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Kids Talk Dating Problems
MASHABLE - Mar 29 - Watching small children engage in real-talk girl talk is slightly unsettling, but mostly adorable.
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MeetMe Introduces In-Feed Advertising With Flurry Partnership
TECH CRUNCH - Mar 29 - MeetMe new ads, which are being introduced through a partnership with Flurry, will appear in the Live Stream, offering a more “native” approach, said CEO Geoff Cook. “This is the first time we are placing ads within the context of the application itself, where the user encounters advertising while scrolling. The ads look and feel more like content with social cues like ratings and comments surfaced.”
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WhiteLabelDating.com Reports Growth
XBIZ - Mar 29 - WhiteLabelDating.com has announced market growth across the U.K., South Africa and Australia alongside strategies to fully expand into the U.S. in 2013. Revenue from new memberships in UK has increased by 101% in the past year, 89% across the South African network and 250% in Australia.
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Jason Calacanis Interviews Coffee Meets Bagel CEO
OPW - Mar 29 - This is the most interesting idating startup I've seen in a while. Coffee Meets Bagel has raised $650k. They send a daily match that they call a 'bagel.' Users have 24 hours to accept or reject. If they both accept they are connected via phone or SMS. Simple! They're introducing a virtual currency credit based system called 'beans.' People can spend beans in various ways, for example they can pay 65 beans to see what friends they have in common with a particular match. Oh yeah, and they have a partnership with Starbucks.
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eHarmony In Advertising Push, As Warren Revamps Firm
SOCALTECH - Mar 28 - eHarmony is planning a big advertising push, as the firm said it has revamped its management team under founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren. The television campaign will feature Dr. Warren in "new, humorous situations." The move comes as eHarmony says it has been working to refresh and revamp its experience and drive users to return to the service.
The full article was originally published at SoCalTech, but is no longer available.
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Online Dating For People With Sexually Transmitted Infections
BBC - Mar 28 - Some sites, such as H-YPE or H-Date, are aimed specifically at people with the most common types of incurable STIs, such as herpes and HPV. Others, such as PositiveSingles - which has 30K members in the UK, accumulating 100K new members last year worldwide - and DatePositive, which has ~ 6K profiles, allow users to search for people with almost any sexually transmitted infection.The rise in these dating sites coincides with increasing rates of STIs. There was a 2% UK rise in new cases from 2010-2011, according to the Health Protection Agency's latest statistics. On most sites, users can write as much or as little about their condition as they like. As with any relationship, shared experiences can also lead to shared understanding.
by Tom Heyden
See full article at BBC
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HTC To Speak At iDate Mobile In Los Angeles
WEBWIRE - Mar 26 - The mobile iDate takes place on June 5-7, 2013 at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA. Danny Provenza, National Sales Manager at HTC will speak on "Mobile Technology Developments & Social Integration" Mr. Provenza will illustrate the latest technologies and how they can be capitalized by mobile dating app developers.
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Cupid Rejects Claims It Used Fake Profiles
REUTERS - Mar 25 - Cupid rejected as "misrepresentation and ill-informed speculation" media allegations about its methods to encourage people to buy subscriptions, sending its shares up as much as 79%. The shares fell 60% on Friday in response to the statement. Up to Friday's close, the stock had fallen 64% since the BBC report on Feb. 24. Ukraine newspaper Kyiv Post published an article on March 15 that said Cupid had hired "motivation managers" to encourage people to buy full subscriptions. Cupid said that the managers' job was to monitor and interrogate its websites to detect technical or product issues and to moderate chat rooms and forums. They do not communicate with free members, it said.
by Richa Naidu
See full article at Reuters
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Cupid Is Vulnerable To Bid After £40m Shares Drop
SCOTSMAN - Mar 24 - The collapse in the share price of Cupid on Friday has stoked speculation it will be snapped up by IAC. The shares dropped 57% to 49p, wiping more than £40M off its value in a matter of hours. The plunge came after it responded to allegations posted by a blogger and a Ukrainian newspaper that suggested the company lured men to hand over credit card details with “fake” potential female daters. Svitlana Tuchynska, a journalist for the Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post, said that during an undercover job interview she was told the role involved posing as a female user of the dating site and encouraging male users to buy memberships.
by Erikka Askeland and Perry Gourley
See full article at Scotsman
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Foreign Businesses In Cyprus Grind To A Standstill
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE - Mar 25 - Avid Life Media, the Canadian-owned operator of AshleyMadison.com, set up an office in Cyprus as a base for its international operations. Sure, the Avid Life Media executives were aware that a banking crisis was brewing, but they were assured in part by a promise from President Nicos Anastasiades when he was elected in February that he would soon arrange an equitable bailout with the international organizations that have guided the euro zone through four previous bailouts while keeping bank depositors whole. “We went from paradise to hell in a minute,” said Keith Lalonde, Avid Life Media’s top executive.The Cypriot government had just declared it would seize ~10% of the $2.6M, the company had on deposit in Cyprus.
by Alexandros Demetriades
The full article was originally published at Gnom News, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Looks like that could be as much as 40% now.
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Shares In Cupid Crash Amid Concern Over Tactics
HERALD SCOTLAND - Mar 22 - Shares in Cupid have plunged by 40% today as the company was again mired in allegations about the way it entices customers to subscribe. Cupid, which operates sites such as Be Naughty and Girls Date for Free, has faced allegations that customers have been lured into subscribing to its sites after receiving messages from users who later disappeared. Cupid confirmed to investors that it employed a “motivation team” of 24 people. But it insisted that it does not communicate with members operating under free access. The company said it does contact new paying subscribers “to help them get the most out of the site”.
by Tim Sharp
See full article at Herald Scotland
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LoveFlutter Uses Google's Knowledge Graph To Suggest Matches
MASHABLE - Mar 22 - LoveFlutter is a new dating site that helps you find people who share the same interests. It is powered by Google’s Knowledge Graph and uses Foursquare to suggest ideas for first dates. It is the first dating site with interest-matching powered by Freebase.com, which is part of Google’s Knowledge Graph.
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WhiteLabelDating.com Powers 10K Sites
PRESS RELEASE - Mar 22 - WhiteLabelDating.com has launched their 10,000th site on the platform, shortly after welcoming their 20 millionth member on Valentine’s Day. Launched in 2003, WhiteLabelDating.com offers a platform for brands and individuals to power their own dating sites that currently includes The Independent, Evening Standard, Bauer Media and Dennis Publishing as partners.
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Are You Interested? Is Now AYI
PR NEWSWIRE - Mar 20 - SNAP Interactive has acquired the domain name ayi.com and has started rebranding its flagship AreYouInterested.com social dating platform as AYI. SNAP also announces potential acquisitions of mobile development resources.
The full article was originally published at Reuters, but is no longer available.
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