Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Looking For Love? Cupid’s Got Apps For That

MIAMI HERALD - Feb 14 - The most popular are apps that use Global Positioning System to find a date near your typical hangout spot. Skout, an app for iPhone and Android, claims 3M active users. With an average user age of 25, the free app is more youth friendly than sites like eHarmony and Match.com. Such established sites have yet to incorporate such GPS tags; the idea of getting alerts from strangers who are physically nearby seems creepy and stalker-like to many users, says online dating business consultant Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com. Still, the category is growing. Grindr, an app for gay men, boasts 1.4M users and 300K log-ons a day, according to Grindr’s founder and CEO, Joel Simkhai. Though GPS-based tagging is this year’s hot trend, other technology-based matchmaking tactics may also facilitate finding the love of your life. For those who are shy, OmniDate.com lets users use an animated avatar of themselves and plops it into an animated chat room on the first date. OmniDate co-founder Ravit Abelman said it has been picked up by several dating sites, including Lavalife, TangoWire, JDate in Europe and the Facebook app Social Connect. She said it has been successful because it’s a way to break the ice beyond a bullet-list profile and lifeless e-mails. FULL ARTICLE @ MIAMI HERALD

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Virtual Dating

KATU - Dec 4 - The cutting edge of dating now is virtual dating. Studies show people who do go on virtual dates are likely to have more successful relationships in person. Ravit Abelman from OmniDate says this is a way for singles on dating sites to get to know each other without the commitment of a date in person. You don’t have to get dressed; you don’t have to invest anything. You don’t have to take the risk.

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Virtual Dating Expands Into Social Networking

PR WEB - Oct 19 - BoonEx, a provider of social networking software, has released a virtual dating feature, developed by OmniDate. Virtual dating is fun and safe way for people to get to know each other in a virtual environment, such as a virtual cafe, before meeting in person. Users interact through photo-realistic 3D characters, which respond naturally to the typed text (e.g., typing LOL makes an avatar laugh). They can even blow a kiss or reach over and touch the hand of the other avatar. Companies using the Dolphin platform, BoonEx flagship product, can now activate virtual dating on their websites. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

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This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

Omnidate Launches Corporate Site And Kills Mock Dating Site

OPW - May 20 - Omnidate will be rolling its 15,000 Omnidate.com dating site members over to Smingle.com and switching its home page out to a pure corporate/product site, on May 25th. See the new site. They're live on an increasing number of partners in North America and Europe and their virtual dating product is now accessible through hundreds of URLs, including TangoWire which alone has 3,700 URLs. As part of their product development and testing process, they had set up a dating site to gather member feedback. They improved the user experience and added several new features, including a library of over a hundred customizable characters.

Update: Ravit Abelman, co-Founder of Omnidate interviews Shaun Wolfe, CEO of TangoWire (June 8th, 2010):

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10 Secrets To Finding Love Online

LIFESCRIPT - Feb 25 - If you’re trolling online dating sites, certain strategies work better than others. These 10 tried-and-true tips from experts and successful online daters will help you put your best foot forward.
1. Pick the right site. "Take a two-pronged approach, combining a general site with a niche site,” says Eric Resnick, founder of Profile Helper, a company that works on online dating profiles.
2. Take the compatibility test. "They’re “a wonderful little filter” to weed out men looking for casual encounters", says online dating expert Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com.
3. Pick an appropriate screen name. “Your screen name is your first impression,” says Cristy Stewart-Harfmann, a matchmaker and online dating profile consultant.
4. Stand out. “Your online dating profile should repel about 95% of the people who read it,” Resnick says. “But for the people who could be a good match, we want them to know it was written for them.”
5. Drop the purple prose. It’s better to show – not tell – what you’re all about.
6. Post pictures. And at least one has to be a full-body shot.
7. Set ground rules. Setting limits prevents from getting in too deep too fast and allows you to bail if there’s no chemistry. 
8. Play it safe. Don’t give out personal information. Always meet first in a public place. Make sure a friend knows where you are and when you’re expected home. Do a background check. 
9. Meet in person quickly. If you’re leery of meeting face to face too soon, test the waters with a video chat on Skype. Or go on a “virtual date.” PersonalQuest.com and OmniDate using this technology.
10. Complain about the weirdos.
FULL ARTICLE @ LIFESCRIPT

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Virtual Dating Helps Couples Test Waters

DISCOVERY -- Sep 1 -- Discovery Channel spoke to Ravit Abelman, the co-founder of OmniDate.com, a digital media company that transforms digital dating sites into a 3D virtual dating experience. “With virtual dating you don’t have to settle for boring text profiles, chat rooms or 2 dimensional photo libraries”, Ravit explains. “We are placed in a virtual environment such as coffee shops, restaurants, bars and even Caribbean resorts.” Step one of your virtual date is to choose an avatar. Right now the avatar selection is kind of limited but eventually OmniDate will make avatars in your own image. Ravit’s program has some cool features to make the experience more human. If you type LOL your avatar laughs. There are also some ice breaker games you can play to get to know each other.

