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

Walmart Photography Investigation

OPW - July 12 - LookBetterOnline.com, the online dating photo service, investigated using Walmart photo studios for online dating... A Walmart photographer will take a portrait picture for just a few bucks When it comes to photography, people get what you pay for. When you’re sitting for a dating site photo:

- the environment should be relaxed and comfortable so that you’re looking happy and content. (That doesn’t happen in Walmart.)

- the pose should be natural and casual so that the viewer will feel at ease with you. (Those aren’t the poses that Walmart photographers have the time – or skill -- to produce.)

- you should have a variety of images to choose from. (Walmart photographer will take 9 photos only)

- the photos must be digital so you can upload them. (Walmart will give you prints. If you want digital, it’s $80 per image or $200 for the nine. That’s not nickels any more.)

Take a look at the video below, LookBetterOnline.com took of a typical Walmart photo shoot and decide for yourself.

Jul 12, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (1)

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NEW SCIENTIST -- Feb 13 -- According to Mark Brooks, editor of onlinepersonalswatch.com, half of singletons in the US (~ 40m people) now use internet dating and ~20%, find long-term romance that way. What is the best strategy? Keep things real. Pretending you look like Brad Pitt and lying about your income may get you lots of dates, but that is as far as it will get you. Another turn-off is profiles littered with cheesy clichés. Both male and female daters are primarily seeking good looks. Websites such as LookBetterOnline.com will put you in touch with a photographer who will snap you in a flattering pose and in forgiving light. FULL ARTICLE @ NEW SCIENTIST

See all posts on LookBetterOnline

OPW INTERVIEW -- Nov 29 -- Merav and Dave know photography. They can help users take them, and crop them. - Mark Brooks

Can you tell us more about LookBetterOnline.com? How was the company founded?
I met my partner Dave, who used to be a photographer, on Matchmaker.com years ago. He told me how hard it was for him to find a professional photographer to take his photos. Then we started talking about it and came to the conclusion that there could be a market for a photography service just for people who date online and that’s how it started.

We decided to create a nationwide database of photographers so people can find somebody closer to them and don’t have to drive too far or even the photographer can come to them. So it’s all about convenience about finding those photographers. I am the web developer and Dave is the ex-photographer and he’s also the project manager. So it is a good partnership.

Why do people need accurate photos?
You can’t expect to find good quality dates with a photo that doesn’t do you justice. The biggest mistake people do is they use a snapshot from a holiday or from a party and others can’t really see what they look like and tell if they like them. Therefore they will be hesitant in writing to them.

Now a key distinction here from what I understand is you don’t do glamour photographs.
We don’t. It’s very important to us and that’s how we train our photographers. We don’t want people to look over done, desperate or look like they’re trying too hard. We want them to look natural. So that’s why we train our photographers to take the photos as much as possible in natural lighting meaning outside the studios if possible, not to use any backdrops or anything cheesy.

You’ve partnered with a number of internet dating and a few social networking sites. Who are your top partners?
Our top partners are big sites like Match.com, Cupid.com, ChristianCafé, J-Date, American Singles and a bunch of others. We also partner with a lot of dating coaches who realized very quickly that their customers need good photos. Some of them include it in their package.

Why have they partnered with you? What is the deal for them?
For the dating sites it’s very simple. They want their customers to be happy on their website. If they have a good photo, they have a better experience on the site and stay longer. Also dating sites use the photos to attract new customers. The other reason is commissions which is another source of revenue.

People go onto a personal site to ‘shop’ for people so it makes sense if they look good.
Yes I think sometimes it’s just dreadful. You go to a dating site and you think should I join it or not? You do a search and you see all these ugly photos, unattractive photos and I’m sure the people are not as unattractive as their photos but it just doesn’t make a really good impression.

People are not necessarily looking for super models but they do want to know what they’re getting into. They want to know when they go on a date that the person is going to look like their photos and there is not going to be any surprises.

Another common problem is cropping the photos. A lot of times people take a photograph and they’re way off in the distance or they’ve got other people in the photograph. So you created CroppingTool.com. Tell me more about that.
Cropping Tool is a really cool tool that allows the dating site to crop the faces of the photos and leave everything else aside. I know some dating sites are doing it manually or semi-manually. They have people sitting and cropping those heads out of the photos and it just takes a long time and it costs them a lot of money. We created this tool that does it automatically based on the location of the eyes and all kinds of other parameters. It took us 2 years to develop it.

