Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

National Orgasm Index Revealed

PRESS RELEASE -- July 31 -- Sex starved Brits looking to celebrate National Orgasm Day, are advised to go the South West, where it costs just £136 to find a date, making it the cheapest region to hook up, according to the National Dating Index, published by MatingDirect.com. The Orgasm Index also reveals that Northern Ireland is the easiest region to pull, as it takes an average of 5.72 nights out on the town in order to find someone. London takes 7.03 nights. Ross Williams, Chairman and founder of MatingDirect.com, a WhiteLabelDating.com site, said of the results: "Hitting the town to find a date is an expensive and time consuming business that doesn't always mean you'll hit the jackpot. Online dating lets you search, flirt and meet other like minded adults, stacking the odds in your favour."

See all posts on WhiteLabelDating

Players Making Matches

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC -- July 31 -- Sports MatchMaker is new website that connects sports-minded people. The Web site allows members to schedule anything from acting, adventure travel or aviation to Xbox Live or yoga. Members can book the activity with either a private network of their friends or through postings open to all Sports MatchMaker members. The site is a social network, co-founders Ken Zrike and Christopher Zrike said, but the goal is to get users away from their computer screens and into sports and other activities. FULL ARTICLE @ THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC

Free Weekend From Chemistry.com

PR NEWSWIRE -- July 31 -- From August 1 to August 3, all Denver residents will have the opportunity to log-on to Chemistry.com and search for love, without reaching for their wallets. As part of the free communication weekend, Denver singles are encouraged to go to Chemistry.com, take the personality test for themselves, and begin communicating with their matches. FULL ARTICLE @ CNN MONEY

Mark Brooks: I guess that means Chemistry.com has been having a hard time getting mile highers into the match.com club.

See all posts on Chemistry.com

On Plutolife's Acquisition

VENTURE BEAT -- July 31 -- Jumbuck, a mobile social network, bought rival Plutolife at the beginning of this month for $3.7m. I was interested to hear why. Here's Jumbuck's CEO Adrian Risch on the Plutolife acquisition. 

Q: Jumbuck's business has been on-deck. Please explain what Jumbuck hopes to learn with the acquisition.
A: Plutolife generally uses Premium SMS to monetize their services and they are experts in off-deck mobile communities. We were keen to boost our exposure to the 'off-deck' market and Plutolife was a perfect fit.

Q: What's your business model?
A: Our business model revolves around the provision of chatrooms and real-time dating service over mobile and web.

Q: How will you be able to make money out of off-deck mobile social networks?
A: Plutolife already are making money using Premium SMS.

Q: Where do you see the value in an off-deck mobile social network?
A: We are still believers that you need to partner with the mobile operators in order to actually make money on-deck or off-deck. Plutolife really excel because they use a 'freemium' model. The apps are free to use but monetize with Premium SMS features.

Q: What did you like about Plutolife?
A: We really liked the look and feel of their services, plus the apps were already attracting strong usage on a few US mobile operators such as Alltel and T-mobile.

Q: How do you see the take-off of the mobile web?
A: The mobile web has been growing for years but Apple fired a rocket under it with the iPhone launch. I look forward to vastly quicker mobile web browsing across all devices, so we can offer video, larger images, nicer GUIs and more effective advertising in our products without degrading the user's browsing experience.

Q: What's your view on the emergence of Myspace and Facebook in mobile?
A: Myspace and Facebook are more 'friend-management' social networks. Jumbuck is a 'friend-finder' social network, where you can meet new friends for a casual chit-chat, flirt or date. So we have co-existed nicely for years. FULL ARTICLE @ VENTURE BEAT 

 Mark Brooks: Plutolife built the Lavalife and Date.com dating applications.

More Than 1,000 Sites In UAE To Be Unblocked

THE NATIONAL -- July 30 -- The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) will instruct internet service providers to unblock more than 1,000 websites that have removed whatever content UAE censors had deemed offensive, according to TRA officials. While TRA officials were unable to specify which of the millions of restricted websites would be unblocked, they include internet forums and social networking sites whose administrators have decided to remove the material that TRA officials had considered questionable or offensive. FULL ARTICLE @ THE NATIONAL

Mark Brooks: Many dating and SNS are blocked in UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, etc). I considered traveling there recently (my dad has lived and worked in Abu Dhabi for 25+ years) until I realised I'd be blocked from doing my work effectively.  Dubai is impressive in many ways, but seriously UNIMPRESSIVE with its overzealous blocking of mainstream SNS and dating sites. C'mon, Dubai, modernize. The Dubai Internet City runs off its own ISP which is far more open for people who work in the area. 

