REUTERS - May 22 - Prague transport company Ropid wants to set aside carriages on some or all of its metro trains for singles seeking a soul mate, a service that could be launched by the end of this year. The company will start polling passengers to determine whether they would be interested.
Research
Reviews
POF Email To Users
OPW - May 21 - Markus, the CEO/Founder of Plentyoffish sent this unusual email out yesterday to POF users. What's your thoughts. Please comment in the comments section...
__
My name is Markus and I created POF/Plentyoffish. When I created POF, I wanted it to be all about finding relationships with the right person. For the first 7 years this worked really well, I got the site to 10 million users without any employees people and POF was generating a ton of relationships. Around 3 years ago, everyone started using the website via mobile phones. Today about 70% of POF use is via a mobile phone and unfortunately about 2% of men started to use POF as more of a hookup site mostly due the the casual nature of cell phone use.
In sticking with my vision that POF is all about Relationships, I'm going to make a bunch of changes to ensure it stays a relationship-focused site.
1. Any first contact between users that contains sexual references will not be sent. Anyone who tries to get around this rule will be deleted without warning. This rule has actually been in effect since last month and it's made the site so much better.
2. You can only contact people +/- 14 years of your age. There is no reason for a 50 year old man to contact a 18 year old women. The majority of messages sent outside those age ranges are all about hookups. Anyone who tries to get around this rule will get deleted.
3. Intimate Encounters will go away in the next few months. There are 3.3 Million people who use the site every day, of those there are only 6,041 single women looking for Intimate Encounters. Of those 6,041 women, the ones with hot pictures are mostly men pretending to be women. Intimate Encounters on POF can be summed up as a bunch of horny men talking to a bunch of horny men pretending to be women.
In short the vast majority of people will not be impacted. This is because the vast majority of people are not going around spamming women saying "let's have sex tonight". I can't change POF alone, I need your help to get the word out there that POF is all about relationships!
Markus
In India Political Views Matter, Matchmakers Say...
ECONOMIC TIMES - May 21 - Gourav Rakshit, COO of matchmaking portal Shaadi.com, says he would add 'political views' to the roster of standard criteria like caste, gotra and income status that matchmaking websites use to suggest suitable matches. "We see that today the professional urban youth are keen to know political affiliations of potential partners," says Sanjeev Kumar, business head for simplymarry.com, another matchmaking portal. Social commentator Santosh Desai says it is the social media platform that has changed the scenario. "What was once a private opinion now has a public domain of who I am." he says.
Meetic Buys Pastas Party For Its Singles Events
REUTERS - May 20 - Meetic has acquired the assets of Pastas Party, the leading French website for singles events. Created in 2007 by Héloïse Dion, Pastas Party has developed a range of singles events across France and runs a community of ~100K singles. In December 2012 Meetic launched a complementary offline event service - Meetic Soirées. Already ~ 300 Soirées have been organised. Héloïse Dion and her team will be responsible for creating Soirées in each European country covered by the Meetic group.
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Zynga Tells CupidWithFriends To Stop Using ‘With Friends’
TECH CRUNCH - May 17 - Zynga has told the makers of the dating site CupidWithFriends that they need to change the site’s name, because it allegedly infringes on Zynga’s trademarks. CupidWithFriends was built by the startup Apartment 7. The site launched a couple of months ago, allowing users to build and edit dating profiles for their friends. There’s also Bang With Friends which was recently booted from the Apple App Store.
by Anthony Ha
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Apple Boots Bang With Friends From The App Store
TECH CRUNCH - May 17 - Less than ten days after Bang With Friends made its mobile debut on the iOS App Store, Apple has seemingly changed its mind and given it the boot. The guys behind the app tried to chaste things up a bit for Apple, changing the name for the iOS to “BWF". The Android app, meanwhile, is still just “Bang With Friends”. A page put up by the team says they’re “working with Apple to get BWF back in the App Store shortly”.
PositiveSingles.com's Privacy Promise Yields Angry Class
CINCINNATI NEWS - May 19 - PositiveSingles.com, a dating site marketed to users with sexually transmitted diseases, is promising 100% confidentiality. It specifically stated that that “(we) do not disclose, sell, or rent any personally identifiable information to any third party organizations.” Users of the service disagreed. According to their lawsuit, SuccessfulMatch.com, which operated Positive Singles, gave commissions to anyone who set up a domain name using its database. Positive Singles users found their profiles on hundreds of other dating websites.
