Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Zogo.com, Anonymous Mobile Phone Based Dating

CBS NEWS -- Nov 30 -- Brett Larson, Tech Editor, reports on Zogo.com's new cell phone based dating service.  "It's amazing what you can do with a cell phone these days...Forget online sites for finding love, your next match could be literally a phone call away."  Instead of using the web to find profiles, you use your cell phone, find a person/profile you like and click to and talk, anonymously.  Zogo's CEO says, "We believe the chemistry is in the voice."  A users says, "You're not giving out your number so there's nervous factor about...Oh I gave my number too soon.  VIEW STORY @ ZOGO

Mark Brooks: I think Zogo is on to something.  IM, chat, email...hey, how about voice.  But, there's always the concern over privacy...and stalkers. Email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com for your copy of the white paper, "A Guide to Anonymous Phone Calling Services."

JDate Comes Out of the Closet

JTA Global News Service -- Nov 29 -- For all the nice Jewish boys looking for other nice Jewish boys - and nice Jewish lesbians looking for love - JDate.com has come to the rescue. The popular Jewish online dating site expanded its search capabilities this month to allow gay men and lesbians to seek matches. Gail Laguna, VP Communications, said the Web site's revision came at the request of many Jewish singles. In less than a month, 700 members have registered for same-sex searches. 

Mark Brooks: Will be interesting to see which Christian focused site will follow suit?  Bigchurch.com??  perhaps? Christian Mingle would be most likely as they are now owned by Spark Networks, parent of JDate.  I can't see ChristianCafe.com going gay. 

BBW 'Big Beautiful Women' Dating

PR WEB -- Nov 29 -- BBWSinglesFinder is a serious dating site for both BBW Singles and BBW Admirers alike.  Part of Alternative-Dating-Sites.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

Mark Brooks: BBPeopleMeet is the category leader.

Dating Sites Crack Down on Convicts

CONTRA COSTA TIMES -- Nov 28 -- Robert Wells advertised himself on an online dating service as a semiretired physician who enjoys wine tasting, "The Sopranos" and reading science fiction.  But a woman surfing the Web site recognized the Walnut Creek man from another dating site she'd used a year earlier. She told the current service, Dallas-based True.com, that Wells was lying.  Not only had the medical board revoked his license, according to a lawsuit, but he also was a convicted sex offender.  The company sued Wells earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Texas, alleging Wells committed fraud by misrepresenting himself.  "I make a promise to my members," said Herb Vest, TRUE's CEO. "If you are clever enough to get around our site securities, I'm going to prosecute."  TRUE is suing Wells for at least $200,000. "If anyone who's married or has a criminal conviction thinks they can get on our site, go ahead and try me," Vest said. 

Personalization at DateHookup.com

PR WEB -- Nov 29 -- DateHookup.com attempts to break the mold of traditional dating services by introducing a host of new personalization features. Users can now completely customize the look and feel of their profile by editing the actual HTML and CSS code. Every member gets a personal address, for example: http://www.datehookup.com/ddogg.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

 

South African Online Dating Report

Nov 30 -- I just came across a tidy little report on the South African online dating market at Netucation.co.za.    Apparently, the major South African sites are DatingBuzz, Couples, Galaxy Singles, Lovemail and SexyIntro - Mark Brooks

WorldFriends Enriches Member Communication

BUSINESS WIRE -- Nov 28 -- Vivox will power WorldFriends with live text, voice or video chat. Worldfriends operates in 20 different countries and in four different languages - English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean and provides private label online personals. The popularity of online dating across Asia is on the rise. The number of homes with broadband Internet services in the region -- already higher than the United States market -- is predicted to rise to 176 million by 2010 from 61 million today. Community members will be able to interact with each other among the most popular IM networks including AOL's AIM, Yahoo!, MSN and ICQ.  RELEASE @ BUSINESS WIRE

Graying Singles Adopt New Dating Mores

ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Nov 28 -- Older Americans looking for love have taken a cue from young urban singles and are flocking to speed-dating events and online personals sites. Match says registrations among people over 50 have soared 340% since 2000. The American Association of Retired Persons now has a dating advice column in its member magazine.  FULL ARTICLE @ ABC NEWS

Test Adds New Twist to the Dating Game

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.

Niche Dating Sites Match Habits, Pets, Disabilities

THE WASHINGTON TIMES -- Nov 25 -- Tracy has multiple sclerosis. "I went online and I looked under 'disabled dating' and there was nothing," said Tracey, who debuted Special Singles Online in July 2004. Ms. Saks is one of an increasing number of operators of niche dating sites in an industry that ballooned from $50 million in 2000 to an estimated $490 million this year.  Even traditional matchmakers are finding their way to the Web.  The Right One and Together Dating, an offline matchmaking service, is offering a "hybrid" online dating option, ELove.com. CEO Paul Falzone, said the existence of online dating sites has only boosted business for offline services, which cost $2,000 to $5,000 for a lifetime membership. Offline services charge more because they do more of the work, Mr. Falzone said. 

