Category: Uncategorized

NORTHERN STAR — Jan 25 — It has become increasingly difficult for the youth to find places to congregate. Online relationships definitely have the advantage of being convenient. The Internet used to be a scary place to meet strangers. Now it seems to be one of the few ways which we can transcend the obstacles we face in our day-to-day social lives. Online communities may not be the perfect solution to the communication barriers of our generation, but they sure are a great start.

TWIN CITIES PIONEER PRESS — Jan 21 — E-dating revenues rose 73% in 2002 and 77% in 2003. For 2004, the growth slowed to 19%. Spending on online personals dipped during the first two quarters of this year to less than $114 million, compared with $117 million in the last quarter a year ago. Some companies are cutting employees. One fast-rising site chose not to go public. It seems people who jumped into the game with enthusiasm now talk about disillusionment with the people they met who were nothing like what they expected. Women say some men were married or just window-shopping. 

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

Mark Brooks: 19% sounds like a pretty healthy growth rate to me.

PRNewswire — Jan 18 — Date.com has pulled together tips for single parents to make this Valentine’s Day special for their children, and most importantly, for themselves!

Mark Brooks: Single parents should also check out Parents Without Partners and Single Parents Mingle.

SEATTLE PI — Jan 18 — Money is also rapidly filling Jobster’s coffers, with Ignition Partners and Trinity Ventures announcing today that they have injected $10.5 million into the year-old project. The Jobster service, which will be unveiled this spring, allows recruiters to tap into the knowledge base of their current work force in order to find quality candidates for a job. Jobster is described as a combination of Monster.com and Friendster.

TECHNICIAN — Jan 18 — "Thefacebook is a great social network of students which allows me to form valuable study groups, or anything of that nature."  Although Thefacebook may be new to many, there are various other Web sites just like it in cyberspace, like Blackplanet.com, Friendster.com and Myspace.com.

Mark Brooks: TheFaceBook is a very popul;ar social network for students and alumni of specific universities.  Sign up and you’ll be able to track down other alums.

CHICAGO MAROON — Jan 13 — If you haven’t heard of either site yet, you’re probably outside their target demographic (35 and under). Friendster and The Facebook channel a spirit similar to the one that fueled Howard Dean’s groundbreaking campaign Meet-ups. Strangers united by a common cause, interest, or acquaintance use the Internet to interact with one another. For many users, Friendster and The Facebook are simply modern-day work-ups of the classic “Kevin Bacon” game: Users get the cheap thrill of seeing how many degrees separate one life from another. And as addicts are prone to do, it’s easy to scapegoat such sites for the social ills of urban alienation.

THIRD AGE — Should you date someone who is "married-but-separated"? Most People Say No. "There is no such thing as being 'separated' — unless you're an egg."

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

US Newswire — Jan 10 — Founder of divorcedating.com, the nation's premiere dating and information website for singles, divorcees, widows and more, today offered the recently separated Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston a free membership the to the website.

Mark Brooks: FACT:Unmarried singles tend to search for unmarried singles.  Nice niche, no traffic, brand new site.

On dates more than a few of the handsome, rugged, athletic types she thought she had been corresponding with looked more like George Costanza than George Clooney. Some of those “single” guys turned out to have wives. Feeling weary and, she said, “jerked around,” Gold let her paid subscription to Match.com expire, and she has turned to real-life singles mixers for professionals. “It’s a lot of effort, and it’s really no different from the people you meet in the offline world,” she said. “I’m becoming disenchanted. I’ve got people contacting me from North Carolina and New Mexico, and that’s not going to work.”

Mark Brooks: Where else can you go to fast search through over one million eligibles? Yes, online dating is a lot of work…but if your goal is to hook-up for the long haul, it’s the most important decision you’ll ever make so it’s worth investing in a quality online dating service to help narrow the field in a hurry. btw…One of the reasons online dating is settling down from three figure growth rates is because of massive amounts of competition for online advertising. The industry is still growing by $100’s of millions of dollars a year.

INTERNET RETAILER — Buy.com sees social networking as a springboard to the future of retail e-commerce; acquired metails.com last fall and has since renamed it Yub.com. “Social networking is the next wave of the Internet,” asserts Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, which expects to boost its number of subscribers with a social networking feature it launched late November. Friendster (13 million members) just sells commercial advertising space so far. eBay’s system of letting buyers and sellers rate each other has for years served as a form of social networking. For now, Yub.com appears to be the only site offering to pay commissions to members whose product referrals lead to purchases. INTERNET RETAILER

Mark Brooks: Affiliate programs to the power ten. But will the ideavirus spread when there’s an obvious commercial agenda. Yub pays 1% to both buyer and seller. Add a little more weight to the percentages and everyone will become an MLM based affiliate. Shhh, don’t tell Amway.