See full article at Cincinnati News
See all posts on PositiveSingles
See all posts on SuccessfulMatch
Gaydar Has Been Sold To The Creator Of Channel 4′s Big Breakfast
PINKNEWS - May 17 - British TV producer Charlie Parsons, who created Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast and The Word, has added Gaydar.co.uk to his business portfolio. QSoft Consulting, the former owner of dating site Gaydar.co.uk, announced in May 2012 it was seeking a “significant cash investment” to fund its “ambition for global growth”. Gaydar founder Henry Badenhorst has left the company and the new management team, led by Trevor Martin, will include Charlie Parsons and Mark Speeks who will both join the Gaydar board of directors with immediate effect.
by Scott Roberts
See full article at PinkNews
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Sizzr App Aims To Help Women Find Women
STRAIGHT - May 16 - Vancouver entrepreneur Jacqueline Clarke started up Sizzr App which is a female-to-female app that will help women hook up with one another. Clarke is taking measures to ensure that this app will remain exclusive to female users. A secure validation plug-in, which will require the use of personal ID, such as a driver's license, will verify the gender of users. Clarke says that they'll be launching an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to raise legal and development fees. Beta-tests with free downloads are planned for June.
Tinder Is Like Pandora For Hooking Up
LA WEEKLY - May 17 - On Tinder app users anonymously reject others almost solely based on their profile pictures. They can also initiate conversation with only those they're actually interested in, under the condition that the interest is mutual. There are no personal statements, compatibility quizzes or rating systems. Since launching Tinder in September 2012 with CEO and fellow USC alum Sean Rad, Justin Mateen says the app has made~40M matches and eight marriage proposals. Tinder's four co-founders are all in their mid-to-late 20s and collectively hold bachelor's degrees in business and marketing. But Tinder is far from their first. Mateen founded Sitecanvas, a website builder that was used to create and maintain sites for Taylor Swift, supermodel Adriana Lima and other celebrities. Meanwhile, Rad founded a matchmaking service of his own: Adly, a startup that matches celebrities seeking to endorse products on Twitter with companies willing to pay for those endorsements.
Lulu: App For Trashing Your Ex
RED EYE CHICAGO - May 15 - According to the Lulu website, the app is "the smart girls' app," and when a guy tries to log in, a message pops up on the screen saying, "Dude, you're a dude!" Lulu uses men's Facebook pages to create a profile and invites users to compile info on everything about the guy. Men reviewed have little access to reply due to being locked out of the app, even though there is a limited accompanying app that lets them edit their basic profile. It's a paradise for anyone who enjoys trashing former boyfriends, especially since reviews are anonymous and there's no accountability.
eHarmony Undergoes Revamp
BUSINESSWIRE - May 15 - Code named “Malibu,” the redesign of eHarmony is comprehensive, with a particular focus on the member profile pages. The new eHarmony member profile showcases each individual in a touch-friendly, side-scrolling magazine. eHarmony also removed all third-party ads. In addition to revamping the member profile pages, eHarmony transformed the famous eHarmony relationship questionnaire from a daunting, clinical form into a welcoming, easy-to-use experience. The new sign-up process now takes half the time to complete, and the company has seen a 20% increase in the number of users who finish the questionnaire. eHarmony also revamped the Personality Profile, which will be released later this week.
Cupid's Shares Fall Close To 2010 Level
HERALD SCOTLAND - May 16 - Shares of Cupid have retreated towards the 60p price they listed on the stock exchange three years ago after the Edinburgh-based group came under renewed attack from short sellers. They are now down 16.3% since the start of May. Cupid's pre-tax profit rose 31% to £9.2M in 2012.
High-tech Tools For STDs
CNN.COM - May 14 - At any given time, 110M Americans have a sexually transmitted infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Young people contract half of all new cases. They're also tech-savvy, and that's driving the development of new high-tech STD prevention tools geared toward them. Qpid.me users can share their verified test results for HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. Their status comes directly from their own U.S. health care provider. It shows when they got tested and includes a disclaimer that notes the user may have had sex since then. Another STD tech tool helps people have difficult conversations with past lovers such as sotheycanknow.org. Another STD tech tool out there is an app called STD Triage.
Worried you might have symptoms of an STD? This service lets you take a picture of a rash, for example, and for ~$40, you can send it in and get a response back from a doctor within a day about what it might be.
Founder2be Took A Lesson From Online Dating
FORBES
- May 15 - Back in 2011, Oliver Bremer was seeking a partner, a
co-founder, with which to kick off a B2B-type software startup. He was
not having much luck. Then it struck him that if people take to social
internet sites to find love and find jobs, why not startup co-founders?
And so Founder2be was born. “It’s like Match.com
meets LinkedIn for startups,” Bremer said. “It’s online dating to find a
cofounder.” People sign up for the service and create a profile that
reflects what they are all about in the hope of attracting like-minded
potential partners. So far there are~ 14K profiles across 100 countries.
by Karsten Strauss
See full article at Forbes
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
eHarmony Wants To Help You Get A Job
WASHINGTON POST - May 14 - For over a decade, eHarmony has been helping people find a date. Now, the company wants to help people find a job. eHarmony is developing a career service that would connect employers with job seekers. eHarmony is entering an already crowded market dominated by Dice and LinkedIn. And while critics have knocked traditional job boards such as Monster and CareerBuilder as outdated, these sites still accounted for ~18% of external hires in 2012. eHarmony product is still in development and is estimated it will launch in the Q2 2014.
