NBC CHICAGO - Jan 25 – Groupon is teaming up with HurryDate.com and Players Sports Group to try and break a world record for the largest ever speed dating event. 500 tickets will be sold on Groupon for $85 worth of speed dating for only $40. The event will be held on February 8th. FULL ARTICLE @ NBC CHICAGO
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MARKETWIRE -- July 27 -- BlackSingles and HurryDate partner with Eizzil Entertainment in support of Eizzil's feature-length romantic comedy, "SPEED-DATING." The film is slated for a 2010 general release. As part of the national promotion tour, the companies will present BlackSingles.com HurryDate events in 12 major cities across the country. FULL ARTICLE @ SOA WORLD MAGAZINE
JENN RUBIN -- Apr 8 -- At Lock and Key events, women are given necklaces bearing tiny locks. Men receive ones with small keys attached. The singles mix and mingle as they attempt to find their match. Lock and Key Events were started about five years ago. Today, it has local branches in more than 60 cities across the country. Ticket prices range from $20 to around $35. Similar organizations include Lock and Key Match. General event planners, like Party Scammers, are also among the companies in L.A. putting on lock and key parties. Companies hosting more traditional types of singles parties also appear to be enjoying continued success, despite turbulent financial times. Adele Testani, president of HurryDate, said that attendance at her organization’s speed date events has spiked in recent months. “Basically, people are adjusting their priorities, and finding dates and a mate are a higher priority in this economy,” says Mark Brooks, a consultant for Internet dating and social networking companies. FULL ARTICLE @ JENNRUBIN.COM
BOSTON GLOBE -- Mar 25 -- Despite all the talk of cougar culture, men still want to date younger women. Men still seek younger women, especially as those men get older themselves. "It's the general rule," said Mark Brooks, an online dating industry consultant who runs Online Personals Watch. "With men dating women, it tends to be up to six years younger but it will only be up to two years older. Guys tend to have unrealistic expectations," said Brooks, who bragged that he is one of the mythical Ashton Kutcher-types (he recently dated someone nine years older than him). "Most men are too busy looking at magazines and not busy enough looking in the mirror." Adele Testani, founder of Hurrydate said "we have actually tried to capitalize on the cougar trend and it didn't really work for us. People really want that more traditional arrangement." Kate Bilenki, a spokeswoman for Plentyoffish.com, has not seen a male profile call for an older woman. "For every 55-year old male, there are three 55-year-old women", she adds. FULL ARTICLE @ BOSTON GLOBE
Mark Brooks: Photoshopped pictures of skinny models in magazines are destroying our society. How can singles photos on dating sites compare to these unrealistic, unnatural photos? A hundred years ago it was the women of girth and curves that were lauded after. 'Women of the street' were skinny and most available to men and became personifications of sexual desire over the years. Sex sells. Sex became connected with skinny, and now we have a generation of kids trying to reach unattainable and unnatural levels of skinny. I'd love a six pack. But why? I've been brainwashed into thinking its sexy. Just as women have been brainwashed into thinking super skinny is THE look. Its not good for the dating industry ultimately. Singles should feel more comfortable posting their photos on dating sites. Your comments please.
PRESS RELEASE -- Jan 15 -- Advanced Mobile
Applications and Longtail Studios, in association with HurryDate®, released a mobile speed dating game.
HurryDate's SpeedDaters is now on leading wireless carriers (Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and MVNO's (mobile virtual network operators), including Boost Mobile, and Virgin Mobile). The game lets players test their dating skills and
see how the pick up lines really work. FULL ARTICLE @ NEWSWIRE
SEATTLE PI -- Jan 3 -- Dating on Demand lets singles record two- to five-minute personal profiles (at home or at a special event) which people can watch Comcast digital cable (or at datingondemand.com). Anyone is eligible to participate, as long as they're a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years of age, have never been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor or been slapped with a restraining order. Surfing profiles is free, but if people want to respond, they have to register on HurryDate.com and pony up a fee ($20 a month). It's still a relatively new service, so there aren't a ton of videos to peruse yet. FULL ARTICLE @ SEATTLE PI
Mark Brooks: I took a look over Dating on Demand 3 weeks ago while in Silicon Valley and in each of the age categories there were just a couple of profiles. Saddeningly lacking profiles, but this is a great idea. The profiles we saw were entertaining. All the profiles we viewed were taken at parties at which attendees were encouraged to do a video. I think video dating will take off. We put this to a vote at iDate Barcelona 2007 on the final panel and most of the executives in the audience disagreed. People are too shy to put their video online. Ah well. Webdate still seems to be the best example of a video dating site. (Full Disclosure: Webdate was a client of Courtland Brooks)
THE BALTIMORE SUN -- Jan 29 -- A Philadelphia nightclub party was where 28-year-old Jessica Scott made her video-dating debut. In front of a camera at the party, sponsored by the cable company Comcast, she was asked about her worst date. Her ideal date. If she had a super power, what would it be and why? Then Scott set up a profile on Comcast's partner in the dating service, hurrydate.com. About a week later, her profile was on television, and the emails started flooding in. Scott found that watching videos of potential dates gave her a true sense of both their looks and personality. FULL ARTICLE @ RED ORBIT
Mark Brooks: Webdate offers webcam based dating and encourages users to make their first date a 'webdate.'
