Category: YahooPersonals

Aiming For Love Online; Sites Reviewed by Couples

Posted on February 19, 2005

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS — Feb 14 — Now there's even more help. Online dating sites are boasting they have uncovered the digital alchemy for amour, offering 'scientific' tests to help the lovelorn find their true soul mate. How good are they? We let four married couples try the tests at eHarmony, Yahoo Personals, Tickle and True. Each partner took the online personality tests designed to probe their psyches (fibbing a little to indicate they were single) and checked out whether the system matched them with their real mates. The results suggest that 'science' isn't always the last word when it comes to true romance. 

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

Aiming For Love Online; Sites Reviewed by Couples

Posted on February 19, 2005

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS — Feb 14 — Now there's even more help. Online dating sites are boasting they have uncovered the digital alchemy for amour, offering 'scientific' tests to help the lovelorn find their true soul mate. How good are they? We let four married couples try the tests at eHarmony, Yahoo Personals, Tickle and True. Each partner took the online personality tests designed to probe their psyches (fibbing a little to indicate they were single) and checked out whether the system matched them with their real mates. The results suggest that 'science' isn't always the last word when it comes to true romance. 

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

Online Dating Rekindling Love

Posted on February 16, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — Feb 14 — "A lot of services said, 'Hey, put in your $25, pull the handle and get your partner,' " said Joe Cohen, chief operating officer for Match.com, a leading online personals site. "It's not that simple. "People were turned off because expectations were raised so high," he added. "Web sites could only under-deliver."  To revitalize the industry, some dating Web sites are refocusing on users who want serious relationships.  "This market is saturated," said Nate Elliot, an analyst for Jupiter Research. "You have all the online dating sites you're ever going to need." Lorna Borenstein, vice president and general manager of Yahoo Personals, said her business hasn't slowed, as some other companies' has. She attributes the continued growth to Yahoo's giant reach and several new features in the personals area.  FULL ARTICLE @ YAHOO

Mark Brooks: New/startup online personals companies should either shoot for a very targeted niche, or secure $5 million+ of marketing funding.

Tech-Savvy Singles Find Online Personals Nothing Like Real Thing

Posted on February 13, 2005

Marycom_logo SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS — Feb 13 — Nearly all of the 1,650 new Bay Area members who joined Table for Six in 2004 were singles who stopped fishing online, said owner Julie Paiva. "A big reason why someone does online dating is to expand their social life,'' said Paiva. "But they find out what they're mostly doing is spending time in front of a computer screen."  Cali, for one, paid for memberships at five sites before pulling the plug. “If you're serious about finding someone, you have to spend money and stick around to make the effort,'' she said.  In 2000, when eHarmony homed in on the population of serious daters — armed with a 436-question personality test — many of its competitors laughed.  EHarmony's algorithms for romance struck a chord; boasts a membership of 6.5 million, up from 1 million in 2003. Yahoo Personals, True, PerfectMatch.com and Tickle followed suit with their own love alchemy tests. At ColorCupid members are matched based on color preference tests.  Mary.com launched this month offering compatibility testing,  background checks and certified photos taken by its photographers to ensure people look like their photos.

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

Mark Brooks: Mary.com, what a great name!

Looking For Love in Cyber Places

Posted on February 13, 2005

BANKRATE — Feb 11 — Internet dating is by far the most common, and least expensive, matchmaking method. There's something for everyone, from AmericanSingles.com, Match.com and Yahoo! Personals to the more specialized.  With fees starting at $10,000, single men can use Selective Search and receive the "white glove treatment." Staff members are all former corporate recruiters and the company uses the same executive-search model as headhunters to find women to introduce to the men. "If you think about a traditional dating service, it's flawed in the sense that it's such a limited pool to pick from," says Adler.

Mark Brooks: See the future.  Well heeled singles will shell out more money for higher end services online. 

Looking For Love in Cyber Places

Posted on February 13, 2005

BANKRATE — Feb 11 — Internet dating is by far the most common, and least expensive, matchmaking method. There's something for everyone, from AmericanSingles.com, Match.com and Yahoo! Personals to the more specialized.  With fees starting at $10,000, single men can use Selective Search and receive the "white glove treatment." Staff members are all former corporate recruiters and the company uses the same executive-search model as headhunters to find women to introduce to the men. "If you think about a traditional dating service, it's flawed in the sense that it's such a limited pool to pick from," says Adler.