New Dating Startup: WednesdayNight
TECH CRUNCH - May 13 - With a new startup called Wednesday Night, users connect their Facebook accounts and are then given three recommendations. If they’re interested in dating one of them, they then pay $50 and are set up with a date on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. They’re also connected with a dating coach who can provide advice via email or text. The website comes from the team of Jared Tame and Teng Siong Ong who are already working on two other dating services — Flock and CupidWithFriends. (They sold their previous startup, Y Combiantor-backed GraffitiGEO, to Loopt.)
eDarling Managing Director Steps Down
VENTURE VILLAGE - May 13 - German dating site eDarling, which last week bought back its shares from US partner eHarmony, has lost its Managing Director, Christian Vollmann. Vollmann will, however, remain on as an investor in the company and also likely as an advisor. The investors in eDarling all contributed to buying back the company from eHarmony, including founders David Khailil and Lukas Brosseder along with Rocket Internet and Holtzbrinck Ventures. The exact reasons behind the buy-back remain unclear.
AYI Introduces Native Android App
TMC NET - May 13 - Snap Interactive launched of AYI native Android app along with integration of the Friends of Friends feature on AYI's mobile-web and iPhone app. ~2M connections have already been made through friends with ~72K users messaging their friends directly to learn about a potential date.
Parents Play Matchmakers
NY TIMES - May 9 - “It’s almost like outsourcing your online dating to your mom,” said Kevin Leland, CEO of TheJMom.com, a Jewish matchmaking site. Mothers, fathers and even grandmothers share online profiles of their ready-to-wed children. Duo is a traditional matchmaking service based in South Korea. 80% of the members are mothers inquiring on behalf of their sons. Annual fees can range from $2K - $5K, and include 7-9 introductions and parents monitor the dating progress of their children. Posting and browsing on TheJMom.com is free, and a six-month subscription package, which provides contacts and connections, starts at $78. The $199 premium service, the Personal Profile Concierge, provides mothers with a makeover of their own profile and their child’s online profile and one-on-one attention from someone at the company. Indian families are known to begin the matchmaking process by collecting a prospect’s “bio-data,” which is a résumé of someone’s marital qualifications — from the basics like age, weight and height, to information about a prospect’s job and character. There are a number of matrimonial sites including BharatMatrimony.com, Shaadi.com, and SecondShaadi.com (for second marriages).
by Ji Huyn Lee
See full article at NY Times
See all posts on TheJMom See all posts on BharatMatrimony
See all posts on Shaadi See all posts on SecondShaadi
Stock Market: Spark Networks Could Be The Next Netflix
BENZIGA - May 10 - 9 months ago Netflix traded for $55 a share. Over the last 7 months, Netflix quadrupled in value and is now trading at ~$217 a share. Who will be the next Netflix? It could be Spark Networks, which owns and operates JDate and Christian Mingle. It only has $170M market cap. JDate been around for over a decade and has had a 90% or higher contribution margin for the last 11 years running, but it hasn't grown. It is the very definition of a beautiful cash cow. Christian Mingle is aimed at the market of Christians in the United States, which is 30 times larger than the Jewish market. It is now substantially larger than JDate. It is not yet profitable because they take all of their cash flow and plow that back into growth. Last quarter, revenues grew 45% YOY. IAC is the most logical buyer for Spark, and it would be a tiny bite-sized acquisition.
by Louis Bedigian
See full article at Benzinga
See all posts on Spark Networks
See all posts on JDate
See all posts on ChristianMingle
Internet Dating Jobs Listing Update - May 2013
OPW - May 12 - New iDating jobs listing is live on the Internet Dating Jobs blog.
Below see a couple of this month's most interesting offers:
____
From our esteemed Courtland Brooks clients:
AnastasiaDate.com
UX
Lead (User Experience Lead/Human-Computer Interaction Lead)
Global Personals USA (Webdate,
Fling, WealthyMen)
Product Manager
GuySpy
Community Manager
____
GrouperDirector of PR/Communications
Match.com, Chemistry.com,
People Media
Director,
West Coast Advertising Sales
Spark Networks
Director of Mobile
Products
SpeedDate
Director of Marketing - Display
Zoosk
Director of International Marketing
To see more open positions go here.
Do you have an idating industry job offer which is not included? Please, send it to petra@courtlandbrooks.com and we will add it to the list.
