TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - May 31 - Rich Martell, 21, was forced to pay GBP 300 and take the site down after University College London (UCL) deemed that the website, FitFinder, brought the institution into disrepute. The site, which allowed UCL students to flirt with each other online, reached 5M hits within four weeks of opening and was soon spread to other universities. Authorities at UCL deemed the website an undesirable distraction from academic work, and representatives of other universities also contacted UCL to complain about the site. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
« April 2010 | Main | June 2010 »
Student Fined By University Over Dating Website
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AshleyMadison.com's TV Advertisement Draws Complaints
THE AUSTRALIAN - May 31 - A TV commercial that encourages married
couples to have an affair by promoting dating website Ashleymadison.com
has generated 20 complaints after it ran on Nine's hit crime drama
Underbelly last night. A commercial for the website was previously
pulled by sports network ESPN, which is part of the family-friendly
Walt Disney Company, when it ran in the US in 2008. Ashleymadison.com,
which is just one of many infidelity websites, is billed as having
~40,000 members in Australia, and is expecting more after the launch of
its Australian marketing campaign this month. FULL ARTICLE @ THE AUSTRALIAN
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Lavalife Works Out Kinks In Site Redesign
OPW - May 31 - Lavalife sent out an email to members letting them know they've worked out the kinks in their site redesign. A new IM system is mounted to the bottom of the screen. Photos are now larger. Nav has been improved.
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Zoosk Launches TV Ad Campaign
OPW - May 31 - Zoosk is launching its first National TV campaign in the USA on Monday 1st June. Here's the ad. What do you think?
(video not available anymore)
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iPhone Has An App For A Virtual Girlfriend
- Hundreds of Virtual Girls in full 3d
- Each girl has a unique personality, but with stereotypical womanlike behaviors that you have to figure out- how to evolve your relationship
- Clever and funny dialog
- Exclusive Touch system
FULL ARTICLE @ APP MODO
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DatingFactory.com Launches New HIV Positive Dating Niche
PR WEB - May 27 - DatingFactory launched a disabled dating niche about
6 month ago. Since then their partners have created and actively
promoted over 100 websites and this niche has proven to be one of the
highest converting and quickest growing dating niches on
DatingFactory’s white label platform. DatingFactory has now launched a
dedicated HIV positive dating niche on the network. The number of
people living with HIV worldwide continues to grow and is now estimated
at over 33M. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB
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How People Monitor Their Internet Identity And Search For Others Online
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Guardian News & Media Legal Action Over 'Database Infringement'
PRESS GAZETTE - May 27 - Guardian News & Media (GMN), the newspaper publisher, launched its action against businessman Daniel Yorke and his companies Dating Network and X Factor Online Dating after being contacted by three members of its Soulmates service asking why their profiles were appearing on other dating sites. GMN claims that by November last year the dating sites had more than 9,000 profiles in their databases that were identical to those in Soulmates. Use of the Soulmates profiles is a misrepresentation, the writ alleges, and calculated to lead people to believe GNM is involved in a commercial arrangement with the two dating sites, which it is not.
The full article was originally published at Press Gazette, but is no longer available.
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Accuphoto To Provide Professional Pictures For Dating Profiles
PPA BLOG - May 24 - Accuphoto is a new service that launches on May 31, 2010. This service will provide verified professional images to members of the online dating community and social networking sites at a fixed price. Accuphoto was started by Brenda Kirkland, a PPA (Professional Photographers of America) member who had tried out the online dating scene and was disappointed by the abundance of poor quality (or inaccurate) profile pictures that people were using.
The full article was originally published at PPA Blog, but is no longer available.
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Karinna Kittles-Karsten, Founder Of SacredLove
OPW INTERVIEW - May 27 - Karinna Kittles-Karsten is The Love Educator. She’s a former model, has authored the books Intimate Wisdom: The Sacred Art of Love, as well as hosting and producing the DVD Sacred Love-Making. Single women are inordinate consumers of relationship content. Karinna is a producer of such content. I thought I’d help introduce you, the dating industry, to her. - Mark Brooks
What is your background?
I am a seeker, artist, educator and entrepreneur in the field of love and intimacy. It’s been a lifelong passion of mine to discover and study global wisdom on love, sex and intimacy. Because of this, I’ve traveled all over the world. I was fascinated by how couples and singles relate to one another in different cultures. Their similarities and differences were also very interesting.
Tell us more about SacredLove.
SacredLove.com has a unique offering in the online dating and relationship enhancement space. It supports you before, during and after finding the right partner.
You have a love spa. How does the love spa work?
We offer dating and intimacy tools that singles and couples can access 24 hours a day to improve their relationship experience through our one of a kind love spa membership.
What are the tools?
We have an audio/visual menu that includes selections to boost your self confidence and body image. The selections teach you how to communicate to increase your dating success as well as your ability to get close to someone. We also have a visual menu that plays selections to increase your sexual intimacy skill.
You have multiple membership offerings. Can you walk us through your offers?
