Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Thread.com Ist Kaput

OPW - Feb 2 - Thread.com, despite $1.2 million in funding from gold VC group Sequioa, is now kaput. Shame. The Thread.com link drove to likeevents.com for a while, and now it just drives to Agora.com, a 'passport for life and work.' Another dud site. RIP Thread.com. Congratulations Zoosk, for stealing their thunder.

See all posts on Thread.com

Online Dating Without The Creepy Strangers

CNN MONEY - May 20 - Thread.com is a new site that lets singles view profiles of their friends' pals on Facebook and request introductions. Facebook already has all the raw ingredients of the largest dating site in the world. More than 400M people worldwide have profiles. And since Thread relies on users' pre-existing profiles, rather than asking them to create new ones, it takes less effort to get started than most online dating outlets. Last year, Thread landed $1M in venture funding from First Round Capital and Sequoia Capital. Angel investors, including RottenTomatoes.com CEO Joe Greenstein and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, also put in additional $200,000. Thread's close ties to Facebook bring a few risks. "If Facebook decides to do something, Thread must follow along, and in one fell swoop it could take their bottom line with it," says Mark Brooks, an Internet dating industry consultant. Facebook is already at the center of a firestorm over privacy issues. Thread still has to figure out how to monetize its matchmaking, whether through advertising, subscriptions or virtual gift-giving. Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia Capital, had already tried his hand at Facebook matchmaking -- cutting and pasting his friends' profiles and sending awkward e-mails back and forth -- when the Thread business plan hit his desk. "A lot of people were doing this manually, so I thought, 'What a wonderful idea,'" he says. Brooks, the Internet dating industry consultant, agrees: "They're bottling what we already do in the real world." FULL ARTICLE @ CNN MONEY

See all posts on Thread.com

Making Money Through Facebook Matchmaking

VATOR – Nov 3 – Online dating is a $1 billion dollar a year industry. Facebook-funded Thread intends to claim a share of the action. Thread is designed to leverage the immense user base of Facebook to build a successful new dating site. In lieu of sophisticated and scientific matchmaking, Thread intends to let friends do the matchmaking. CEO and co-founder Brian Phillips has raised $1.2 million in a recent round of fundraising. FULL ARTICLE @ VATOR

See all posts on Thread.com 

Online Dating Looks For Love On Social Media

SF CHRONICLE - Oct 27 - Some argue that social media such as Facebook or Twitter, which provide a more accurate snapshot of users' lives, can lead to better connections. Gelato, a new dating site, lets users create their profiles based on information from Twitter, Facebook, Hulu, Netflix and Last.fm. Thread, a site that opened in September, takes a jab at the awkwardness of navigating the Internet to meet strangers by helping Facebook users connect with the friends of their friends. Zoosk claims to be  a combination of social networks and online dating. Co-founder Shayan Zadeh said that the site's platform is the digital equivalent of going out to a bar with friends and meeting new people. Blackbox Republic, another newcomer for sex-positive people, describes itself as a social dating site. It provides an environment where people can create networks they can retain even after finding new love interests. In a way, its goal is to challenge the shop-and-go spirit of the classifieds system, Blackbox Republic CEO Sam Lawrence said. OnlineDatingPost.com editor Dave Evans said "You're always going to have these dominant players, but the interesting stuff is with the edge cases. These guys have created a sexier proposition." FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE

See all posts on Gelato                 See all posts on Zoosk
See all posts on Thread.com         See all posts on Blackbox Republic

Thread.com Raises $1.2 Million For Facebook-Powered Matchmaking Service

TECH CRUNCH -- Sep 1 -- Thread.com, a startup formerly known as Frintro, has closed a $1.2M funding round led by some of Silicon Valley’s most well known investors. Included in the round are First Round Capital, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, fbFund, and a number of independent investors, including Ron Conway, David Sacks, Auren Hoffman, Pedro Miguel Martins, Reid Hoffman, Joe Greenstein, Saran Chari, and Shervin Pishevar. Thread.com uses Facebook Connect to look up information about your friends and friends of your friends. Depending on your connection to each match you’ll be able to see things like their current relationship status, location, interests, profile photos, and photo albums. Thread.com makes it easy to simply message a member through Facebook, but CEO Brian Phillips says that the best way to spark a relationship is that you ask your friends to introduce you. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

This post also appears at the iDate Forums