Online Dating Site Launched Run by a Real Live Matchmaker

PR WEB -- Nov 25 -- Janis Spindel only takes the best as clients and her high standards apply to all the members of her database - she will accept nothing less on her website. Janis specializes in pairing up highly successful, well-educated, attractive professionals, including public figures and celebrities.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

Online Dating Sites Accused of Deception

ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Nov 25 -- Match is charged with sending a female employee out on a date with a male subscriber as "date bait" to keep him signed up and Yahoo Personals with creating fake profiles to entice subscribers.  Match.com denied the allegations and obtained an affidavit from the woman in question, who declared she never worked for the company. The suit says Yahoo posts fake profiles and alleges Yahoo also sent him fake "new match" messages when his monthly subscription was up for renewal. After months of failing to meet a potential match, he became suspicious and discovered the same picture of a woman being posted for different cities under different names.  Trish McDermott, chief matchmaker at Engage.com and a Match's former VP Romance, said she never saw any type of consumer fraud during her decade at Match.com.  She added that the majority of personals sites, including Yahoo and Match.com, employ a business model she believes fails consumers.  It's not clear who is a member and who isn't in the pay-to-respond model, in which a user must join a service to respond to an e-mail sent by a potential match but cannot post a profile, McDermott said.  If someone e-mails 100 people and gets only one response, he or she could conclude that most of the profiles are fake when they actually show non-subscribers who can't respond to e-mail, she said. 

Mark Brooks: Your comments please...

Sweetheart, You're a Real Work of Art

THE MOSCOW TIMES -- Nov 25 -- Since most of Maria Shubina's paintings are called "Me," visiting her exhibition at Fine Art gallery is a bit like flipping through a friend's photo album. She posts her paintings on Internet dating sites and then hangs them in galleries along with e-mails from her would-be suitors. She uses the same alias -- "femaleart".  FULL ARTICLE @ MOSCOW TIMES

Looks Give a Boost in Dating

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? 

Who's Afraid of Google? Everyone.

WIRED MAGAZINE -- Nov 25 -- Even in the early days Google's ultimate goal was extravagant: to organize the world's information.  Whereas Microsoft infamously smothered new and open standards, Google is famous for supporting them. And the firm is softening its image, launching a philanthropic arm,  Google.org, with nearly $1 billion earmarked for social causes. When secrecy-obsessed Google let news of "Google Base" slip, it looked like an aggressive entrée into online classifieds. The test service can search ads like used-car and personals listings, which would mesh with Google Local and might even kick-start Orkut, Google's social network.  Who's threatened: craigslist, eBay, Monster, Tribe.net.  FULL ARTICLE @ WIRED MAGAZINE

Mark Brooks: At $500 million revenue a year, the internet dating industry is still off Google's radar...we hope

Facebook Expands Operations

BUSINESS WIRE -- Nov 1 -- Terremark today announced that Facebook has deployed over 450 servers at the NAP West facility. Over 60% of Facebook's users log in each day to view over 200 million pages in any given 24-hour time period and around 25,000 new users sign-up for the site daily. 

The Truth About Online Dating

THE JEWISH WEEK -- Nov 25 -- Until scientists perfect cloning online dating is one of the best ways to be “out there” without actually having to go anywhere. But this week brought two accusations against online dating companies. A CNN online report revealed one man’s contention that his Match.com date was “date bait.” Yahoo’s personals service is accused of posting fictitious dating profiles. A Match spokesperson said that her company “absolutely does not” employ people to go on dates with subscribers or to send members misleading e-mails professing romantic interest. Yahoo had no comment at all. 

Irish Speed Dating Movie

RTE -- Nov 23 -- Filming starts on Irish film 'Speed Dating' on location in Dublin.  The cast includes Hugh O'Connor (My Left Foot) and Emma Choy (The Vanguard). It is about a speed dating addict who ends up in hospital with amnesia after an encounter with a mysterious stranger. The police believe that he has some involvement in the disappearance of a young woman and he has to try and figure out what happened.  RELEASE @ RTE

Mark Brooks: Internet dating and speed dating are getting a bad rap these days. 

Dating Scams Prey on the Lonely - and the Stupid

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE -- Nov 23 -- Morgan wrote me an e-mail saying she was "looking to definitely become intimate" with me.  She really wanted me to call her, but in order to get her phone number, I had to go to her Web site.  I found a slightly naked Morgan; I had to plug in my e-mail address and credit card number to see more pictures of her. But she was only asking me to do this "so not just anyone can see all of me!"  "Don't worry," she said. "It's free!"  On MySpace, a cheerleader law student identified only as "C"..."I like what I've seen from you so far," she said, even though she had seen nothing of me so far.  She wanted to make sure I liked her also, so she sent me to her Web site, where for $19.95 I could see pictures of married women who wanted "discreet affairs."  FULL ARTICLE @ THE HUB

Mark Brooks: The internet dating industry is putting up a fight against these kinds of scams.  'Abuse teams' monitor profiles and reported scams. Most services have a button on profiles inviting users to report people for abuse.

Donat/Wald Launches DRTV Campaign for eHarmony

BUSINESS WIRE -- Nov 21 -- Donat/Wald has unveiled three direct response television campaigns for online powerhouses eHarmony.com, Register.com and Stamps.com.  CEO Lucas Donat says it’s the secret weapon of the new generation of dot-coms that want the branding power of offline and the accountability of ROI-positive advertising.  The new eHarmony campaign features real couples of all ages from all over the world – who met through the revolutionary online dating service.  In one story someone from the US Midwest finds a soul mate in India.  The spots show that love can thrive no matter the geographic  location or age.