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Jan 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
OPW -- Jan 24 -- The online personals industry signature conference was a grand success again this year. Industry execs from eHarmony, Cupid, Date, True, FriendFinder, Community Connect and local Miami mover and shaker WebDate rubbed shoulders with mid sized players such as MingleMatch and ChristianCafe.com and smaller players such as PlentyofFish, DateMyPet and MyeMatch. Periphary services companies such as LookBetterOnline and SafeDate, and advertisers such as MetricsDirect joined the tour de force. The convention enjoyed double the attendance of 2004 in it's plush new quarters at the Wyndham Resort Miami. Please post comments if you attended. Here are the photos from iDate 2005
Jan 24, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)
NY TIMES -- Jan 24 -- Fifteen months ago, Friendster enjoyed the kind of enviable status that Silicon Valley start-ups dream of: A-list investors and millions of users. The company endured three chief execs during 2004 and has seen a spate of senior executives depart in recent weeks. A younger, flashier rival called MySpace has eclipsed Friendster and Friendster loyalists have groused that the company has done almost nothing to enliven its site. Reid Hoffman (of LinkedIn), another early Friendster investor, agreed that the company frittered away its sizable head start over the competition. Last summer, the company hired Mr. Sassa a former NBC executive taking over from Timothy Koogle, an early Friendster investor and former Yahoo chief exec, who ran the company after the board lost faith in Mr. Abrams. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES
Mark Brooks: Jonathan did a stellar job of observing the real world and emulating social group interaction online. I'd love to see Jonathan take the Product Development reigns. Seems MySpace has outfriendstered Friendster.
Jan 24, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE -- Jan 23 -- Lowell Selvin, CEO of PlanetOut, the Web portal for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, with 3.3 million users, navigated PlanetOut through an IPO in October 2004, netting $41.6 million. The funds will be focused primarily on products, features, technological investments and to expand internationally. This is an under-served market -- $600 billion in buying power in the US alone. PlanetOut reaches 3.3 million out of roughly 15 million adult gays and lesbians in the US and 260 million adult gays and lesbians in Europe, Latin America, Asia and North America combined. We're just scratching the surface. FULL ARTICLE @ SFGATE
Jan 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
TWIN CITIES PIONEER PRESS -- Jan 21 -- E-dating revenues rose 73% in 2002 and 77% in 2003. For 2004, the growth slowed to 19%. Spending on online personals dipped during the first two quarters of this year to less than $114 million, compared with $117 million in the last quarter a year ago. Some companies are cutting employees. One fast-rising site chose not to go public. It seems people who jumped into the game with enthusiasm now talk about disillusionment with the people they met who were nothing like what they expected. Women say some men were married or just window-shopping.
The full article was originally published at Twin Cities, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: 19% sounds like a pretty healthy growth rate to me.
Jan 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR -- Jan 19 -- MuslimMatcher is one of several online Muslim matchmaking services that have sprung up in the United States and internationally in recent years. They are used by hundreds of thousands of Muslims worldwide, most of whom live away from families willing to arrange a marriage, or who prefer to find a spouse by themselves. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
Mark Brooks: Shaadi is the category leader.
Jan 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)
SOCALTECH -- Jan 19 -- Userplane enables PlentyofFish with chat and instant messaging. FULL ARTICLE @ SOCALTECH
Mark Brooks: PlentyofFish is completely free to join. They make their money on advertising.
Jan 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
BUSINESS WIRE -- Jan 18 -- The Knot reported today it has acquired the assets of GreatBoyfriends LLC (GreatBoyfriends.com and GreatGirlfriends.com). The Knot Inc.'s portfolio includes top wedding brand The Knot, newlywed resource TheNest.com, and popular teen site PromSpot.com. Building upon its market share within the $70 billion wedding industry, this latest acquisition further expands the company's relationship with women, ages 25-35, and marks the arrival of The Knot Inc. into the $450 million online personals domain.