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

MySpace Classifieds Now Powered By Oodle

READ WRITE WEB -- July 28 -- MySpace's classifieds section has been re-launched and is now powered by Oodle. This partnership with MySpace gives Oodle access to a large new group of users. According to MySpace, its classifieds see about 1m visits a month and with Oodle, its inventory is going to go up to 500,000 new listings a day. FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

See all posts on Oodle

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

Plentyoffish.com #1 Dating Site In North America And U.K.

PR NEWSWIRE -- July 28 -- The latest comScore Media Metrix numbers now rank the free dating site Plentyoffish.com as the leading dating site in both North America (U.S.A. + Canada) and the U.K.

Top 10 North American Dating Sites by Total Visits (000's)
PlentyofFish 36,825
Singlesnet 29,896
eHarmony 19,269
Match.com 18,329
Yahoo!Personals 16,365
People Media Sites 12,340
TRUE.com 10,716
SparkNetworks 9,124
Mate1.com 4,847
Humor Rainbow, Inc 3,714
comScore Media Metrix. June, 2008, age 2+ universe

Top 10 U.K. Dating Sites by Total Visits (000's)
PlentyofFish 8,052
Meetic 4,024
Match.com 2,724
Gaydar.co.uk 2,617
GirlsDateForFree 1,392
WhiteLabelDating.com 1,120
EasyDate 1,110
Smooch.com 1,102
QuickFlirt 1,054
LoopyLove 853
comScore Media Metrix. June, 2008, age 15+ universe

On Monday 14th July, the CEO and Founder Markus Frind opened up his 26th floor office in downtown Vancouver. Plentyoffish.com has hired its first six employees, the first six of a planned thirty person team that is being assembled to help roll out new advertising programs. FULL ARTICLE @ PR-INSIDE

See all posts on PlentyofFish

Internet Dating Scams Can Get Expensive

CONSUMER AFFAIRS -- July 28 -- Annette was lonely. eHarmony.com matched her with a building engineer who was working in Nigeria. Everything was fine until the customs agents in Nigeria confiscated his luggage with $45,000 in travelers' checks. His situation worsened and Annette had wiped out her life savings by wiring $36,300 to Nigeria to help him. Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com and a consultant for the industry, said every dating Web site has problems with scammers. "This is organized crime. They are targeting lots of different industries, but idating is one of them," Brooks said. "Many of these scammers work together to create enormous fraud rings and share data on how best to scam people", said Scott Olson, VP marketing for iovation, a company that tracks computers so that Web sites can block devices that have a history of being connected with fraud. eHarmony.com clearly states on its Web site that it does not perform background checks. Some Web sites do offer background checks, but Brooks agreed with Posell (eHarmony.com) that most background checks would be costly with little increase in safety. FULL ARTICLE @ CONSUMER AFFAIRS

Mark Brooks: Good background checks cost $100+. Background checks pulling data from online sources can cost as little as $3. iovation offers a solution which allows dating sites to work together to combat scammers, and works in the background. If you'd like to kick some scammer ass, look to iovation. I've helped them sign up numerous dating sites into their 'anti-scammer dating ring' including a top 3 dating site! Disclosure: iovation is an Online Personals Watch sponsor and a client of Courtland Brooks.

See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on iovation

Sanctuary For Overweight People

CLICK PRESS -- July 28 -- A new website Fatisbeautiful.com, dedicated to overweight people, has launched. The website is giving obese and overweight a secure atmosphere in which they can meet each other without harsh judgments or societal pressure to be thin. According to Obesityinamerica.org, there are 60m obese Americans and 65% of American adults are overweight. FULL ARTICLE @ CLICK PRESS

Mark Brooks: You can find a link to rankings of top niche dating sites on the right bar of OPW Niche Internet Dating Rankings. Oops, looks like we're missing a BBW ranking. We'll get that fixed when the new Hitwise rankings come through.

Speed Dating In Las Vegas

SEND2PRESS -- July 25 -- Finding a date in Las Vegas just got easier thanks to a new dating service, Las Vegas Speed Date. With an estimated single population of almost 250,000 one might think that finding a date in Las Vegas would be easy. But, as Bob Litt, founder and CEO of Las Vegas Speed Date recognizes, "Let's face it, even though you live in Las Vegas you may not want to date someone you meet at a casino or local bar." The cost to attend a Las Vegas Speed Date party is $35 for women and $45 for men. FULL ARTICLE @ SEND2PRESS

Single: A Documentary Film

TIN APE -- July 15 -- "Single" is a new documentary film about singles in America, directed by married Richard Atkinson and single Jane Scandurra. They asked their single participants similar questions and allowed them free reign in their response. The film does not attempt to solve the "problem" of being single. "Being single is not a condition that needs to be cured", commented Jane.  Its a great take on single life in America. FULL ARTICLE @ TIN APE

LifeProject, Fernando - OPW Interview

OPW INTERVIEW -- July 26 -- LifeProject Method, created by Fernando Ardenghi, is an innovative and high precision quantitative method that allows us to meet people based on similar personalities. He plans to launch his own online dating site incorporating LPM. - Mark Brooks

Business plan info: http://www.bidnetwork.org/artefact-50155-en.html

What’s your background, Fernando?
At 37, I’m an Argentinean electronic engineer. In 1996, I started my doctoral thesis but didn’t complete it. Since 1997, I’ve been working in different Argentinean factories (including a Nuclear Power Plant). I’ve also been studying entrepreneurship since 2001.

