Online Personals Watch News Summary #2, April 10, 2009 from Mark Brooks on Vimeo.
This weeks news covers the rise of philandering, virtual goods companies making $500m+, mobile dating to hit $1.4b in 2013, banner ad blindness, lock and key and events, online speed dating and a survey of fussy singles.
TECH CRUNCH -- Sep 22 -- WooMe, the site that throws users into 60-second one-on-one online
video sessions, will now allow users to post recordings of their brief dating
sessions to the public. The site is a direct competitor to SpeedDate, a video dating site that
has recently been caught using some deceptive tactics on Facebook to
gain users. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
AFP -- Aug 3 -- Francesca Salcido recently went on 300 dates in 24 hours on the site SpeedDate, an online speed dating company, where dates are 1-2 minutes long. The site hosts 100,000 virtual dates daily, up from 1000 per night when it opened a year ago. Competitor WooMe, boasts 1000 – 4000 registered users logged into the site at any given time. WooMe recently sent two of it’s users on a US road trip to meet 1000 friends they met on the site in a trip called WooAroundAmerica. FULL ARTICLE @ AFP
INTERNET NEWS -- June 26 -- Facial recognition technology could help
the lovelorn find a better match. Eyealike offers facial recognition
systems for
enterprises customers and online
dating and social network sites. The idea is, users will be able to
upload an image, or even choose
from a selection of celebrity faces, and click on screen levers to
adjust that image to their personal tastes. Mark Brooks, a consultant
to the online dating industry, said facial recognition is the latest in
series
of technical advances with more to follow. He notes the
advent of online "speed dating" sites like WooMe and ratings sites like
Hot or Not. There are also already sites like MyDouble if you want to
just see what celebrities you most resemble and perhaps use that info
in a dating profile. Brooks agrees, the facial recognition and editing
is better-suited to
would be casual daters. "A site like eHarmony is slow to let users
share photographs because it's more about getting to know the other
person," he said. "A lot of this is about trying to fix the real world
which is broken. In the real world, you see pretty girls and hunky men
on magazine covers who are largely unattainable." FULL ARTICLE @ INTERNET NEWS
See all posts on Eyealike
See all posts on HotorNot
See all posts on WooMe
See all posts on eHarmony
PRESS RELEASE -- June 12 -- WooMe, the online video speed-dating service, raised a $12,5m round led by Index
Ventures with existing investors Atomico and Mangrove Capital Partners also participating. The new capital will go toward supporting user growth, expanding internationally and introducing new functionality to the site. FULL ARTICLE @ THE EARTH TIMES
STREET INSIDER -- May 7 -- According to WooMe survey, nearly 3 out of 4 single
online adults (72%) find flirting online more difficult than
in person, citing the inability to observe body language, gauge
chemistry and assess physical appearance as major contributing factors. 61% of single adults say looks are most likely to
attract them to someone within the first minute of an introduction.
Only 17% thought sense of humor was most important and
an even lower 9% said they value intelligence most.
"With WooMe, people
meet face-to-face via webcam in fast and fun live introductions where
they can decide if they are 'wooed' in one minute and move on if they
are not", said Stephen Stokols, CEO and co-founder of WooMe. FULL ARTICLE @ STREET INSIDER
GUARDIAN.CO.UK -- Apr 22 -- Founded
in December 2006, WooMe combines online dating with video chat. Chief
executive Stephen Stokols explains his big ambitions for the site.
Q: Explain your business to my Mum.
A: WooMe
is a live introductions platform that leverages a speed-dating model to
let users meet each other via
voice and video. Meet five people in five minutes and decide who woo'd
you.
Q: How do you make money?
A: If two people mutually woo each other, they pay $1 to get their contact info.
Q: How many users do you have now, and what's your target within 12 months?
A: Target in 12 months = 1m users. Existing registered user numbers are in six figures.
Q: What's your biggest challenge?
A: Keeping up with
the user growth.
Q: Name your competitors.
A: No
direct competition.
FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK
Mark Brooks: Speeddate.com is the main competition.
REAL BUSINESS -- Mar 28 -- Woome.com,
online speed-dating site, has been live for three months and already
garnered 200 000 users. The service is free but soon will introduce a
premium service, that users will have to pay for. Despite the lack of a
revenue model, Woome has attracted
some big-name support. Its first round of funding amounted to some
£1.5m from the likes of Skype founder Niklas Zennström, and Mangrove
Capital, and angel investor Klaus Hommels. FULL ARTICLE @ REAL BUSINESS
METRO.CO.UK -- Feb 20 -- According to press agency Response Source, 7.8 million
people in Britain went online to find their match last year, up a third
on 2005. And "e-dating" became more specialised. Mysinglefriend.com,
where people nominate their unattached chums, was one of the first
niche markets. WooMe, is an online speed dating company, and LoopyLove
is a social networking site for singletons. Then there is the slightly
more risqué market. AshleyMadison.com is for people looking for
'extracurricular activity'. Sugardaddie.com
is aimed at women looking for a man with that extra bulge where it
matters most, the wallet. Launched in 2002, the site now has a database
of 250,000 members and is growing at a rate of 4,000 a week. FULL ARTICLE @ METRO.CO.UK
CNET NEWS -- Feb 18 -- Worldwide there are more then 1400 internet
dating sites. Given the
market saturation online dating consultant Mark Brooks says newer sites
are forced to innovate both in concept and technology. Want your avatar
to meet mine? Try out OmniDate.com or let's find out if our voices are
compatible. Log onto LoveDetect.com. Another one of those alternate
dating sites is CrazyBlindDate.com. Prior to the date you only get to
see a pixilated photo of your match
and you can only communicate by texting through the site's cupid line.