Jan 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
PRNewswire -- Jan 18 -- Date.com has pulled together tips for single parents to make this Valentine's Day special for their children, and most importantly, for themselves!
Mark Brooks: Single parents should also check out Parents Without Partners and Single Parents Mingle.
Jan 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
SEATTLE PI -- Jan 18 -- Money is also rapidly filling Jobster's coffers, with Ignition Partners and Trinity Ventures announcing today that they have injected $10.5 million into the year-old project. The Jobster service, which will be unveiled this spring, allows recruiters to tap into the knowledge base of their current work force in order to find quality candidates for a job. Jobster is described as a combination of Monster.com and Friendster.
Jan 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
TECHNICIAN -- Jan 18 -- "Thefacebook is a great social network of students which allows me to form valuable study groups, or anything of that nature." Although Thefacebook may be new to many, there are various other Web sites just like it in cyberspace, like Blackplanet.com, Friendster.com and Myspace.com.
Mark Brooks: TheFaceBook is a very popul;ar social network for students and alumni of specific universities. Sign up and you'll be able to track down other alums.
Jan 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
MIAMI HERALD -- Jan 20 -- Since Miami Beach-based Webdate started offering a free online dating service two years ago, some 2.8 million love-seekers have signed up. The company's traffic surged 800% in 2004, compared to 17% for the online personals industry as a whole. with 8,000 to 10,000 new users signing up daily, Webdate has the fastest-growing black book in the industry. There are almost 850 online dating services worldwide. Giving away service has put Webdate on the charts with the likes of Match.com and Yahoo Personals. On Jan. 19 for example, the firm announced it would expand its mobile dating service by March to cover 80% of all data-ready cell phones. "Webdate MobileT" allows clients to use their handsets to search for potential dates, download profiles and initiate text messages and anonymous phone calls. "You don't have to be in front of your computer to be online dating anymore," Smilowitz said. Since its launch in December, some 40,000 users have subscribed to the mobile service at $2.99 per month. At his new South Beach office, Smilowitz spins his monitor around to show off another high-tech feature: live video chat. On the screen is the small image of a user in Indonesia, busy typing away at her computer. "We've all heard the horror stories about chatting with someone online and they have a great picture, but then you meet them and you realize it wasn't them at all, or that the picture they were using is 20 years old," said Smilowitz, 30. "With this, people get the chance to hear the other person's voice and see their face from the comfort and safety of their own home." But the market is getting more crowded and fragmented. ''There are increasingly more sites aimed at seniors -- it is definitely catching on with the older set -- and just about every other demographic you could think of,'' said Mark Brooks, the publisher of Online Personals Watch.
Jan 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
PRNewswire -- Jan 19 -- Webdate announced today at the Internet Dating Conference in Miami that Webdate Mobile(TM), the company's go-anywhere, flirt-anytime mobile dating service has been expanded to support 19 phones with another 45 to be rolled out through March of this year, representing 80% of all data-capable U.S. mobile phones. More than 40,000 wireless customers have downloaded Webdate Mobile, powered by Trilibis. WebDate surpassed 2.5 million users last month and adds more than 8,000 new members daily. Members can learn more about the benefits of availability of Webdate Mobile at webdatemobile.com; $2.99 per month.
Mark Brooks: Abe demonstrated the WebDate Mobile service to me last Tuesday. You can browse profiles, pictures and send messages to users. Hey, if you're standing in line somewhere, might as well chat up a few singles on your cell phone
Jan 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
PRNEWSWIRE -- Jan 18 -- "Seven years ago when I started CatholicSingles.com the idea of online dating was foreign to most people," says company president David Nevarez. "But today over half of the singles in the United States have used one form of online dating in their life. The impression that online dating is 'strange' or 'only for geeks' has all but disappeared.
Jan 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
BUSINESS WIRE -- Jan 18 -- Userplane, a pioneer in providing enterprise social software for online communities, today announced its new deployments of its Flash-based audio/video communication tools for PlentyofFish. PlentyofFish currently welcomes more than 100,000 visitors a day.
Jan 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)