Category: Uncategorized

SCOOP — Nov 16 — The United Nations refugee agency today issued a strong warning about Internet fraud resettlement schemes in which bogus organizations claiming UN affiliation use chat groups and dating or fake websites promising settlement and employment opportunities in Europe and North America for up to $1,000.  "UNHCR never charges refugees for resettlement or any other services. Resettlement to a third country is used by UNHCR usually for particularly vulnerable refugee cases. Any websites claiming to be associated with UNHCR and charging for resettlement services are fraudulent."  FULL ARTICLE @ SCOOP

Mark Brooks: Anyone come across this scam?

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH — Nov 13 — Washington University and the University of Missouri at St. Louis have joined with United Way, the Regional Arts Commission and other local groups to form a service to pair local nonprofits with men and women interested in serving on their boards.   

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL — Nov 13 — 89% of men and 95% of women said they were extremely or somewhat likely to notice their date's car; a U.S. survey of 400 single men and women, conducted by Ford.  69% of the women said the condition of their date's vehicle would at least somewhat affect their attraction to their date compared to 47% of men.

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

Mark Brooks: Car, house ownership, shoes, handbag, coat, hairdo, state of hands…the list goes on.  Car, coat and shoes are probably the biggest indicators of finances and finesse.  What do you think?  Your comments please.

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL — Nov 13 — 89% of men and 95% of women said they were extremely or somewhat likely to notice their date's car; a U.S. survey of 400 single men and women, conducted by Ford.  69% of the women said the condition of their date's vehicle would at least somewhat affect their attraction to their date compared to 47% of men.

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

Mark Brooks: Car, house ownership, shoes, handbag, coat, hairdo, state of hands…the list goes on.  Car, coat and shoes are probably the biggest indicators of finances and finesse.  What do you think?  Your comments please.

PR WEB — Nov 13 — Xfactordates Established into 2003 operating in the UK have now expanded into South Africa.  Since its birth in the UK in 2003 more than 30,000 single people signed up for Xfactor which now hosts events in more than 30 UK cities.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

Mark Brooks: Cupid's Predating.com, Hurrydate and 8MinuteDating are the biggest national speed-dating services in the US.

PR WEB — Nov 13 — Xfactordates Established into 2003 operating in the UK have now expanded into South Africa.  Since its birth in the UK in 2003 more than 30,000 single people signed up for Xfactor which now hosts events in more than 30 UK cities.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

Mark Brooks: Cupid's Predating.com, Hurrydate and 8MinuteDating are the biggest national speed-dating services in the US.

FINANCIAL EXPRESS — Nov 12 — Imeem is a free software tool/web service.  "Meems" are virtual meeting places or groups within imeem that users can design and others can join. A form of P2P (peer-to-peer) technology blends the social networking with instant messaging, blogging (creating an online diary), online file sharing and desktop search into a single package.  Members seek out others with similar interests and build meems which remain on a user's hard drive rather than being uploaded to a third-party server.  Users create their own imeem identity, building their imeem network by sending friends and colleagues Invitations.  Contacts appear in a "buddy list." Users can also see their friends "buddy lists."  Corporate users could use the software to create secure collaborative networks. 

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

Mark Brooks: Founded by a Stanford Computer Science PhD.  Anyone tried it yet? 

PRWEB — Nov 11 — Megafriends added ‘mySpots’ to allow members to stop searching through wide databases and instead place their search for people with things they have in common as the main search criteria so people can meet around common activities. Member interests are posted on that member’s profile, and common interests with another member are highlighted to easily show things members have in common.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

Mark Brooks: Megafriends has also implemented the anonymous phone calling service from Phone Matrix.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY — Nov 10 — Google has revealed it will move into the billion-dollar market for online classified ads. That revelation comes at a time when its chief rival, Yahoo is losing ground – at least in terms of visitor traffic – in its classifieds business.  In September, Yahoo’s classified pages attracted 573,000 unique visitors, down 42% from September 2004 per comScore.  Yahoo is the No. 1 site on the Web, with 169 million unique visitors in September. Google ranks No. 4, at 87 million.  U.S. online classified revenue is expected to jump to $3.6 billion in 2010 from $1.8 billion last year, says Jupiter.  Craigslist is tiptoeing ever so slowly into the for-fee arena. The company charges a fee only for job listings in the San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York markets. Craigslist has considered charging for real estate listings.

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

Mark Brooks: Craigslist is one of the thorns in Google and Yahoo‘s side. See Craigslist growth over the last 2 years …  Alexa Rank

YAHOO NEWS — Nov 10 — A 28-year-old Milwaukee man is accused of raping a Dodge County woman he met through a telephone dating service. The 19-year-old woman agreed to meet the man at a Fox Lake convenience store last month, but then decided she didn’t want to date him. Police said after she returned home, the man, Elisha Ford, and his friend entered her home and raped her at knifepoint. Ford was arrested last weekend in Milwaukee. Police said he used a fake name in his phone conversations leading up to the assault. Police are still seeking the second suspect. The Dodge County sheriff told 12 News the two were caught in a similar crime five years ago near Medford. "I find it highly unlikely that these two involved in 2000 would have spanned five years and escalated to such a violent nature of an attack as they did on this young woman, that they have not been involved in something similar to this over the course of these past five years," Dodge County Sheriff Todd Nehls said he fears there could be more victims and encourages them to come forward. "Technology has really forced those in law enforcement to change the way we look at things, and I’m a very strong advocate of educating adults and children alike. Something like this shouldn’t have happened," Nehls said.