What got you interested in the Internet dating business?
In 1997, I took the normative 16PF personality test when applying for a job. Could the knowledge I’d acquired from my failed doctoral thesis be useful for a business opportunity? Out of curiosity, I investigated methodologies and tests recruiters use to evaluate job candidates. The result of the normative 16PF personality test (expressed as a quantized pattern), plus an adapted quantum mechanics math equation, led me to invent a quantitative method to compare similarity between patterns that could be useful for dating purposes.

What research have you done that’s focused in the space?
I haven’t conducted my own research yet; I need a database of at least 100,000 people to take the 16PF5 test. Reading up on research conducted by renowned academics, I’ve yet to see any scientific paper (published by an online dating site that claims scientific matching or any related academic) showing how its ‘recipe’ really works, i.e. proving they can offer enduring, long term relationships (or marriage) with low divorce rates.

I noticed that the word ‘compatibility’ has many meanings for online dating sites, academics, researchers, and psychologists.

Sometimes the word compatibility means a high degree of similarity between several variables (religion, education, income, personality, likes and dislikes, etc.) of prospective mates; sometimes compatibility means a mix of similarity and complementarity between variables; sometimes when a dating site says compatibility or even chemistry, nobody really knows exactly what it means! Some online dating sites offering compatibility matching methods use the word similarity as: “a proprietary Dyadic Adjustment Scale”, others mean: “a proprietary multivariate linear regression equation”, some say a mix of similarity and complementarity meaning: “a proprietary multivariate logistic regression equation”, still others mix similarity and complementarity meaning: “a proprietary equation to calculate “compatibility” between prospective mates!”

Since 2003, I’ve been testing online dating sites who claim scientific matching by creating dummy M/F profiles and using them as test points for reverse engineering purposes. I discovered that proprietary tests or models used by those sites could have great precision in measuring different psychological variables, but the matching algorithm (they apply) has low precision when comparing one profile to others. The whole precision (measurement_of_variables + pattern_calculation) is less than anyone could achieve by searching on one’s own! I solved that problem and contacted many researchers/academics and online dating sites, with no success until now.

What is LifeProject Method?
LPM is the codename of an innovative and high precision quantitative method that compares similarity between quantized patterns, like:
The pattern 6.7.6.8.9.6.7.7.8.7.2.5.8.7.3.4 is 74,79865772% similar to the pattern 5.7.4.8.7.4.5.6.4.6.8.9.6.8.4.4
The pattern 6.7.6.8.9.6.7.7.8.7.2.5.8.7.3.4 is 92,55033557% similar to the pattern 7.7.6.8.8.7.6.5.8.7.4.5.7.7.3.4
The pattern 6.7.5.8.8.6.7.7.8.7.4.5.8.7.3.4 is 88,38926174% similar to the pattern 5.6.4.7.7.5.6.6.7.6.3.4.7.6.2.3
The pattern 6.7.5.8.8.6.7.7.8.7.4.5.8.7.3.4 is 87,58389262% similar to the pattern 7.8.6.9.9.7.8.8.9.8.5.6.9.8.4.5
LPM takes into account the score and the trend to score of any pattern.

In the above example, it used the results of the 16PF5 test, but it can use the results of other test, like the 30 subdomains of the “NEO PI-R” Big5.

• The ENSEMBLE (whole set of different valid possibilities) of the primary domains of the Big5 is 10E5 (quantized from 1 to 10) and 10E10 (by percentile)
• The ensemble of the primary domains of the Big7 used by WeAttract is 10E7 (quantized from 1 to 10)
• The ensemble of the 16PF5 is: 10E16, big number as All World Population is nearly 6.7 * 10E9
• The ensemble of the 30 subdomains of the Big5 (quantized from 1 to 10 and not by percentile) is a terrible very big number: 10E30

LPM doesn’t include sex, sexual orientation or religion. It only takes into account personality (measured by a normative test, like 16PF5 or the 30 subdomains of the “NEO PI-R” Big5 Big5).

