But it’s no better either.”
Online Dating Sites Want Couples To Stick Around
BLOOMBERG – Feb 13 – Every time dating sties are successful, they lose two customers. Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr think they have a solution. They're the co-founders and co-CEOs of Zoosk. They have been thinking of ways to spur growth by becoming more like LinkedIn, a hub for job seekers that's also a destination for people not actively looking for a new gig. This month, Zoosk will begin offering features to keep happy couples engaged with the site. These include anniversary gift ideas, digital scrapbooks, restaurant discounts and relationship advice from experts. Most of the extra features will be free to Zoosk couples who keep their profiles active. Zoosk became profitable in the fourth quarter and revenue surpassed $90M last year, according to Zadeh.
Badoo: Social Dating
NPR MARKETPLACE – Feb 10 – Social networks got popular and we got much more comfortable sharing our personal lives online so much that entrepreneurs are now latching onto our social networks to create social dating sites like Badoo.com. Broadcasting your private life is key to Badoo’s success. Sites like eHarmony spend millions of dollars on advertising to attract new users. Badoo doesn’t have to. Its users spread the word. Mark Brooks, a consultant to the online dating industry: "Yes they’re not paying so much to acquire users. In fact in many cases they’re not paying anything". The company says it’s on track to take in $150M a year.
Mamboo.com: Interest In Online Dating To Grow By 60%
PR NEWSWIRE – Jan 3 - This Christmas, Mamboo.com noticed an average 40% increase in user activity. Mamboo is reporting some interesting statistics, including members sending 30% more online gifts, as well as a 38% increase in spending on the site. The number of messages sent and received by members also doubled. Mamboo also forecasts a rather romantic January, with 60% more traffic to their site expected during the first two weeks of the year.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
ICQ And Mamboo Develop API For New ICQ Love
PR NEWSWIRE – Nov 30 – ICQ has joined forces with Mamboo.com. The result is ICQ Love. Unlike traditional dating sites, ICQ Love promotes 'Social Dating' – a concept coined by Mamboo.com. It provides a chance to meet new people through existing online friends. Mamboo has ~415K members in North America and Europe.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
Badoo Has 130 Million Users
MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE – Nov 4 – Badoo claims to be the 4th largest social network in the world. Russian owned and London-based, Badoo is available in 35 languages in 180 countries on the web, and also as an iPhone, Android, Facebook and Blackberry app. Badoo has 130M members, up 62% compared to the last year.
by Tim Green
The full article was originally published at Mobile Entertainment Magazine, but is no longer available.
Zoosk Launches App For iPad
MARKETWIRE – Nov 3 - Zoosk, the social dating network, has released its new Zoosk app for iPad. The Zoosk app for iPad, which debuted last week in the iTunes App Store to coincide with Zoosk's fourth birthday, has already ranked among the top 20 apps in the U.S. Social Networking category on the iTunes App Store, above all other dating apps.
The full article was originally published at Marketwire, but is no longer available.