PRNEWSWIRE -- May 18 -- The Today Show's Judy Gordon, Dr. Lillian Glass, Ph.D., Authors Josh Piven and Jennifer Worick Join Happen's A-List Panel of Experts and Columnists. Each week, Happen Magazine reports on the latest trends in dating and relating.
Mark Brooks: Happen is an online magazine. One2One Living is a rival print magazine.
« April 2005 | Main | June 2005 »
Happen Magazine Expands Roster of Experts
| |
DateAGolfer.com Launches
PRWEB -- May 20 -- www.DateAGolfer.com main focus is to help golfers have fun, meet great friends, and expand their golf network. Says co-owner Gary Kelly. "We want to create a safe and dynamic online community where people come to share their passion of golf." Introductory offer gives full access free. Members who include their photos will also be entered into a draw to win a FREE one-day golf lesson.
Mark Brooks: Gary tells me he plans to grow the site through a grass roots network. He's advertising in Golf For Women, and on Google Adwords and will rely on viral guerrilla marketing promotions. He's been calling some new members to welcome them on board...which usually stuns them.
| |
Rachael Lorenz Wants to Help Men Score
PRWEB -- May 20 -- Many who've tried on-line dating speak of finding someone who seems great, making a date to meet in person, and then being frustrated by the lack of face to face chemistry. Enter Rachael Lorenz, a personal stylist based in San Francisco. "Younger types, the no-life-work-addicts, have invested so much energy in their careers that their romantic lives have not been a priority. As a result when they finally go on a date, they don't have a clue. Another group of men are those that I call "neo-daters" - these are guys who've been married and divorced and are just getting back into the dating scene – they're usually over 40. They've forgotten what they learned in their twenties about how to present themselves – this makes them so self conscious that they make goof after goof. I start with the wardrobe and hair, and work through basic elements of etiquette for a total dating makeover." www.rachaellorenz.com
Mark Brooks: Interesting before and after example shows a guy Miami style with no socks. Definite improvement. Guess I need to lose the socks then?
| |
DatingDirect.com Signs Two-Year Deal With AOL
REVOLUTION MAG -- May 20 - AOL has signed a two-year deal with DatingDirect.com to provide its members with access to the UK's biggest online dating agency. DatingDirect has other deals with sites including iVillage.co.uk and ITV.com, and has more than 2m members in the UK. It is ranked by Nielsen//NetRatings as the largest personals site in the UK in terms of monthly unique users, ahead of Meetic.co.uk and uDate.com. Research compiled by Jupiter shows that the Western European dating markets will be worth €117m (£80m) by 2007. The UK online dating market is particularly showing rapid growth, currently worth £11.7m and is estimated by Jupiter to grow to £47m by 2008. DatingDirect was founded in 1999. As well as hosting white-label dating services for other websites and its own branded website, it runs offline dating events, which it sees as a way of raising brand awareness.
The full article was originally published at Revolution, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Dating Direct is pulling ahead in the UK market it would seem. It's tough to compete with sites that know how to do good deals.
| |
Yahoo 360 Overview
SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL -- May 17 -- Yahoo 360 is Yahoo’s “blogging local reviews social network friend finder” community which has yet to really take off in the States like Orkut did in Brazil. I have about thirty-something invites left so if you want to join email me at [email protected]. It's a fun intermingled way of keeping a personal blog (or journal). Intertwining local news and reviews with others’ opinions in your network is a powerful touch and Yahoo is definately doing a good job of integrating 360 into it's Local Search, Music and Groups. “As a blog, Yahoo 360 lags behind the capabilities of Blogger, Multiply and Friendster blogs. Friendster has the best blog program among the four services but the URL it offers to its users is ridiculously long. Mobile phone blogging is such a pain to set up in Yahoo 360 — it’s centered on US telecom firms — and I eventually gave up.” FULL ARTICLE @ SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL
Mark Brooks: Yahoo always seems to do two things very well. Firstly, it's services are always nice n simple. No feature creep. Just the services I need, laid out in a super-usable fashion. Secondly, Yahoo is reliable and relatively fast.
| |
Userplane Invited to Present at 'Under the Radar' at Microsoft
MARKET WIRE -- May 17 -- Userplane, the leading provider of live community software, today announced that it has been chosen to present at Under the Radar(TM) Consumer Technologies, a one-day event that will take place on May 31 at the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, Calif. Under the Radar will showcase technology's early innovators in several fast-growing sectors in the consumer space including search, podcasting, blogging, RSS, music search and distribution, digital content storage, and social networking software. Userplane's recent new clients include: Date.com, Friendster, Honda, and Red Bull.
| |
Thefacebook Puts Campus Crowd Face To Face
DAYTONA BEACH NEWS JOURNAL -- May 16 -- Kent was on a tour of Asia with other college students last summer when he heard people saying, 'Oh, this would be a perfect facebook picture.' Thefacebook is a free site that connects college students, faculty and recent alumni and boasts 2.4 million users at 573 campuses. People use it to learn more about hot classmates, track down information on homework, sign friends' "walls," and generally waste time. Users must have an e-mail address connected to a member institution. Some students are using a similar site, collegeclub.com.
| |
Artists Make Good Use of MySpace
SOUL SHINE -- May 16 -- As rock star Billy Corgan is helping to prove, MySpace is the new Friendster, with decidedly better benefits. More and more acts are using MySpace.com to promote themselves. Corgan is using his space www.myspace.com/billycorgan to give fans the chance to get inside his brain via his super-detailed blog, to stream songs from his upcoming solo album, to win free tickets to his summer tour, and yes, even to become his “friend.” Alongside the big names (Oasis, Weezer, My Chemical Romance), some not-so-famous artists make a home on MySpace. FULL ARTICLE @ SOUL SHINE
Mark Brooks: Musicians and DJ's are the greatest 'connectors' (see Tipping Point and Unleashing the Ideavirus). MySpace captured their attention and they 'sneezed.'