What else do you have in the pipeline for the dating and social networking industry?
We just launched a new site called BetterBusinessShots.com which is for business photos. We would like to partner with business networks such as LinkedIn, real estate agent sites and whoever needs good photos. Our prices are very reasonable starting from $99 for a photo shoot.

We are expanding to other verticals like pet photography (BetterPetShots.com), babies and couples. We have a few in the pipeline… The reason we wanted to do this is because we have a database of great photographers. They’re already trained to take the photos the way we want. It took us a long time to create this kind of database of quality photographers. So why not use them for other verticals as well. So that’s going to be rolling out in the next couple of months.

See all posts on LookBetterOnline

PRESS RELEASE -- June 26 -- When a professional photographer from LookBetterOnline.com, captured singles for their profiles, a report shows a rise of 235% more unsolicited contacts and email responses. And it sticks. The data shows that three months after posting their new photos, singles are still receiving over 200% more messages on average. For LookBetterOnline.com, 80% of its customers doubled their response rate and 40% received five times more messages.

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

Mark Brooks: Dating sites sell people to people. Make your product look better by helping your people look better. I've long been a fan of the LBOL service. My photo here was done by an LBOL photographer.

BRADENTON HERALD -- Aug 12 -- ProfileHelper helps online daters enhance their profiles, whether it's the written portion or the photo. "The best way to think of a profile is it's a movie trailer, it's not the movie. The trailer is supposed to give you just enough information that you want to buy a ticket," lead advisor Eric Resnick says. 11% of adults who use the Internet - 16 million of them - have gone to an online personals site, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project published in March of this year. LookBetterOnline charges $129 for 12 pictures. The move toward hiring professionals to improve profiles started a couple of years ago, says Mark Brooks, editor of Onlinepersonalswatch.com.  It's worthwhile for internet daters to make a compelling profile and a photograph that brings out the best in them. If they take the time and money to seek out professional services, Brooks says their responses should double. 

Mark Brooks: Internet daters need profile improvement services. Unfortunately internet daters still don't realise this. It behooves internet dating companies to offer, or at least guide them, to reputable profile improvement services. The better daters profiles look, the better the internet dating services looks as a whole.

Mar 16 -- Users often submit poor photos and the most common shortfall is awful cropping.  Merav and Dave, creators of LookBetterOnline, have created a cropping tool to help dating sites automatically crop user submitted photos.  Nice.  Check it out at www.croppingtool.com.  Enter referral code 23994 to get a 10% price break.  - Mark Brooks

PR WEB -- Dec 5 -- LookBetterOnline’s CroppingTool automatically turns sub-standard images into attractive headshots that create a clean and consistent look to dating websites.  CroppingTool is an advanced face recognition software that automatically crops the thousands of irregular snapshots submitted by subscribers to a desired size and aspect ratio.  Dave Coy - 562.537.4424 for pricing and solution options.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

Mark Brooks: Merav and Dave have done a great job with LookBetterOnline and have released another much needed service with their CroppingTool.  The better the photos on online personals sites, the better the site looks...and performs.

SUNDAY NEWS -- Oct 23 -- Consultation with online dating adviser: $30. Dating profile makeover: $70. Professional profile photos: $130. Criminal background check: $20. Finding the perfect match: Priceless. As the market for online dating continues to grow, so does the array of related businesses helping online daters find their ideal mate. Most online daters are clueless when it comes to attracting, wooing, and catching that elusive fish in the great big sea of online dating. Being more specific in your profile is simple advice that can make a huge difference, said Mark Brooks, editor of major industry blog Online Personals Watch. Posting a flattering - but accurate - picture is also important, but many online dating subscribers have yet to take advantage of the services. "The users still don't quite get it," Brooks said. "They still don't think they need it." Sites such as LookBetterOnline.com and DatingHeadShots.com will set up users with a professional photographer.  Background checks are becoming a more popular way to screen dates, Brooks said. One dating site is taking the initiative and screening members before they are allowed to join the pool. True.com screens for convicted felons and married people, and requires all members to state that they are neither. Approximately 5% of the site's applicants fail to pass the felony screening and another 4% fail the marriage screening, CEO Herb Vest said. "If you go to any other site my guess would be probably 10-11% of the people on the site will have felony convictions, and I've heard estimates as high as 30% of the people on some sites are married," Vest said. Other services likely to grow over the next few years include "Web dating" - Webdate now allows daters to use webcams for "virtual dates" - and anonymous phone services that allow users to chat without handing over phone numbers. "To be honest, it sounds safer than going into a bar and meeting someone," WebDate founder Abe Smilowitz said. "When you walk into a bar and meet someone, you do that at your own risk." Most of the businesses related to online dating sites have only been operating for a couple of years, but Brooks predicts many of them will continue to profit from the boom of online dating. 