In LPM, “compatibility” (between prospective mates) is a high percentage of “similarity” between personality patterns, perhaps over 90.00000000% ± 0.00000001%
LPM algorithm calculates “similarity” between personality patterns using the following adapted quantum mechanics math equation.
BRA <#X| means person #X’s 16PF5 Report
KET |#Y> means person #Y’s 16PF5 Report |CQ| means Comparison Operator
<#X|CQ|#Y> means the Comparison between client #X and client #Y
<#X|CQ|#Y> == K01 + K02 + K03 + K04 + K05 + K06 + K07 + K08 + K09 + K10 + K11 + K12 + K13 + K14 + K15 + K16
(A) Warmth; (B) Reasoning; (C) Emotional Stability; (E) Liveliness; (G) RuleConsciousness; (H) Social Boldness; (I) Sensitivity; (L) Vigilance; (M) Abstractedness; (N) Privateness (O) Apprehension; (Q1) Openness to Change; (Q2) SelfReliance; (Q3) Perfectionism; (Q4) Tension. 16 independent variables that take integer values from 1 to 10

How will it help dating sites?
LPM is a new way to meet people based on similar personalities. I chose the normative 16PF5 test available in different languages, because no other dating site uses it. In August 2005, Dr. John A. Johnson told me, “There are probably undiscovered factors beyond similarity of any type that determine relationship quality.” I think LifeProject deserves an opportunity to prove it can contribute to long-term relationships with low divorce rates. If not, many people would be interested in meeting/contacting others sharing nearly the same personality.

What does it cost for online daters?
The annual fee for end users is expected to cost USD300 for the first year, with a yearly re-subscription of $30. Fortunately the US, Canadian, European and Latin American markets remain enormous. The “unexploited” Latin American market is now over $100 million.

There are currently no sites with the vision to see the potential for this type of matching method. The inevitable next step is for me to bring it to market myself.

Meetic Plunges To Record

BLOOMBERG -- July 25 -- Meetic, Europe's biggest publicly traded Internet dating service, fell to a record in Paris trading after first-half sales missed analysts' estimates. Meetic lost as much as 1.73 euros, or 11%, to 14.01 euros and traded at 14.55 euros as of 9:22 a.m., the lowest since the shares began trading in October 2005. Revenue rose 18% to 63m euros ($99m), missing the 67.1 million-euro average estimate of two analysts compiled by Bloomberg. FULL ARTICLE @ BLOOMBERG

See all posts on Meetic

New Jewish Dating Site Launched

JEWISH LEDGER -- July 23 -- MeetMeAtShul.com, a brand new dating website for Jewish singles around the world is now up and running, say its co-creators, Daniel Levine and Shane Urowitz. The site is free. FULL ARTICLE @ JEWISH LEDGER

23% Of Adults Go Online For Dating

NAPSI -- July 24 -- According to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive, adults worldwide go online for several reasons: 23% for dating, 50% use social networks and 72% play games. In addition, nearly half of online users say they feel confident shopping on the Web. FULL ARTICLE @ NAPS NET

Bharat Partners With Satellite TV Service

PRESS RELEASE -- July 23 -- Tata Sky, a satellite television service in India, and bharatmatrimony.com have launched ActveTM Matrimony on Tata Sky. Tata Sky subscribers can access the profiles on their TV on a 24×7 basis. "ActveTM Matrimony is a perfect platform, which simplifies matrimony search process of people who do not have access either to the internet or our offline initiative "BharatMatrimony Center" in their city", said Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO of BharatMatrimony.com. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH WHACK

See all posts on BharatMatrimony

eFUEL Background Checks

BUSINESS WIRE -- July 23 -- eFUEL's revenue has increased to $1,123,000 for the Q2 2008. eFUEL is offers background screening and verification sites, including www.Valimate.com, and www.VeritasID.com. Online dating sites www.outRAGEousEncounters.com and www.PositiveLove.com, launched the new ID verification service called Easy ID. This product will be offered free to all new members who purchase any eFUELstore.com service. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKET WATCH

RSVP Launches Rural Dating Service

FARM ONLINE -- July 23 -- Australia's largest online dating site, RSVP (1.3m members), has launched a community designed especially for singles in regional and rural Australia. Over 25% of current profiles on RSVP are now registered as living in regional areas. FULL ARTICLE @ FARM ONLINE

See all posts on RSVP

Date.co.uk Gets A Makeover

PRESS RELEASE -- July 23 -- Date.co.uk, an online community for UK singles owned and operated by Spark Networks, has launched its newly revamped site. In addition to Date.co.uk's features including chat and 'Think You'd Click®', the new site now offers 11 ways to search for that 'special one' and a new range of communities where members can share interests, stories and dating experiences.

See all posts on SparkNetworks

Dating Site Started With Charitable Intent

PRESS RELEASE -- July 22 --  A new Christian oriented dating site ZionMatches.com has just launched. ZionMatches.com have pledged 100% of their profits generated from their first 1000 members will be donated to UNICEF, along with a 25% from each members subscription to be donated as well. FULL ARTICLE @ EXPRESS PRESS RELEASE