HUFFINTON POST - Mar 25 - Online University put together a crafty infographic which makes the case that "online gamers get girls." The raw numbers point to the fact that online gaming is simply a bigger pool of individuals: While eHarmony has ~1M members, the most populated multiplayer gaming site, World of Warcraft (WoW) has 12 M.
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Online Dating Vs. Online Gaming
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Global Personals Launches Mobile Dating Platform
PRESS RELEASE - Mar 23 - GlobalPersonals.co.uk is to fully launch the WhiteLabelDating.com mobile platform later this summer. WhiteLabelDating.com provides a platform for brands and individuals to power their own dating sites and will now also offer partners the software and services to take their sites mobile. The launch follows a successful beta period, which saw a 133% increase in the number of members taking up full membership subscriptions.
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Arranged Marriage For Chinese Babies
ROCKET NEWS 24 - Mar 23 - The infant matchmaking service was started by Chinese childcare site Baby Tree and reflects a growing trend in the country of parents looking online to find playmates and partners for their children. Using the website, parents create a profile, complete with a picture and the option to throw an online “wedding” once they think they’ve found the perfect match for their child. Baby Tree reports that ~200 families joined the site within the first week and already 40 pairs of oblivious toddlers have been made couples.
The full article was originally published at Rocket News 24, but is no longer available.
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How CMO Jessica Powell Is Introducing Badoo To The U.S.
FORBES - Mar 23 - Badoo.com is launching a new marketing campaign in New York. Forbes spoke to Jessica Powell, the chief marketing officer of Badoo, to learn more about the start-up, her marketing initiatives, and the purpose of The Badoo Project.
Q: What’s Badoo.com?
A: Badoo is the world’s largest social network for meeting new people. It first launched in 2006, and we now have ~140M registered users worldwide and~125K new users signing up every day.
Q: How is it different than Facebook and LinkedIn?
A: It is all about meeting new people. People use the site for making new friends, chatting, flirting, and dating.
Q: Do you even consider Facebook a competitor?
A: Wonderfully for us, we view them as very separate.
Q: Tell me about your marketing strategy. How do you recruit new users?
A: To date, we’ve benefited from viral and word-of-mouth organic growth. Now, however, we’re at a stage in our company growth where certain more formal marketing strategies start to make sense for our international footprint. That’s how we’ve come to the launch of The Badoo Project, which is our first U.S. campaign.
Q: Explain The Badoo Project
A: To mark Badoo’s official U.S. launch, we’re holding a massive three-day photo shoot in New York to give people the ultimate online profile picture. Based on personality, energy and individuality, a final 24 will then get the chance to say hello to the city they love, by starring in a mixed media campaign, including billboards, banners and other media, across New York throughout the month of May. Judges will choose 22 finalists, and the final two will be crowned “People’s Choice” winners, voted for by the public with Facebook “likes.”
by Jacquelyn Smith
See full article at Forbes
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Doctors Ask Out Patients On Dating Sites
HUFFINGTON POST - Mar 21 - New research suggests doctors are contacting patients on dating sites and engaging in other unprofessional online behavior – and sometimes getting caught. That's according to a survey of most state medical boards that license and discipline doctors. Most boards said they'd received at least one complaint about unprofessional online behavior; 25% had received more than three complaints. The most common violation was asking patients out online. Others were prescribing medicine and overstating medical credentials online.
by Lindsey Tanner
The full article was originally published at Huffington Post, but is no longer available.