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Study: Effectiveness Of Virtual Dating

OPW -- May 7 -- Omnidate is conducting a study with Professor Dan Ariely  into the effectiveness of virtual dating and is looking for dating sites to participate in this research. Professor Ariely is a best-selling author (Predictably Irrational, 2008) and the researcher behind several online dating studies, including "Improving Online Dating with Virtual Dates". OmniDate is a developer of a plug-in 3D virtual dating application.  Please email ravit@omnidate.com if interested.

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Avatars Tackle The First Date For You

COMPUTERWORLD -- Feb 13 -- OmniDate is working on a new service that features photo-realistic avatars, online characters that look like you. Users submit a photo, which the service renders as an animated online character. Your avatar can then go on a virtual date in a variety of settings, such as a restaurant or a bar. "How do you go from reading a profile to interacting with a person online and eventually in person?" asks CEO Igo Kotlyar. "Our goal is to bridge that gap." FULL ARTICLE @ COMPUTERWORLD

Mark Brooks: Avatars are nice, but the real killer app is making the avatars look like the users buy layering a photo onto the avatars. OmniDate has this in the works. That's when I think OmniDate will take off. Its next gen IM, basically. (Full Disclosure: OmniDate has been a client of Courtland Brooks in the past)

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Online Dating: The Technology Behind The Attraction

COMPUTERWORLD -- Feb 13 -- We peek under the covers at online dating sites. To succeed, a site needs to do the following:

1. Offer excellent response times. Try to give users at least some matches as soon as they've created an account.

Online personals services are glorified search engines. eHarmony, PerfectMatch and Chemistry.com ask a few dozen to several hundred questions and assemble a personality profile and a list of matches. Plentyoffish.com's keeps it simple and uses a short questionnaire. CEO Markus Frind says he doesn't promote it and he's disdainful of the complex matching algorithms offered by  competitors.

2. Convert at least 10% of visitors who register into paying customers -- preferably more.

eHarmony pulls information from its Oracle database into high-performance Netezza data warehouse appliances that slice and dice users into behavioral and demographic "buckets." "Because we know more about them, we can target them much better," says Joseph Essas, VP of Technology.

3. Deliver an acceptable range of probable matches and offer a variety of ways to pursue those prospects.

Video chat is perhaps the most controversial communication method offered, if only because video sessions often take a "sexual tilt," especially with men, and that drives away the women, says Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch. The most innovative communication method is virtual dates in a 3-D world. OmniDate, offers an avatar-based virtual dating system.

 

4.Weeding out cheats, scammers and married guys. 

"10% of sign-ups a day are people trying to scam someone -- or rude, obnoxious people, or spammers," Frind says. He removes ~2,000 suspicious users from the system daily. eHarmony has contracted with Iovation, which offers ReputationManager, a service that gathers information on individuals' illicit activity from online dating and other sites and makes it available to subscribers.
FULL ARTICLE @ COMPUTER WORLD

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Virtual Dating Helps Couples Test Waters

DISCOVERY NEWS -- Feb 13 -- Currently the avatars on Omnidate are only approximations of your real appearance, although that will soon change. Omnidate is developing software that will automatically convert an uploaded photo of yourself into an online avatar. "A lot of women want to know what they are getting into before jumping into the water," said Ravit Abelman, co-founder of OmniDate. "If women can meet a potential date from the comfort and safety of their own couch, then when they do meet in person they are no longer strangers." FULL ARTICLE @ DISCOVERY NEWS

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Women Prefer Virtual Dating

PRESS RELEASE -- Feb 4 -- OmniDate has been collecting data on usage patterns since launching its browser-based virtual dating application last year.

• Virtual dating generates substantially higher registrations by women;
• Women are 42% more likely to invite someone on a virtual date than to initiate another type of digital communication;
• Women are nearly 3 times more likely to reciprocate an invitation to a virtual date than respond to other forms of digital messages.

FULL ARTICLE @ 1888 PRESS RELEASE

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OmniDate Receives Red Herring "Top 100 Global" Award

PRESS RELEASE -- Jan 19 -- OmniDate, developer of a virtual dating application, receives the Red Herring Top 100 Global Companies Award, recognizing most innovative technology companies. Past winners of this prestigious award include Google, Yahoo!, Skype, Salesforce.com, and YouTube. FULL ARTICLE @ FREE PRESS RELEASE

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Toronto Internet Dating Cocktail Party

TORONTO DATING SOCIAL -- Nov 30 -- The first  Toronto Internet Dating Industry Party for the owners and executives of the Internet Personals and Social Networking companies was held on November 25, 2008. This networking event was attended by 27 representatives of 15 dating technology companies. Companies that attended the Toronto Dating Social Party:

