Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

Religious People Better Adjusted Psychologically

STOPTHEACLU - Jan 23 - Psychological research has found that religious people feel great about themselves, with a tendency toward higher social self-esteem and better psychological adjustment than non-believers. But a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that this is only true in countries that put a high value on religion. The researchers got their data from eDarling, a European dating site that is affiliated with eHarmony. Like eHarmony, eDarling uses a long questionnaire to match clients with potential dates. It includes a question about how important your personal religious beliefs are and questions that get at social self-esteem and how psychologically well-adjusted people are.

The full article was originally published at StopTheAclu, but is no longer available.

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WooWise Launches White Label Dating System

PRESS RELEASE - Jan 22 - After 18 months of intensive development the Smooch White Label system (SWL) was launched by WooWise. The White Label system offers three different models:

• Subscription
• Free
• Freemium

WooWise CEO Martin Bysh is speaking about supplementing subscription income with other services at iDate Miami.

The full article was originally published at WooWise blog, but is no longer available.

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iDate Miami: The Royal Palm Beach Hotel Changed To Loews

OPW - Jan 21 - The Royal Palm Beach Hotel had upgraded and moved all guests from the iDate group to the Loews hotel, located next door due to an unexpected construction. Right now the Loews is charging online $650/night for a room. Those of you that paid $189/night at the Royal Palm will be upgraded and pay $189/night at the Loews.

WhiteLabelDating Celebrates 10 Million Members

WHITELABELDATING – Jan 20 – Award-winning WhiteLabelDating.com announced today that is has reached 10M members. Since launching in 2003, White Label Dating has offered a platform for any brand or individual to power their own online dating site, providing the software, payment processing, hosting, etc. while the site owner need only provide their brand, design and marketing. Operations Director Matthew Pitt comments that “with 10 million members, we have someone for everyone” across their numerous sites. There are more sites available now than ever before, many sites are tailored to specific interests, religions, hobbies, and more.

See all posts on WhiteLabelDating.com

Profile Verification Comes To Lovestruck.com

PR WEB – Jan 19 – Online dating site Lovestruck.com announced its new profile verification service, being offered for free to its UK, Hong Kong and Singapore members. The process will allow Lovestruck to cross-check a member’s profile against various public Social IDs, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Members who successfully pass their verification will receive a "Verified" badge on their profile in addition to Social ID badges showing which networks have been used to verify their identity. Managing Director Brett Harding believes verification will lead to a "more open level of communication with potential matches" and thus provide more and better dates.

See full article at PR Web

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Dating Site I-um Transforms Dating In South Korea

TNW – Jan 19 – Founded in April 2011, I-um is an online dating service that has seen incredible success in the last seven months. Because it’s still popular practice in Korean culture to feel pressured into getting married as one gets older, young people are often set up on blind dates by family and friends instead of meeting singles on their own. I-um is primarily aimed at students and adults aged 20-39 and introduces users to one new person each day. If the interest is mutual, contact details are exchanged so they can begin talking. Since January 2011, users have increased from 40,000 to 190,000, a 375% increase. The site has also seen a revenue boost of 87%, and some 20 couples have already been married as a result of meeting through I-um.

by Andy TeBay
See full article at The Next Web

Flavor Connect Celebrates Two Years

PR WEB – Jan 19 – Chatroulette online dating site Flavor Connect is celebrating its second birthday after launching in January 2010, and has grown to be the hotspot for young singles looking to hook up. Site founder and company President Khaled Ridgeway attributes the sites candy theme as the key ingredient to their success and growth. Members can easily identify potential matches as Vanilla for fidelity, Chocolate for fantasy, and Strawberry for fling, and their Chatroulette “taste test room” gives members the opportunity both engage in and pass on conversation with other members quickly and easily. Flavor Connect’s site recently went through an appearance upgrade, now offering a cleaner, smoother interface and integration with its “Sweet Talk” weblog that offers dating and relationship advice.

The full article was originally published at PR Web, but is no longer available.

Eater.com And HowAboutWe Launch ‘Eater Dating’ For Foodies

GIGAOM – Jan 18 – The popular blog network Eater.com has teamed up with the online matchmaking service HowAboutWe to launch “Eater Dating”, bringing foodies together for dynamic first dates. HowAboutWe has a simple solution to online dating – instead of choosing your date based on a profile, they allow you to choose your date based on their brief description of a first date event they would like to do. For Eater Dating, they allow you to choose your date based on foodie-centric dates, such as “Sit outside and eat oysters at the Ferry Building”. Both individual sites have gained traction amongst the urban professional crowd, and Eater Dating will allow this group to kill two birds with one stone: meeting someone new for a first date while trying out a new restaurant or bar you’ve been dying to check out anyway.

by Colleen Taylor
See full article at GigaOm

See all posts on HowAboutWe

LoveTradies.com Celebrates Blue Collar Dating Trend

NEWSMAKER.COM.AU - Jan 18 – Launched by two Australian sisters in February 2011, LoveTradies.com is dedicated to tradies and servicepersons, and those who love them. ‘Tradie’ is an Australian slang term referring to a skilled tradesperson, including electricians, construction workers, tillers, plumbers, and carpenters. According to a recent survey, women are driven by instinct to find a partner who is strong and protective, valuing their family and career above all else, which has led to a shift towards blue collar workers as more desirable partners. LoveTradies.com is now available in Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK.