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

ABC NEWS -- Aug 11 -- Liz Kelly, author and dating coach, tells her clients to go out and get professional photographs.  Web sites such as e-cyrano.com and Lookbetteronline.com help singles with their online profiles.  What makes more sense, according to some in the industry, would be for these kinds of services to be bundled into the online dating sites. "I don't think the online dating sites have pushed it very hard and I don't think that users perceive that they need help. But sitting on the other side of the table … I'm here to tell them yes — you jolly well do," said Mark Brooks of Onlinepersonalswatch.com.  "There's a dire need for people to improve their photographs. People, especially guys, are so visual," said Brooks. "It behooves the online dating sites to help the users improve their profiles. The better the profiles look, the better their product looks."  FULL ARTICLE @ ABC

Mark Brooks: All too often daters just don't put enough time into their profiles, or put up old or awful photos.  Surprise!  No results.  Put more time and consideration into your profile.  ..."I like going for walks on the beach."  Why?  What is it that lights your fire and makes you want to dance at the waters edge?  Get up to date photos, from a pro.  At the very least, get your friend to snap 100 photos and pick out the top 5.

PRWEB -- Mar 21 -- LookBetterOnline.com has teamed up with some of America’s leading relationship experts to bring emergency advice to the masses.  Singles can pick a dating expert of their choice, give them a call and — for less than the price of a movie ticket — get a personal consultation. When his kiss is a peck, she can pick up the phone and find out what it means. When she says, “You’re like my best friend...,” he can pull out his finger and dial his emergency number. RELEASE @ PRWEB

(PRWEB) September 28, 2004 -- You"ve seen makeovers that turn a humble home into a palace. You"ve seen surgeons turn a human duckling into a swan. You"ve even seen five gay guys persuade a straight guy to apply moisturizer. Now a real makeover service is going where no television show has ever gone! LookBetterOnline.com is helping cyber-daters find the love of their lives by completely renovating their online look. "We set clients up with a professional portrait photographer, rewrite their entire profile, and offer telephone and chat support throughout their online relationship.

Valentine's Day Special: The Dating Game

NEW SCIENTIST -- Feb 13 -- According to Mark Brooks, editor of onlinepersonalswatch.com, half of singletons in the US (~ 40m people) now use internet dating and ~20%, find long-term romance that way. What is the best strategy? Keep things real. Pretending you look like Brad Pitt and lying about your income may get you lots of dates, but that is as far as it will get you. Another turn-off is profiles littered with cheesy clichés. Both male and female daters are primarily seeking good looks. Websites such as LookBetterOnline.com will put you in touch with a photographer who will snap you in a flattering pose and in forgiving light. FULL ARTICLE @ NEW SCIENTIST

See all posts on LookBetterOnline

Merav Knafo, LookBetterOnline Co-Founder Interview

OPW INTERVIEW -- Nov 29 -- Merav and Dave know photography. They can help users take them, and crop them. - Mark Brooks

Can you tell us more about LookBetterOnline.com? How was the company founded?
I met my partner Dave, who used to be a photographer, on Matchmaker.com years ago. He told me how hard it was for him to find a professional photographer to take his photos. Then we started talking about it and came to the conclusion that there could be a market for a photography service just for people who date online and that’s how it started.

We decided to create a nationwide database of photographers so people can find somebody closer to them and don’t have to drive too far or even the photographer can come to them. So it’s all about convenience about finding those photographers. I am the web developer and Dave is the ex-photographer and he’s also the project manager. So it is a good partnership.

Why do people need accurate photos?
You can’t expect to find good quality dates with a photo that doesn’t do you justice. The biggest mistake people do is they use a snapshot from a holiday or from a party and others can’t really see what they look like and tell if they like them. Therefore they will be hesitant in writing to them.