NEW YORK TIMES -- Nov 27 -- A rapid at-home H.I.V. test could be available on pharmacy shelves within the next year or so. Encouraged by a federal drug advisory committee earlier this month, OraSure Technologies in Bethlehem, PA, is expected to apply to the FDA soon for permission to start selling its H.I.V. test over the counter. Now it's available only in clinics. Taking the test involves a simple swab of the gums. Results appear within 20 minutes. And if the results are negative, certain inhibitions may disappear. Ken Deckinger, co-founder and chief executive of the dating service HurryDate, said that an easily available AIDS test could quickly reassure a dater of a prospective partner's health. An H.I.V. infection will take anywhere from two weeks to three months to become detectable, so the test can offer no assurances about a partner's most recent sexual history - or fidelity. Last year 38,685 more Americans were found to be infected with H.I.V. At least 250,000 Americans carry the virus for years without knowing it. Getting this quarter-million people to get screened could be the key to reducing the epidemic's toll in the U.S. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES
Mark Brooks: And my next action, I am calling Orasure to find the person you can talk to about advertising Orasure on your site. ...220 E.1st St, Bethlehem, PA. www.orasure.com. 610-882-1820. Orasure had sales of $54 million in 2004 with 194 employees. Ron Picho is VP Marketing.
FORT WORTH STAR TELEGRAM -- Nov 24 -- Psychologist Robert Kurzban of the University of Pennsylvania says his goal was to distinguish between two possible models of mating behavior. One, called the "matching hypothesis," suggests people seek partners like themselves. The other possibility is the "market model." Everyone agrees on who's most attractive, but in the end we're forced to settle for the best we can get. To determine which scenario most closely resembles the real world, Kurzban turned to Hurrydate, a speed-dating provider. He and colleague Jason Weeden got 2,650 participants to fill out surveys revealing weight, height, age, number of children, previous marriages, and attitudes toward premarital sex. It also asked participants to rate their own faces, bodies and personalities on scales from 1 to 7. The psychologists observed which participants were chosen most often and by whom. In the end the market model won. The same people were consistently deemed desirable. Florida Atlantic University psychologist Todd Shackelford puts it bluntly: People who are 1s and 2s (on a scale from 1 to 10) don't want other 1s and 2s. If you're a 6, say, your partner would rather have a 10 but has to settle for you. FULL ARTICLE @ PSYCHOLOGY IN THE NEWS
Mark Brooks: With speed dating and in person meetings the 'market model' will win. The relationship based dating sites (eHarmony, TRUE, PerfectMatch) give the 'matching hypothesis' a chance...but the market model will always win through in the end. Darwin would agree. However, glossy magazines and the likes of Baywatch have seriously skewed our perceptions of beauty and our expectation levels. I think this has contributed somewhat to the lower marriage rates and higher divorce rates. Our expectations (especially guys) are a little out of synch with what mother nature intended. What do you think the online dating industry can do to help?
TV PREDICTIONS -- Apr 15 -- Dating on Demand can be found on Comcast's Video On Demand lineup and permits singles to post two-minute videos explaining what they are looking for in a mate. If a Comcast viewer likes what he or she sees, they can go to DatingOnDemand.com and send a message. Posting a video is free and includes a six-month membership to DatingonDemand.com and its sister site, HurryDate. The feature is difficult to use, out of date and lacking in willing participants. There were only 32 videos posted on Comcast's system in the Washington, D.C. area as of yesterday. I have to say that this is the worst execution of a new TV technology feature I've ever seen. Comcast does not promote Dating on Demand anywhere on the system. If you didn't know it existed, you would never find it. Despite the initial problems, Comcast's Dating on Demand has great potential. Comcast first needs to give Dating on Demand a total makeover.
Mark Brooks: Is Hurrydate getting stiffed?
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