Unlike more established dating sites, webcam sites like SpeedDate.com, Woome.com and Camlink.com
require very little personal information to get started. As long as
people are out there looking for love there will be a website to cater
to their needs, desires, fantasies and fetishes. SEE THE VIDEO HERE
NEWTEEVE -- Feb 7 -- Online speed dating site WooMe received a $3 million bridge round of financing led by
Mangrove, along with previous investors Atomico, Klaus Hammels and newcomer Oliver Jung.
This builds on the initial $1.9 million in seed funding WooMe
previously raised. The service launched 10 weeks ago and according to Co-founder
and CEO, Stephen Stokols, WooMe has facilitated more than 35,000
sessions so far. FULL ARTICLE @ NEWTEEVEE
OPW INTERVIEW -- Jan 13 -- WooMe is bottling speed dating. (So is Speeddate.com.) Here's OnlinePersonalsWatch interview with the CEO. - Mark Brooks
What is WooMe?
It's an introduction platform that allows people to meet in fast-topic speed sessions via voice and video. Users create their own sessions on any subject that is of interest to them. An example might be Nature Lovers in San Francisco. Each session melds 5 men and 5 women and each topic draws different personalities. Users enter the session and talk with each person of the opposite sex for 1 or 2 minutes (depending on what the session leader specified) and then are automatically transferred to the next person in the group. For now, WooMe is online speed dating platform, but we see many other applications in the future.
Tell me a little bit about your founding story.
My little sister and her friends were talking about how lame traditional dating sites are. It takes too long; they don't like the stigma associated with it; and they thought all profiles sound the same. My little sister had actually been to a speed dating event last Christmas and she was telling me how fun it was and wouldn't it be great if it could move online.
At the same time I was at British Telecom as VP in charge of new wave revenues. I had been looking at browser voice and video and trying to think of new applications. When she told me about speed dating, the light went off.
Who is your target audience?
Actually, it's deliberately the younger, more casual setting. Our tag line is Enjoy the Minute. Our audience wants a more fun, less intense meeting experience. We consider ourselves an introduction platform on which dating is the core application, though many sessions are not about dating at all. Before Thanksgiving, we had a few sessions for people trying to find travel partners. We want to keep it very open-ended and a bit lighter. It doesn't have the pressure of having to find your soul mate. Instead, its fun and allows people to connect in the way you would connect in person, without all the pressure. I think this has more appeal to the younger demo, who are as interested in meeting new people as anybody, but are turned off by the hardcore dating sites.
Do you find that when most people set up sessions that are geographically based?
Actually, only about 25% of the sessions are regional. The other 75% are interest-based only. There are a lot of people just looking to have a good time and they're not as concerned about geography. We have built geographic specification into the product and we expect it to get a bit more regional as times goes by.
Why do you think online speed dating is better then offline speed dating?
First of all, there's sort of a self selection. If you go to an offline speed dating event you don't know who is going to be there. A typical session might be Catholic singles Los Angeles Age 34-46. It's very broad. We are much more granular. We have had sessions called People Who Hate Bush and People Who Love Film. Each session is very different. It's a far deeper level of segmentation. In addition, WooMe is quicker. You can log on whenever you want. And it's free. You can also meet people from anywhere. For example, I might want to meet people in Europe or in Brazil. You have all kinds of different options when you webify something the way we have.
What makes you better then some of the other speed dating sites?
The biggest one out there is Speed Date, I think. They have a different model. In their model, the user enters and gets put into a blind session with somebody for 3 minutes. Then, they get switched to someone else that they might not have anything in common with. What we've done is a much more sophisticated platform. Our interactions are session based by interests, so it gives users greater ability to self-select. Users can create their own sessions with their own interests and invite people to their sessions. Plus, we have much more traffic. Come to the site at prime time and you'll see 10 or 15 sessions all starting within the next 20 minutes.
How do you plan to monetize this?
After I interact with someone I have the ability to Woo her. If she Woo'd me as well, the system sends a message that says, Congratulations Steven, Annie 21 was also Wooed by you. At that point it's $1 to get her contact information. So I pay a buck, get her email address and I can take it further myself. If she pays the $1, she gets mine as well. Right now we're giving people unlimited Woo credit, so it's currently free.
How do you prevent abuse by users?
We've got two functionalities. If someone is being abusive to you in a session, you block them and they can no longer interact with you or see your profile. Or users can report someone. If someone gets reported 3 times, we kick that person off the site.
You're still in Beta right now. When are you planning on going live?
We're open, but we're officially in Beta because we are adding new functionality every couple of days. We'll probably be in Beta for another 3 to 4 months. Whereas a month ago, we had just opened and we were adding about 200 people a day. Today, we are adding thousands of new users each day. We're still learning from our users what we need to tweak and what functionality we need to add.
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