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400K Brits Logging On Each Week To Have An Affair
DAILY MAIL - Mar 20 - Bored housewives are behind a surge that has seen more than one million Brits signing up to extramarital dating websites to have an affair. Figures show up to 400K unique users are logging on each week in the hope of committing adultery. One of the largest websites MaritalAffair.co.uk claims to have ~600K members. AshleyMadison.com said it received a new British member every 45 seconds. ~150K Britons use the site each week. The company said it acquired ~10K new users the day after Valentine's Day, and most of them were married women.
by Leon Watson
See full article at Daily Mail
See all posts on AshleyMadison
See all posts on MaritalAffair
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Three Major Online Dating Sites Agree To Screen For Predators
MASHABLE - Mar 21 - The state attorney general’s office will work with Match.com, eHarmony.com and Spark Networks to screen for sexual predators, identity thieves and scammers. A joint statement issued Monday notes the prevalence of online dating and says the companies’ main objective is to keep users safe. A Match.com spokesperson told Mashable the site is already taking the precautions outlined in the agreement, and an eHarmony spokesperson said existing screening mechanisms have helped keep sex offenders off the service in the past.
by Kate Freeman
See full article at Mashable
See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on Spark Networks
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Zoosk Integrates Gamification
VENTURE BEAT - Mar 20 - Founded five years ago, Zoosk started to make a name for itself in online dating through Facebook and other social networks. Last year, it generated revenue of more than $90M and was named in the top 50 venture-backed companies by the Wall Street Journal. Now the company is working to integrate gamification into its online dating platform.
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Dating Factory Launches In U.S.
XBIZ.COM - Mar 19 - Dating Factory announced the launch of its U.S. operations today along with the appointment of Moreno “MO” Aguiari as its head. Aguirai is being tasked with building the European company's white label dating site domestic business.
by Bob Johnson
See full article at XBIZ.com
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BeNaughty.com Becomes A Top Free Lifestyle App In The US
PR NEWSWIRE - Mar 19 - Now with ~2M downloads, BeNaughty.com's free lifestyle App has hit the first spot in the US, Canada, UK and Australia and is the only dating App in the top 100, ahead of popular horoscope, games and shopping Apps.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.
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Online Personals Watch Sucks!
...but we're not sure how. Could you help us please. We'd like to know what in particular sucks, and how you'd like to see it fixed. How can we make OPW more useful and readable for you. Please email [email protected] with what you'd like to see changed. Thanks for your consideration.
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Top Places To Advertise Your Dating Site
CB BLOG - Mar 19 - While there are many ways to advertise your dating site, the advertising plan really comes down to budget and the ability to reach your target audience. Below are a few examples of the top places to promote your site.
1. Online advertising networks - Google Adsense, Value Click Media, Admarketplace and Casale Media.
2. Affiliate advertising networks - Commission Junction, Linkshare, ShareASale and NeverBlue
3. Plentyoffish.com (POF) advertising service (https://ads.pof.com) allows you to place ads on POF targeting key audience demographics.
Other methods on how dating websites can work in cooperation to generate additional traffic is co-registration advertising strategies, exit traffic advertising and targeted email advertising.
Read more at Courtland Brooks blog
(Full Disclosure: POF is a long term client of Courtland Brooks)
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Badoo: Dating Site That Attracted 140 Million People
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK - Mar 19 - Badoo is one of Britain's biggest online success stories and has amassed 140M users a month. Badoo is essentially a dating site that also allows users to pretend they're only looking to make new friends. Most people use the site just to chat, with 20% going on to date. An average user will speak to between six and 10 people a month and meet between two and four of them. The idea has proved more popular in Latin countries than in Britain or the United States – only 1 million or so of the monthly users are based in the UK (60% are male and one third are over 35).
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Online Dating Algorithm Adding Up To Love
CBS - Mar 15 - “Our algorithm is not based psychological theory,” said Amarnath Thombre who helped design Match.com’s algorithm. “It’s based on rigorous analysis of data of what people actually do on the site.” The Match.com algorithm is behind every single match made on the site. It takes into account the user’s personality, preferences, and their behavior on the site. “The algorithm is constantly following you on the site and getting more and more accurate as you spend more time on the site,” Thombre said. Dr. Eli Finkel, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, has been studying the science behind sites like Match.com. He says the sites are generally good at connecting two people who might otherwise never meet, but he says there’s a certain magic to finding true love that’s not part of a math equation. He says that spark we all seek can only happen with face-to-face interaction.
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