Mark Brooks: See the future.  Well heeled singles will shell out more money for higher end services online. 

Relationship Based Matching; Love Machines

Posted on February 10, 2005

LA CITY BEAT — Feb 10 — It’s hard to know how faith might play into Warren’s methods, since he is unwilling to subject his never-published test research to independent review. “There’s obviously an evangelical influence,” says Dr Thompson of weAttract.com, creators of Yahoo Personals relationship test. Warren has a master’s of divinity and clinical psychology Ph.D. and served as dean of Fuller Theological Seminary School of Psychology. Friendster.com recently partnered with eHarmony but the company was unaware that eHarmony excluded gays/lesbians until informed by CityBeat. “I have to call and talk to eHarmony about that, because you’re telling me this for the first time,” says Friendster’s head of bus. dev.  EHarmony also rejects one in five who fill out the 500+ personality questions. eHarmony screens out anyone with a curiously low level of energy (depression), users with three+ unsuccessful marriages, or anyone who fails to answer its questions truthfully. Eharmony's questions use the homogamous approach, based on the idea that like fits better with like. True, PerfectMatch, and Yahoo! prefer to match users based on complementarity. Dr Houran, of True, is author of an article in The North American Journal of Psychology detailing their failings. The PerfectMatch members who meet on Dr. Phil are disappointed that they haven’t all been united with their potential soul mate, but seem to understand that very few things in life ever work out perfectly. About 15 of the couples from the show seem to have hit it off.

The full article was originally published at La City Beat, but is no longer available.

16% of Surfers Visit Dating Sites

Posted on February 10, 2005

SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL — Feb 10 — From January to June 2004, Web surfers spent $235.3 million on online personals, according to the Online Publishers Association and comScore Networks. That figure is about 10% more than the $214.3 million spent in the first half of 2003. Just think, in the first half of 2001, people spent only $22.6 million on Web Personals. Of America’s 161 million Internet users, 16% visited a personals site in December 2004. Top 5 Web dating sites, ranked by Comscore Mediametrix by number of unique visitors in December 2004: 1. Yahoo Personals, 5.7 million, 2. Match.com sites, 4.4 million, 3. MatchNet, 3.89 million, 4. Eharmony.com, 1.9 million, 5. True.com, 1.5 million

Mark Brooks: From $50 million to $500 million in 4 years!

Yahoo! Personals Declares Valentine’s Day National Call in Single Day

Posted on February 2, 2005

BUSINESS WIRE — Feb 2 — In honor of National Call in Single Day, Yahoo! Personals will be hosting events across the U.S. — with Paula Abdul in Los Angeles — to help singles find love by searching in giant eight-foot tall haystacks filled with attractive single men and women and fun prizes. According to a recent survey by Yahoo! Personals 77% spend an average of one to three hours per day looking for love. During National Call in Single Day singles are invited to take the free Personality & Love Style Test and Relationship Test

Mark Brooks: Singles are spending a lot of time searching. Mobile dating providers and premium matchmaker/help services take note.

Battle for Supremacy Among Leading Online Relationship Sites Heats Up

Posted on January 30, 2005

BUSINESS WIRE — Jan 27 — Online relationship sites devoted to serious relationships are  attracting millions of new members. This burgeoning market segment will continue to attract interest, investments, and members in 2005, and the two companies poised to capitalize on this trend are PerfectMatch.com and eHarmony.com. "eHarmony has done a very good job at educating the market about the differences between a dating site and a relationship site," said Duane Dahl, founder and CEO, PerfectMatch.com. "They've spent a tremendous amount of money, but money doesn't necessarily mean success for eHarmony's members. We are gaining ground quickly." 

Mark Brooks: The holy grail of online dating = finding a truly compatible match (whatever your preferences might be).  The three big psychological profiling based online dating players are eHarmony, True and PerfectMatch.  I'll be profiling the PhD's behind these sites shortly.  Yahoo, Match and FriendFinder offer optional profiling as well, but a minority of their users have taken the profiling tests.