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Seen an article or news piece on internet dating, social networking or business networking?  Please forward the link to mark@courtlandbrooks.com – Mark Brooks

ASSOCIATED PRESS — Nov 2 — A new study by researchers at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania found interracial relationships, although on the rise, are significantly less likely than same-race relationships to lead to marriage. Though this trend has weakened in recent years, the rate of interracial marriage was still relatively uncommon in 2002, with only 2.9% of all marriages being interracial, according to the Census Bureau. The study found interracial relationships were most common among young people. Hispanics had the highest rate of interracial relationships, with 45% of 18 to 19-year-olds and 33% of 24 to 25-year-olds in interracial relationships in the early 2000s, compared with blacks (20% and 14%, respectively) and whites (16% and 12%, respectively).  Asians appear to be comparable to Hispanics in terms of rates of interracial involvement. Researchers used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the National Health and Social Life Survey. 

Mark Brooks: Interracialmatch.com targets this trend.  AsiaFriendFinder does not charge those in China, only stateside users.

MEDIA POST — Nov 2 — With Windows Live, Microsoft will offer MSN services like its Messenger instant messaging, a new Web-mail service called Kahuna, and Spaces, a product for creating blogs. The new services will be deployed from a personalized home page, www.live.com.  Amid continued speculation about the future of AOL, MSN’s next wave, Google’s and others’ land grabs, we asked a Microsoft source about MSN’s next moves. We received a somewhat telling comment: "Microsoft has invested in MSN for the benefit of the entire company. If we’d been investing to win for MSN for the past 10 years, we’d be stomping them all." Mmmm, that gives us pause. Feeling the heat in search and online advertising, Microsoft, now in middle age, is plotting its next moves. And you know what, it’s not going anywhere. The thing is, with Microsoft, after a few tries, it nearly always gets things right. The thing is, this time around, it’s going to have to try harder. FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIA POST

Mark Brooks: MSN is partnered with Match.com for online dating. 

SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER — Nov 2 — Sperling’s BestPlaces found that Seattle was the No. 1 city in the country for hooking up online.  RELEASE @ SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER

NEW UNIVERSITY NEWSPAPER — Nov 2 — With newspaper and online single’s ads you don’t get a real sense for who the other party is. Enter online social networking.  The next revolution in the public’s perception of the Internet and computers is coming. With the rise of services like Facebook and Xuqa, the new identity is not just a screen name-it is photos, interests, classes and the like, and the friends they have listed are essentially vouching for this person’s identity. The next evolution isn’t Facebook, at least not until it pulls some drastic and much-needed changes. Xuqa at this time seems to be a more likely candidate with its secret admireres and crushlists. What Facebook lacks is the ability to form a community and new friendships.

BUSINESS WIRE — Oct 31 — The Online Publishers Association (OPA) today released its Paid Content U.S. Market Spending Report covering Q1 and Q2 of 2005, conducted by comScore Networks.  Consumer spending for online content in the U.S. grew to $987 million in the first half of 2005, an increase of 15.7% over the same period last year. Spurred by growth in online music sales, Entertainment/Lifestyles overtook Personals/Dating to become the leading paid content category, with consumers spending $264.8 million on the category in the first half of 2005. Personals/Dating grew to $245.2 million in the first half of 2005, while Business/Investment content remained in third place with spending at $159.1 million. comScore Networks calculated the results of the study by monitoring its representative panel of more than 1.5 million U.S. online consumers – Full Report.  RELEASE @ BUSINESS WIRE

CLOVIS NEWS JOURNAL — Nov 1 — MySpace is celebrating its second birthday tonight with a concert at Dodger Stadium. "It’s a novelty, but it’s grown in such a capacity," said Tod Work, who moderates a group called the Portales and Clovis Crew on MySpace. FULL ARTICLE @ CLOVIS NEWS JOURNAL

Mark Brooks: Myspace is enjoying the same media frenzy that Friendster enjoyed in 2003/2004. 

MEDIA POST — Oct 27 — The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture explores search as a business and social phenomenon. Google is advancing on a thousand different fronts at once. With their acknowledged brilliance, arrogance and determination, Brin and Page have built a company that worships at the altar of technology. The high priests are legions of engineers, all given explicit instructions to invent something cool. There is little in the way of top-down strategy. Page is quoted as saying that he’s not a big believer in strategy. Rather, the Google Brin and Page envision is a support system for rampant entrepreneurialism, with grassroots innovation ultimately driving the direction of the company. The multi-million dollar Founders’ Award attaches heavy bonuses to this activity, giving employees a reason to stay in the corporate nest, rather than founding their own companies and ultimately hoping to be acquired again by Google. FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIA POST

Mark Brooks: Lycos, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask Jeeves, Google.  Which is the odd one out?  Google!  No online dating affiliation or ownership as yet.  Just what do they have up their sleeves I wonder? Something tells me they won’t leave the online dating stone unturned.

HEXHAM COURANT — Oct 28 — A couple from Hexham have set up Tynedale's first dating agency.  "We are trying to do something different to all the online agencies," said Rob. "We will go and meet everyone in person and interview them about their likes, dislikes, hobbies and interests."  Rob and Fiona hope that by meeting their clients in person they will be able to use their own judgement to match them up with suitable partners.

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

Mark Brooks: How can online dating sites develop the 'personal touch.' There's a lot to be said for having profile info that is collected in person and the handholding of a real, live matchmaker.  The online downside…an extremely limited choice.  When will the two worlds meet?  The online dating industry is leaving money on the table.  There's a lot to be learned from the real world dating agencies, events clubs and matchmaking/coaching services.

TACOMA DAILY INDEX — Oct 28 — The social networking space is getting crowded with sites like RYZE.com, LinkedIn.com, SixDegrees.com, MeetUp.com, Friendster.com, Tickle.com, Tribe.com and even one called DudeCheckThisOut.com. Technology analyst Mitch Ratcliffe has studied social networks extensively.  He writes about Internet trends and politics on his Web log at RatcliffeBlog.com. "I was on the Board of Directors for Match.com. For the first couple of years, you have actually no idea what is going to work. You don't know how often people are going to come back…It turns out they would come back generally three or four times before they <cease coming> back for one reason or the other. There's a lot of experimentation amongst all these companies to see how much people use <social networking sites>, what the size of the typical network grows to, and whether there is enough interaction between those networks to drive a real business model. I don't know if any one of these sites will be able to compete without buying and consolidating all the other network services. Most of the companies that are involved in this are going to have to do something that is open source, that allows people to share this information across networks, or no one of them are going to become a viable place for people to stay…Consolidation is already starting to go on at the very genetic level between all these sites. Information is shared through protocols like "friend of a friend," which is a standardized way of expressing information about the relationships between users on a site and OPML, which is a feed that allows you to track what other people are reading — a sort of logging of blogging. They are all going to compete to be the place that is the aggregator of choice."

The full article was originally published at Tacoma Daily Index, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Well, Google certainly has the resources to gobble up more than a few players, but is the revenue potential there to justify it?