1 In 10 Online Dating Profiles Is Fake
NY DAILY NEWS - May 9 - A study of bogus online dating profiles reveals that most fraudsters claim to be religious and widowed. Many are also foreign, but describe themselves as Native American, mistakenly thinking it means only that they're from America. The FBI says ~$50M is stolen every year in romance scams. One in ten profiles is fake, according to research from SeekingArrangement.com, which deletes ~200 fraudulent accounts every day. CEO Brandon Wade says: “Scammers want you to trust them, and they want sympathy.” The bogus accounts are more likely to belong to a woman (71%) than a man (29%). Many fake profiles are listed in Nigeria, the Ukraine and the Philippines.
4,000 Irish Students Seek 'Sugar Daddies'
INDEPENDENT - May 10 - ~4,000 Irish students have signed up to a SeekingArrangement.com to pay their way through college. 80% of all relationships conducted through the service involved sex. 4 of the top 10 colleges using the service are based in Dublin. Overall, membership from Ireland is the seventh-largest in the world, behind the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, France and Germany.
FlashComs Offers 30% Off To All Userplane Customers
Domains4Sale: Romantically.com, Peoplego.com
- MobileSoulmates.com $4,500 or $850 if bought today
- MicroDating.com $4,500 or $850
- CupidsRomance.com $4,500 or $850
- Romantically.com $25,000
- peoplego.com $2,500
- esingleparent.com $2,000
- cafequebec.com $1,500
- mobilechatgroups.com $1,250
- singleschat.org $1,000
- realchats.com $1,000
- koreacafe.com $1,000
- chatbuzz.com $1,000
- induscafe.com $750
- womancafe.com $500
- foreveryoungcafe.com $500
- cafemodel.com $250
- howtobemissright.com $250
- 1singlescafe.com $200
- dateaerobics.com $250
- cafefortwo.com $250
- cafefor2.com $200
- cafe4two.com $150
- cafefortow.com $50
Diet Domains
- slimcafe.com $1,000
- edietcafe.com $750
- shapecafe.com $500
Are You Interested Makes 2M Connections
TECH CRUNCH - May 9 - Are You Interested has been in the online dating game since 2007, predominantly focused on the Facebook platform as a way to connect people. In the past few months AYI launched a new feature that connects you with friends of friends. There are ~20M Facebook profiles connected to AYI and 3M active users per month. And since they implemented their friends of friends feature in March, AYI says that ~2M connections have been made through the new feature. Matching friends of friends is the “next big thing”. Another startup that’s been around since last year is Coffee Meets Bagel, and it could be said that they were the first ones to match friends of friends together, albeit at a much smaller scale.
by Jordan Crook
See full article at Tech Crunch
We asked Cliff Lerner, CEO of Snap Interactive, to comment. He said:
"We're very excited by the user reaction and early data around connecting
through your mutual friends. The new feature is increasing engagement,
with US women being 41% more likely to connect with a man when there's a
friend in common. It's also providing viral growth opportunities with
1,000's of users messaging their friends directly to learn about a
potential date.
We look forward to continuing to iterate on meeting new people through mutual friends as well as building a deeper mobile integration. Our mission is to improve the online dating experience for meeting new people. We believe we are uniquely positioned to offer the friend functionality due to our Facebook scale of 20 million Facebook connected profiles, ensuring users have a robust experience to meet through their friends."
Facebook Friends Can Play Cupid With 'YouShouldTotallyMeet'
MASHABLE - May 9 - YouShouldTotallyMeet is a new Facebook app that matches friends of your friends. You first build an app profile for a single friend that you want to set up.Through the app, you then write some reasons why someone should meet your friend. Mutual friends can even vouch for them with "agree" and "disagree" votes. Then, you go through your own friends list and find people they "should totally meet."
How The Internet May Have Increased Young Marriages 14%
TECH CRUNCH - May 9 - One study suggests that the Internet is responsible for boosting holy matrimony 14% among 21-30-year-olds. Of regions with similar composition in race, socioeconomic status, population density, unemployment, and age, the author finds the Internet is associated with 13-30% boost in first-time marriages. A 2005 Pew Poll which found that 5% of all marriages began online.
DateMySchool.com: Online Dating For College Campus
USA TODAY - May 7 - Co-founder of DateMySchool.com, Alexa built the dating website in 2010 with Jean Meyer for peers at Columbia University where they attended business school. Since then, the college- and alum-exclusive service has expanded to ~ 230K students in 2,800 colleges. The duo launched iPhone, iPad and Android applications last month.
"Once they've seen these people are just college kids they're much more open and receptive," Gobiel said. "You then know there won't be these creepy people you might find on other websites."
Mark Brooks
- Grow Your Dating Site
- Contact Mark
usa: 212-444-1636
uk: 020-8133-1835
mark@courtlandbrooks.com - Testimonials
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- Report: How Internet Dating Changed Society
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