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FORT MILL TIMES – May 29 – Zoosk announced a limited release delivery service, beginning today in most U.S. states, which allows users to deliver flowers, chocolates, and teddy bears to potential matches. A new “ship a gift” button notifies the recipient, who can accept the gift and provide a shipping address, or decline. Zoosk has 27M+ members in over 80 countries.
The full article was originally published at Fort Mills Times, but is no longer available.
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THE HINDU – May 29 – TrulyMadly.com has launched as an alternative to traditional matrimonial sites. Young people in India are deciding who they want to marry, with parents coming in later for approval. Urban Tryst is a newly launched matchmaking site that sets up users on dates and throws in surprise ice-breakers. iBluebottle caters to young professionals and has a very stringent verification process. MatchMeCupid focuses less on horoscopes matching and more needs and values.
by Raveena Joseph
See full article at The Hindu
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BETABEAT – May 30 – When it launches, Stitch will offer Tindy-style dating for those age 50 and older. The app does not have a chat feature, as baby boomers would rather speak on the phone. The number of 65-74 year olds accessing the web with a tablet increased from 5% to 17% between 2012 and 2013.
by Meredith Carey
See full article at BetaBeat
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TECH2 - May 29 - Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report shows that Internet user growth has slowed down below 10%, while mobile data traffic is growing at a rate of 81% YoY, including ~20% video content. Mobile accounts for 20% of time spent, but claims only 4% of ad spending. Mobile advertising has grown by 47% this year, compared to 16% for Internet advertising globally.
Mark Brooks: I believe 2013 and 2014 are the first years in iDating history that revenues shrunk. But for the Internet Dating companies that have done a great job with their mobile apps, 2015 should be a banner year.
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OPW - May 30 - Eli Finkel, professor of psychology at Northwestern, believes that new advances in psychology and technology can be leveraged to create a vastly more effective matchmaking algorithm. Scientific psychology is providing new insights into non-conscious synchrony, which is similarities in language and expressions between two people. It is a key factor in compatibility. Machine-learning and facial recognition technologies may soon be able to extract and analyze language style and physiological information from live video to measure non-conscious synchrony. In the near future, people could be able to have a series of video dates which are analyzed by computer and paired with subjective feedback to determine highly compatible matches with much greater success.
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MARKETWIRED - May 29 - JDate has launched an upgraded mobile website, adding the Secret Admirer function from its desktop site, along with a redesign of its user interface. The “Yes-No-Maybe” model of Secret Admirer is licensed to a number of other apps.
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WEBWIRE – May 29 – Snap Interactive CEO, Clifford Lerner, will speak at the iDate Mobile Dating Conference in Beverly Hills on June 4-6. Lerner will be on the final panel where iDating's most influential people debate on the direction of the business. Registration for the event can be made at http://www.idate2014.com/register-la-2014.php.
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OPW - May 29 - You should really take an interest in wearable computing. It's the next step on from mobile, and its far more confusing. The best way to start getting your head around it is to go to Glazed Conference next week in San Francisco. Its just before iDate, which is in Beverly Hills.
I'll be attending and moderating a session at Glazed. I'll be speaking with the Global VP Innovation Strategy for the legendary design company, Frog Design.
Here's a special discount for OPW readers. 40% off.
- Mark Brooks
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NY1 – May 27 – Niches provide a new take on speed dating events. Each event carries a theme, like 'Skinny Minny' for women size 0-8, and 'Size Matters' for women who like tall men. Participants are vetted at the door. There are other events based around physical appearances, professions, and sexual preferences.
by Jeanine Ramirez
The full article was originally published at NY1, but is no longer available.
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PR WEEK - May 27 - eHarmony has hired Metro communications manager, Jemima Wade, as a PR manager, reporting to UK managing director Romain Bertrand. The company is increasing efforts to increase its share of the £2bn-a-year UK online dating market.
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LONDONIST - May 25 - happn has launched in London, offering the shy or busy a way to connect. The app uses hyper-locality and immediate proximity to find potential matches among other users that are encountered throughout the day. A mutual like will initiate a chat. User location remains private, but the place users crossed paths is saved. happn is available on iOS and Android for free.
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OPW - May 26 - As we approach iDate Beverly Hills 2014, please enjoy Mark Brooks' full keynote presentation from iDate Las Vegas in January. The following topics are covered:
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OPW - May 25 - I'm speaking at iDate, giving a roundup of essential news-you-can-use, plucking the key numbers available on mobile dating and layering in some hard-line commentary. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it as our 3rd daughter was due to be born right around iDate. But our prior two were early, and l'il Madeleine May Brooks was similarly early. :-)
So here's what I think could be the top 5 presentations at iDate, that you can't afford to miss. My money's on the following being high-ROI presentations.
- Sonny Vu will talk about Wearable computing. We cannot afford to miss the boat on wearables. I'm so excited and committed to wearables that we created wearable.ai to study the industry. So make sure to get to Sonny's presentation.
- It pains me to do this, because payment processing presentations are usually a snoozefest, but I have to recommend you be in Honor Gunday's (Paymentwall) presentation. I admire this man. Several years ago he blew me away with his presentation on Yonja, and he's never failed to deliver the goods. Don't miss it. And its good for you to see what Paysafecard has to offer as well.
- Michael Jones knows the iDating industry cold. Few have spent longer in it, or got deeper knowledge. He left Userplane to run MySpace. If anyone could have turned MySpace around, its him, so I'll throw a couple questions in about that. But mainly he's going to advise us about the investment environment around iDating now. One of my favorite subjects, and biggest concerns. I'll be interviewing him fireside style. Please let me know (mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com) any questions you'd like me to ask him.
- Match just teamed up with Three Day Rule, and the COO, Jill James, is speaking. You cannot miss this session. A few years back Jim Safka, the CEO of Match, said he planned on building Match to $1b+ and high end matchmaking was going to take them there. Plans fizzled, but now they're back in action. Que!? If you're confused about matchmaking, Jill should help shine a light on this nether industry.
- Alex Harrington is the former CEO of Meetmoi, and is now COO of Are You Interested / Snap Interactive. He's a real gentleman, and someone I just wouldn't miss speaking. He's talking about personality assessment. We've heard psychologists talk about this before, but I'd like to hear how he translates shrink-talk into practical assessment tools that improve conversions and retention.
That's my five must-sees. I'll be there. I hope to see you in Beverly Hills at the fantastic SLS Hotel in 11 days.
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GIZMODO - May 20 - In the 1920's, technology magazines insisted highly scientific tests would find the perfect match. By the '50s, mechanical computers were the future. In 1955, American Weekly ran an article featuring a small German town's “slot machine sweethearts.” The machine featured photos of different men along with a short description. A woman would insert two marks, and a more detailed note describing her potential match would pop out, which she'd then take to a love-agent to make the introduction.
by Matt Novak
See full article at Gizmondo
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