Date.com, OmniDate Inc., Dating Ad Network, Lavalife Corp., Epic Advertising, Canoe / Reseau Contact, ChristianCafe.com, Cupid.com, Talkster, Impact Mobile, Randodate.com, WorldFriends Networks, Personality Pro, Dating Essentials
FULL ARTICLE @ TORONTO DATING SOCIAL

OmniDate Finalists Of Red Herring Canada Top 50

OPW -- Sep 4 -- OmniDate, a creator of a virtual dating application, is one of this year's finalists for the Red Herring Canada Top 50 Awards. The award celebrates the most innovative and promising companies in Canada. See the complete list of the finalists. Red Herring Canada evaluated several hundred nominees based on criteria including growth potential, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy and integration into their ecosystem. The Top 50 Winners will be announced at the Red Herring Canada event on September 16 in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.

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AnotherFriend Adds Virtual Dating, OmniDate

PR WEB -- Aug 25 -- Members of AnotherFriend, one of Ireland's premier dating sites, can now enjoy getting to know each other in a virtual café before meeting in person. OmniDate's plug and play application transforms traditional online chats and emails into interactive virtual dates. Consumers use personalized 3D avatars to interact with each other. "Virtual dates help users really get to know each other and weed out people who are not a good match with minimum emotional and physical investment upfront." explains Ravit Abelman, co-founder of OmniDate. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

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Internet Dating Conference Hosts Presentation On Virtual Dating

PRESS RELEASE -- Aug 19 -- Dr. Igor Kotlyar, CEO and creator of OmniDate, and Ravit Abelman, co-founder, will present the reality of virtual worlds to the personal and social networking community at the Internet Dating Conference, taking place on September 22 and 23, 2008, in London, England. OmniDate is a plug and play application that transforms any online dating site into a virtual world.  According to Dr. Kotlyar, virtual dating can help dating sites boost traffic and conversions. "In the near future, virtual reality on dating websites will be mainstream." Mark Brooks agrees: "Virtual dating environments are the way of the future and OmniDate is leading the way in the dating space." FULL ARTICLE @ PR-INSIDE

Mark Brooks: Userplane offers great IM. I see this as the next step on, for something a bit more interesting and unique. (DISCLOSURE: OmniDate is a client of Courtland Brooks, Mark handles media relations for the iDate conference)

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Online Daters Learn "How Charming Am I?"

PRESS RELEASE -- July 21 -- OmniDate has just released a new feature on its virtual dating platform which it supplies to online dating sites. The feature, called "How Charming am I?", allows two real people to go on a date with each other in a fun, virtual environment, and then rate each other after the date is over. Daters rate each other on a one-to-five scale, in 3 categories – charming, interesting and funny. The new feature is part of OmniDate's overall mission to provide a way for daters to quickly get to know one another before investing time and money in a traditional offline date. FULL ARTICLE @ FREE PRESS RELEASE

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Virtual Dating Tools Introduced For Internet Dating Sites

PR-INSIDE -- June 23 -- The OmniDate online dating application is now available for dating sites to license and use. While using the OmniDate application, daters are represented by avatars of their choosing. The dates also get to pick a virtual place for their date, such as a swanky lounge, a laid-back beach resort, or a hip bar or restaurant. While the couple communicates through advanced text messaging, the animated avatars can laugh, act surprised, smile and even touch, adding a realistic dating dimension. FULL ARTICLE @ PR-INSIDE

Mark Brooks: Disclosure - OmniDate is a client of Courtland Brooks and sponsor of Online Personals Watch. 

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Anastasia Launches Video Chat

PR NEWSWIRE -- June 6 -- Anastasia International, the international introduction and romance company has recently launched video chat. Language is not a barrier, since Anastasia International offers live interpretation done by professional interpreters. FULL ARTICLE @ THE EARTH TIMES

 Mark Brooks: Most dating sites have IM now. Userplane and OmniDate are great options for plug-in IM's.  OmniDate is avatar based. (Disclosure: OmniDate is a client of Courtland Brooks)

Realistic Expectations Are Key To Online Dating Success

PRESS RELEASE -- June 2 -- Getting to know each other in the virtual environment before meeting in person helps singles adjust their expectations to realistic levels according to a Harvard study. The study found that people who had met on a virtual date before meeting in person had more positive experiences on actual dates. "OmniDate, our virtual dating application, confirms the findings", said Dr. Igor Kotlyar, OmniDate CEO. OmniDate provides a series of fun virtual sets: a lounge, a resort, a bar and a restaurant. When people are on a virtual date, their virtual characters move automatically at the touch of a keyboard. The couple can virtual laugh, flirt, and even touch. A video screen appears where the couple can play get-to-know-you games, which further stimulate conversation. FULL ARTICLE @ PR INSIDE