For starters we offer traditional online dating where you can create a profile and look for love online. In addition to online dating, we of course offer the love spa. We also have a web TV channel membership called Empowered Relationships TV that features inspiring date night programming.
In conjunction with our membership plans, we also have the couple’s connection feature which is like Facebook for couples. Another one of the special features we offer here is our mobile connection provided by our partnership with messmo.
Are the couples communicating with other couples?
Couple’s connection works in two ways. A couple can have a private profile in which they would interact amongst themselves but if they want to meet other couples online and become friends, they can open up their profile and meet other couples on the platform.
It sounds like you’re covering a wide range of the relationship continuum. How about conflict resolution? Is there anything in your services that will help couples get back together?
Absolutely. In the love spa you’ll find selections on how to resolve conflict, how to get through life’s challenges and how to become intimate again.
How are you promoting the site at this stage? How are you using social media?
We’re using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to engage our customers that are highly involved in social media. This step is in the process of being implemented as we speak. We are also open to relationship oriented dating sites approaching us to discuss using our services for their members as an extended engagement.
How would that work?
On traditional dating sites you might find a dating coach offering, which is usually a blog or articles with dating tips and perhaps some one on one advice. But at Sacred Love, we focus on connecting people. So in an arrangement we would provide content for bringing people together and helping singles to date more successfully.
This is a great opportunity for the online dating space to engage. Why would you have a million or more members and then let them go somewhere else? There is a real need in the online dating space to foster love, intimacy as well as create ongoing engagement.
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Interview With Sean Cornwell, VP Of International Marketing At eHarmony
Q: When you started here and how big your presence is?
A: We launched the site in November 2007. And now we are one of the largest online dating services in Australia. We have ~650,000 registrants.
Q: So just take us through how much commitment it takes from a registrant. I know you're more focused on a more scientific approach to matchmaking.
A: eHarmony is all about long-term relationships. If you sign up you have to take a personality questionnaire which is 250 questions and really the aim of that is to basically understand people's personality. It's all about understanding someone's values, what their beliefs are, what are their character drivers, things like their humour, their passion and so forth because those kinds of things are much more a predictor of whether two people will have a successful and happy long lasting, long-term relationship.
A: eHarmony is all about long-term relationships. If you sign up you have to take a personality questionnaire which is 250 questions and really the aim of that is to basically understand people's personality. It's all about understanding someone's values, what their beliefs are, what are their character drivers, things like their humour, their passion and so forth because those kinds of things are much more a predictor of whether two people will have a successful and happy long lasting, long-term relationship.
Q: You're offering the chance to find a strong match but that probably means that the user is going to see fewer matches.
A: Users only receive matches that are compatible with them.
Q: Are there instances where someone who's got a unique personality might go for a little while without getting any matches?
A: In Australia that's unlikely. We certainly have a very strong and healthy matching pool.
Q: Tell us a bit about the business model.
A: We're a subscription business so we're not free.
Q: In some ways you don't want to retain customers for too long because you hope they've found a terrific much, but if it doesn't quite work out for them I guess you want to keep them on the site. How do you get that balance right?
A: We're all about helping people to find a long-term relationship, hopefully to help them find "the one" as it were and it's like anything else, you know the more you put into eHarmony, the more you get out of it.
Q: What works from a customer acquisition point of view?
A: We're always testing new marketing channels, new techniques, new tactics and so forth. We use TV, we use radio, we use all sorts of online channels and so forth.
Q: Have you noticed any differences in the Australian market to some of the other places that you're in?
A: Australia is no different to other markets, English speaking or non-English speaking. There are certain differences in the media markets. There are also subtleties and differences between each market in each culture that have certain things that they tend to value more strongly than others. One of the interesting things that we have discovered through eHarmony Labs, is around Australian couples. When we've compared them to the US or the UK, overall Australia's married couples are the happiest with their marriages. They tend to put in more effort.
Q: Has the rise of social networking helped or hindered you guys?
A: I'm not sure that we have a clear answer on that. I'd say probably with the 25 to 30 age group, there is a greater comfort through finding potential dates through networks like Facebook and the like. But then again it's much more around the casual end of the spectrum rather than serious long-term relationships.
The full article was originally published at Smart Company, but is no longer available.
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Match.com's Free Alternate Service Becomes Singlesnet
EHARMONY BLOG - May 25 - Apparently Down to Earth, the free version of the Match.com, now redirects to their newly acquired company, Singlesnet.
The full article was originally published at eHarmony Blog, but is no longer available.
See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on Singlesnet
See all posts on DownToEarth / Stir.com
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OkCupid Uses Click Data To Match Most Attractive Users
MASHABLE - May 25 - OkCupid sent an e-mail to some of its users
nforming them that they’ve been placed in the top half of users in
terms of attractiveness by its algorithms. As a result of the
categorization, the attractive users will be more likely to see one
another in match searches, while the users who are in the lower tier
will not see a change. The e-mail specified that the determinations
were made through analysis of clicks on users’ photos and reactions in
the Quiver and QuickMatch features. Those two tools ask users to
quickly respond positively or negatively to photos accompanied by
segments of profile text. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE
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