Category: Uncategorized

NEW YORK TIMES — Apr 10 — About 11 million of Orkut's more than 15 million users are registered as living in Brazil – a remarkable figure, given that ~12 million Brazilians use the Internet from home.  Schools, workplaces, even residential streets have "communities" joined by people who have studied, worked or lived there. No one quite knows why Orkut caught on among Brazilians and not Americans. It exploded once it gained a foothold in Brazil.

The full article was originally published at IHT, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Rate.ee is Estonia's social network.  Bebo 'owns' Ireland. Friendster is huge in the Phillipines.  Please email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com or comment if you know of any other regionally focused social networks.

Apr 11 — Online Personals Watch is, #1, for online dating executives.  I recognised the need for OPW whilst at Friendfinder, then started it while at Cupid.  Colleagues would forward articles around which were often laden with good ‘intel’ on the market, product developments and trends.  There was never enough time to route through all the articles.  OPW is ‘CNN’ for online personals industry execs, marketers and product managers.  I personally review all articles to cut through to the core intelligence that online personals [internet dating, social networks, business networks] industry decision makers need.  #2, OPW is for the press to get a quick read on the industry and contact execs.  #3, it acts as a watchdog, of sorts.  – Mark

MARKETING VOX — Apr — All Webshots users with an “.edu” registered email address will be connected to CollegeLive – which has separate communities for each academic institution.  CollegeLive will generate revenue from text ads.

The full article was originally published at Marketing Vox, but is no longer available.

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE — Apr 7 — The Salt Lake Tribune asked Judy Silverstein, who co-wrote Online Dating for Dummies, for advice on writing an online profile. Silverstein says if you're not having luck with online dating, it's probably your profile, not you. "You shouldn't give up if it's not working," she said in a telephone conversation from her home in Atlanta.  First, it's important to be honest and try to show people how you really are, she says.  It's worth the time it takes to get it right. 

The full article was originally published at Salt Lake Tribune, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: …and have friends look over your profile.  Is it really 'you'?  Ask them what you need to add to your profile.

PR NEWSWIRE — Apr 6 — Quepasa registered 100,000 new users within the Social Networking portion of its website. 

The full article was originally published at SYS-CON, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Quepasa is not a new site, just the social networking portion. Still, traffic is growing nicely for them – Alexa 6,004

PHYS ORG — Apr 6 — The free site launched two weeks and has 3,000 members, averaging ~800 members a day.  MPwH (Meet People with H) has 54,000+ members.  Nationwide at least 45 million people ages 12 and older, or one out of five adolescents and adults, have had genital HSV infection, and about 40 million Americans are infected with genital warts. There were an estimated 42,514 AIDS diagnoses in 2004.  FULL ARTICLE @ PHYS ORG

RED ORBIT — Apr 5 — Dogster and Catster have 211,000 member animals and are on track to hit $1 million in sales this year. Rheingold spends $2,000 a month to rent servers, $1,000 a month for a few rooms in a San Francisco warehouse and has eight employees. So far Dogster fans are doing the selling on Dogster’s behalf by sending Dogster invitations to friends with dogs. The sites make money from Google’s AdSense program (now generating $2.7 billion a year, roughly 80% of it distributed to partner sites). Rheingold now has enough traffic to attract advertisers; Walt Disney, and Dad’s, a premium pet product company.

The full article was originally published at Red Orbit, but is no longer available.

POWER HOME BIZ — Apr 5 — ScnWeb, web design and development company, released Online Dating Software $199, allowing the launch of a full featured dating site.  

The full article was originally published at Power Home Biz, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: …and there's dating software from Joyn Communities (monthly fee), and aewebworks $690, and Webscribble.

PR NEWSWIRE — Apr 3 — Multiply.com added functionality for photos, music, videos and blogs.  Also ‘Live Replies’ – Replies added to a blog or photo album thread instantly appear on the screen.  RELEASE @ SYS-CON

THE JOURNAL OF NEW ENGLAND TECHNOLOGY — Apr 3 — Women question men during real-time games at Gottaflirt.com which will eventually charge male contestants $1 to play each game. Instead of requiring users to browse hundreds of profiles, Gottaflirt seeks to make the process a light-hearted exchange between potential matches.  FULL ARTICLE @ BIZ JOURNALS

Mark Brooks: Gaming and online dating have not unified effectively as yet.  I look forward to seeing a site that pairs the two nicely.  It will be a powerful, entertaining and profitable pairing, done right.  Lavalife recently teamed with Partypoker.  In the past, casino advertisers haven’t done so well advertising on online dating sites.