See full article at Newsmaker.com.au

GroupOut Launches Focused Events For Singles

JUNCTION 31 – Jan 18 – UK start-up GroupOut has introduced a white label service targeting singles in the UK dating industry that provides highly focused group outings for members of websites who offer the service. The idea was formed by some of the group’s founding team who felt uncomfortable meeting their dates for the first time in one-on-one environments, and preferred something involving more activities and events that allowed them to mingle more casually with a larger group of people. The service is already receiving great traction and feedback from singles, and GroupOut is in discussion with US and other overseas partners to bring this revenue share model to their doors.

See full article at Junction

iDate Pre-Conference And Virtual Trade Show Held On January 19, 2012

WEBWIRE – Jan 18 – Ticonderoga Ventures, Inc. will be holding a virtual convention and business networking event on Thursday, January 19, 2012 from 10:00am EST to 2:00pm EST at http://www.iDateVirtual.com. The one day free event will include many of those attending and exhibiting at the Internet Dating Conference in Miami from January 23-30, 2012. The virtual conference will provide a business networking opportunity as dynamic forms of networking will allow industry senior executives to meet online, introduce themselves, and plan meetings before meeting in Miami. Online registration is open and there is no fee to register or attend the virtual event.

See full article at Webwire

Ignighter Is Now StepOut

OPW - Jan 17 - Ignighter, the group dating site, has recently changed its name to StepOut. Ignighter first started in New York in 2008 but became very popular in India so the company decided to rebrand the site for the Indian market and launch its operations in Mumbai, India. Ignighter raised $1.8M two weeks ago.

See all posts on StepOut

Youja.cn Secures $3m USD Series A Funding

PENN OLSEN - Jan 17 - China dating app U+ (Youja.cn) has secured $3m USD series A funding from VC funds at UMC Capital, The9 and World Trend Ventures. The funds will be used to improve service speed and grow membership further. U+ was set up by serial entrepreneurs who previously founded business social network Wealink.com and Mobile Software developer Vogins.

by Willis Wee
See full article at Penn Olsen

Mark Brooks: One to watch. Youja has a strong founder pedigree and is inspired by the best of the mobile dating apps in the West. Especially Skout, Flirtomatic and Badoo.

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Check Criminal Records Of Online Daters, Experts Say

CBC NEWS - Jan 16 - Online dating companies should be taking advantage of the RCMP criminal records system to keep convicted criminals off their sites, say experts in the identity verification business. "There is no perfect instant criminal record system on the planet," David Dinesen told CBC News. "But Canada is the best in the world. No question." Criminal backgrounds of Canadian daters could be checked without breaking privacy laws, because the daters could authorize or volunteer to provide their criminal conviction record check to the dating sites, he said. Online dating companies such as PlentyofFish, Match.com, eHarmony and others should offer options to their Canadian clients. PlentyofFish, founded by Markus Frind, makes ~$30M annually from advertising on its website. The company espouses a "buyer beware" philosophy and posts warnings and safety tips for clients on its free site. eHarmony sent CBC News an email statement emphasizing that "eHarmony's efforts are focused on empowering people to use good judgment and to be responsible for their safety on eHarmony, as they would anywhere else. Since there is not a comprehensive database of criminal convictions and many crimes go unreported by the victims, eHarmony does not want to give its members a false sense of security. We make it very clear in several places throughout the site that eHarmony does not conduct criminal background checks on our members. In an email, Match.com told CBC News: "Match is always reviewing new ways to keep the community safe and is aware of RCMP National Repository of Criminal Records. Unlike the National Sex Offender Registry, against which Match.com screens against in the United States, the RCMP repository is not public information. Therefore, utilizing this information is not currently possible."

by Jeannie Stiglio
See full article at CBC News

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Why Use Pre-Paid Payment Cards?

OPW - Jan 17 -  Our Courtland Brooks analyst reviewed the top payment providers, mobile payment and alternative payment providers that the dating industry are using. Email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com for a copy. Here's why you should consider using a prepaid card payment system.

Very easy for users to use.
Some consumers prefer to pay with cash.
They like to control their spending
They want to avoid falling into debt
They don’t want to incur finance or late charges
They don’t have a credit card 
They are afraid of identity theft
1. There are no fees
They fear losing track of recurring payments
They don't trust an online merchant

Courtland Brooks works with PaySafeCard (Interview with Neil Steinhardt, GM North America) which we believe to be best in class and nicely differentiated against their competition.

Read the full post at Courtland Brooks blog

(Disclosure: Optimal Payments and PaySafeCard are clients of Courtland Brooks)