| |
Filipina Eyes Offers Lifetime Membership
PRWEB -- May 16 -- FilipinaEyes (Asian online dating) has decided to offer lifetime memberships for $45. There is a one time lifetime membership fee for gentlemen. RELEASE @ PRWEB
Mark Brooks: Many early singles clubs/groups went under, leaving their lifetime members high and dry. Consequently, I'm informed, lifetime memberships in the U.S. are not entirely legal these days.
| |
Google Buys Dodgeball Text-message Networking Service
INFOWORLD -- May 12 -- Google continued extending its reach beyond the PC this week by acquiring social networking service Dodgeball.com; a grad-school project started at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. The service lets users "check in" their location at a bar, club, restaurant, or other local gathering spot, then transmits that information as a text message to the mobile phones of selected other Dodgeball.com users in the area. The goal is to spark in-person connections among friends, acquaintances and friends-of-friends. "As a two-person team, Alex and I have taken dodgeball about a far as we can alone. We talked to a lot of different angel investors and venture capitalists, but no one really 'got' what we were doing -- that is until we met Google. The people at Google think like us. They looked at us in a 'You're two guys doing some pretty cool stuff, why not let us help you out and let's see what you can do with it' type of way." He and Rainert will remain with the company and begin work on new features.
The full article was originally published at InfoWorld, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Wireless online dating is coming... Heck, it's already here. Webdate has the nicest application I've seen so far. Yahoo is available on Blackberry now. Check out the mobile dating internet conference, San Francisco in July, www.idate2005.com. (Member of the press? Contact me at [email protected])
| |
Very Personal Personals: Dating With an STD
WASHINGTON POST -- May 10 -- Shawn Henderson tried online dating through AOL, but he preferred a personals site for those, like him, who're HIV-positive. Nancy stumbled across Meet People With H (http://www.MPwH.net). She posted information about herself, along with a photo, and within days, responses from "tons of men" -- including CEOs, a firefighter and an architect -- came pouring in. More than 65 million Americans live with a viral sexually transmitted disease such as herpes, human papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis B and HIV. Many online dating services find the subject of STDs to be taboo. Positive Personals (for people diagnosed with HIV) and After H (herpes and HPV) work like any online dating service. The Antopia Herpes/HPV Network is the largest and busiest STD community on the Web, with nearly 45,000 members (http://www.gotherpes.com). FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST
Mark Brooks: Mainstream dating sites have left this niche completely unattended. A great niche and valuable public service.
| |
True.com Forms Exclusive Partnership With AskMen.com
PRNEWSWIRE -- May 11 -- True and AskMen, the leader in men's lifestyle content, announced an exclusive partnership. True will serve as AskMen.com's exclusive online personals partner. AskMen.com will provide its popular content on dating, love and sexuality to TRUE's site. The two companies will also work together on a series of cross-promotional events." With more than 6 million monthly readers that generate 65,000,000 page views each month, AskMen.com is clearly the first place that men turn to for advice online.
Mark Brooks: A major coup for True.
| |
Searching for Profit in Networking Web Sites
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE -- May 12 -- LinkedIn is hoping to create a viable business by capturing a small piece of a classified advertising market estimated to be worth more than $20 billion. It charges employers $95 to post a job listing for 30 days. It had 1,000 or so job listings last month. "They're giving recruiters access to people they wouldn't normally be able to get to," said Charlene Li, Forrester Research. "These are passive job seekers - people who aren't actively looking for jobs - who are extremely valuable to the recruiter and the hiring manager." Tribe.net, raised $6.3 million, and encourages users to join "tribes" of mutual interest. A free service that charges for classified ads posted on its site. Tribe had 243,000 unique visitors in March, according to comScore Media Metrix, 3.7 million people turned to Craigslist. Friendster received ~$13 million in funding...and found itself eclipsed by a pair of newer, more narrowly focused social networking companies, MySpace, specializing in music, and Thefacebook.com, geared to university students. Friendster had 975,000 uniques in March, according to comScore, 11.3 million users visited MySpace, 4.1 million to Thefacebook.
The full article was originally published at IHT, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: These sites are also doing a good job of reaching the 18-30's crowd...which is an increasingly valuable, and hard to reach demographic. They're tuning in to the TV less, in preference to the internet.
| |
Psychologist Unveils Free Marital Success Test Online
PRWEB -- May 10 -- Psychologist Dr. Kevin Leman unveiled a free online Personality Compatibility Test. Leman has authored over 25 books on practical approaches for building lasting relationships. His online dating site is MatchWise.com has as its main goal the prevention of marital mistakes through the psychology of birth order. "We'll show you that the best marital match isn't with someone just like you," says Leman. "If each of you is too similar in personality and conflict skills, you're likely to have more difficulty, not less. For an 'ideal' match, you'll want some things in common; but the best matches are opposites!" RELEASE @ PRWEB
Mark Brooks: A budding Dr Warren perhaps? As eHarmony pulls away from it's Christian focus towards the mainstream, perhaps Dr Leman will find success in maintaining it's focus on Christian singles matching.
| |
Online Love Coach
NEWS 14 CAROLINA -- May 10 -- Some have success with online dating, others don't. One expert says it’s because people don’t have a clue on how to put together a strong online profile. You need more than just one good picture. Beyond pictures, the words are where so many people fail… being too generic. Don't just list an activity, share the moment. Dodson started her consulting business two years ago. So far she has helped 60 clients improve their profiles for $250.
The full article was originally published at News14, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Check out www.lookbetteronline.com and www.e-cyrano.com. My favorite photos and profile help services.
| |