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WASHINGTON TIMES - Sep 28 - Successful single women prefer conservative men to their liberal counterparts, according to MillionaireMatch.com, a dating site for successful people. 40% of single women verified as millionaires said they preferred to be matched with a conservative, while 38.5% said they wanted a moderate guy. ~15% asked to be paired with a liberal or very liberal man.
by Valerie Richardson
See full article at Washington Times
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BOSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL - Sep 26 - Set Me Up Inc. has debuted a new app for iOS called Singled Out. The company hopes to close a $2M institutional funding round. Singled Out app features two different interfaces for women and men. Men answer questions posed by women such as "What do you like best, the beach or the mountains?" and women can message, block or "single out" men based on their responses. The company plans to make money by using an in-app currency "Golden Tickets" that allows users to make internal purchases for extra features.
by Sara Castellanos
See full article at Boston Business Journal
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STANDARD.CO.UK - Sep 26 - The co-founder of OkCupid, Christian Rudder, said his company ‘doesn’t really know what it’s doing’ when it comes to matchmaking. When we are introduced to someone at a party, we know pretty quickly whether we’re interested in them. We use our social radar. Most dating sites try to do precisely the opposite: engage the rational, analytical side of the brain. Eli Finkel, a social psychologist at Northwestern University, believes that real-life social interaction elicits something crucial that online profiles cannot. ‘Science hasn’t yet figured out exactly what that “something” is,’ he says. There is plenty of evidence that pictures can tell us very effectively what someone is like. It takes 100 milliseconds. London-based photographer Saskia Nelson runs Saturday Night’s Alright, producing images for online daters. She says the things to consider first in dating pictures are clothes, hair and accessories.
by Michael Bond
See full article at Standard.co.uk
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MOBILE MARKETING WATCH - Sep 24 - According to a new report from comScore, the preferred methods of access to dating services has gone from being desktop dominant to mobile. In 2013, 65% of all online daters were using desktop, now only 40% are accessing dating sites via desktop. Match.com maintains its lead with 6.1M visitors, POF is #2 with 4.8M, and Tinder hold #3 position in mobile with 3.6M.
by J. Barton
See full article at Mobile Marketing Watch
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QUARTZ - Sep 24 - Carrot Dating allows users to offer “bribes,” such as a tank of gas, in exchange for dates. The site was founded by Brandon Wade, the kingpin of economically-weighted dating sites, including Seeking Arrangement, What’s Your Price and Miss Travel. When Carrot Dating was launched in 2013, the media was grossed out. Apple refused to allow the apps on their products. “All dating sites are superficial in nature,” Wade said. "On Tinder, people are judging each other on their looks. If guys can leverage their biceps, why not their wallet?” On Seeking Arrangement, ~ 42% of the “sugar babies” on the site are students. 31% of sugar daddies are executives, 26% are entrepreneurs, 16% work in finance, and 33% are married.
by Anisse Gross
See full article at Quartz
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OPW - Sep 23 - iDate Europe was in Cologne this month. Here are the photos from the event. ~100 people attended the event including some of the top idating executives. This was also the first time Facebook addressed the Internet dating idustry publicly.
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MEDICALDAILY - Sep 24 - Is the media to blame for eating disorders? A recent poll given by the dating app Meetville revealed that 59% of respondents believed that the media influence on anorexia is largely exaggerated. The poll had 31,425 respondents. Kevin Fleming, a doctor who works with eating disorder clients agrees. "I think media is hugely related to a lot of this, but if your brain is balanced you stand a better chance to cope with triggers."
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SOUTH FLORIDA BUSINESS JOURNAL - Sep 23 - Hinge, based in New York City, connects people who have mutual friends on Facebook. Unlike Tinder, it removes the cloak of anonymity. The company has raised ~$8.6M. Hinge launched in Tampa and Orlando as well as Miami on Tuesday, bringing the app to 16 cities across the U.S.
by Celia Ampel
See full article at South Florida Business Journal
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IU BLOOMINGTON NEWSROOM - Sep 23 - A new study from The Kinsey Institute has found that single parents of children younger than 5 date and are sexually active as often as singles without children and more so than single parents of older children. The study was led by Peter B. Gray, University of Nevada, Justin R. Garcia, Indiana University; Benjamin S. Crosier, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College; and Helen E. Fisher, Rutgers University. Garcia is also scientific advisor to Match.com and, along with Helen Fisher, is principal investigator of its annual nationally representative survey of American singles, "Singles in America."
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OPW - Sep 24 - Mobile is hot, and Far East markets know mobile best. Think South Korea and China and Japan. So Marc Lesnick will run a conference in China next year to shine a light on how dating and matchmaking sites are innovating and what they're focusing on. This should be fascinating and inspirational. Watch this space.
Post by Mark Brooks @
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STOCKMARKETWIRE - Sep 23 - Cupid has announced that in H1 2014 the adjusted EBITDA loss was reduced to £2.8M (H2 2013: £3.3M). The company plans to launch both an innovative new mobile matchmaking app, 'Tangle', and Uniform Dating in the US on a new platform. The management expect the company to be cash generative in the Q4 2014.
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GEEKWIRE - Sep 18 - LikeBright, the social dating company that participated in the Techstars Seattle program in 2011, reeled in money from Microsoft Ventures and prominent investors, and acquiring other startups, is shifting gears and launching a new anonymous chat app. So why didn’t LikeBright work out? While Reveal is mobile-only, LikeBright was on desktop and aggregated information from Facebook to help match those looking for a partner. The company has raised another $1M this year to build Reveal. In beta tests, Reveal had 6K chatting users send more than 800K messages. More than 60% of those chatters returned to the app.
by Taylor Soper
See full article at Geekwire
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SALON.COM - Sep 19 - Cuddlr is a new app that launched in the iTunes store last week. Users sign up with Facebook and browse nearby cuddle partners. If they like someone, they send them a cuddle invite. They have 15 mins to accept. If all goes well, the app then leads them to each other for a cuddle in public or private.
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TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - Sep 21 - Many country-loving singles aged 18-26 join Young Farmers, an organisation with 25K members that arranges ski trips and dances for young country dwellers. Lucy Reeves and her sister Emma failed to meet anyone through Young Farmers, so they founded Muddy Matches in 2007. The site has now 100K members and 50% of its traffic is via mobile. Muddy Matches launches a new app, destined to become 'Tinder for country types'.
by Anna Tyzack
See full article at Telegraph.co.uk
Mark Brooks: MuddyMatches gets 55k hits a month according to Similarweb. Mostly in the UK. The big daddy in this niche is FarmersOnly.com with 1 million visit a month mostly in the USA. It's hard to believe the farming dating niche is so huge. But farmers are in demand, and they have good coin to spend on dating. They don't have so much time to be going to bars.
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