Now a key distinction here from what I understand is you don’t do glamour photographs.
We don’t. It’s very important to us and that’s how we train our photographers. We don’t want people to look over done, desperate or look like they’re trying too hard. We want them to look natural. So that’s why we train our photographers to take the photos as much as possible in natural lighting meaning outside the studios if possible, not to use any backdrops or anything cheesy.

You’ve partnered with a number of internet dating and a few social networking sites. Who are your top partners?
Our top partners are big sites like Match.com, Cupid.com, ChristianCafé, J-Date, American Singles and a bunch of others. We also partner with a lot of dating coaches who realized very quickly that their customers need good photos. Some of them include it in their package.

Why have they partnered with you? What is the deal for them?
For the dating sites it’s very simple. They want their customers to be happy on their website. If they have a good photo, they have a better experience on the site and stay longer. Also dating sites use the photos to attract new customers. The other reason is commissions which is another source of revenue.

People go onto a personal site to ‘shop’ for people so it makes sense if they look good.
Yes I think sometimes it’s just dreadful. You go to a dating site and you think should I join it or not? You do a search and you see all these ugly photos, unattractive photos and I’m sure the people are not as unattractive as their photos but it just doesn’t make a really good impression.

People are not necessarily looking for super models but they do want to know what they’re getting into. They want to know when they go on a date that the person is going to look like their photos and there is not going to be any surprises.

Another common problem is cropping the photos. A lot of times people take a photograph and they’re way off in the distance or they’ve got other people in the photograph. So you created CroppingTool.com. Tell me more about that.
Cropping Tool is a really cool tool that allows the dating site to crop the faces of the photos and leave everything else aside. I know some dating sites are doing it manually or semi-manually. They have people sitting and cropping those heads out of the photos and it just takes a long time and it costs them a lot of money. We created this tool that does it automatically based on the location of the eyes and all kinds of other parameters. It took us 2 years to develop it.

What else do you have in the pipeline for the dating and social networking industry?
We just launched a new site called BetterBusinessShots.com which is for business photos. We would like to partner with business networks such as LinkedIn, real estate agent sites and whoever needs good photos. Our prices are very reasonable starting from $99 for a photo shoot.

We are expanding to other verticals like pet photography (BetterPetShots.com), babies and couples. We have a few in the pipeline… The reason we wanted to do this is because we have a database of great photographers. They’re already trained to take the photos the way we want. It took us a long time to create this kind of database of quality photographers. So why not use them for other verticals as well. So that’s going to be rolling out in the next couple of months.

See all posts on LookBetterOnline

Better Photos Double Singles Success

PRESS RELEASE -- June 26 -- When a professional photographer from LookBetterOnline.com, captured singles for their profiles, a report shows a rise of 235% more unsolicited contacts and email responses. And it sticks. The data shows that three months after posting their new photos, singles are still receiving over 200% more messages on average. For LookBetterOnline.com, 80% of its customers doubled their response rate and 40% received five times more messages.

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

Mark Brooks: Dating sites sell people to people. Make your product look better by helping your people look better. I've long been a fan of the LBOL service. My photo here was done by an LBOL photographer.

Online Dating Profile Help

BRADENTON HERALD -- Aug 12 -- ProfileHelper helps online daters enhance their profiles, whether it's the written portion or the photo. "The best way to think of a profile is it's a movie trailer, it's not the movie. The trailer is supposed to give you just enough information that you want to buy a ticket," lead advisor Eric Resnick says. 11% of adults who use the Internet - 16 million of them - have gone to an online personals site, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project published in March of this year. LookBetterOnline charges $129 for 12 pictures. The move toward hiring professionals to improve profiles started a couple of years ago, says Mark Brooks, editor of Onlinepersonalswatch.com.  It's worthwhile for internet daters to make a compelling profile and a photograph that brings out the best in them. If they take the time and money to seek out professional services, Brooks says their responses should double. 

Mark Brooks: Internet daters need profile improvement services. Unfortunately internet daters still don't realise this. It behooves internet dating companies to offer, or at least guide them, to reputable profile improvement services. The better daters profiles look, the better the internet dating services looks as a whole.

Cropping Tool

Mar 16 -- Users often submit poor photos and the most common shortfall is awful cropping.  Merav and Dave, creators of LookBetterOnline, have created a cropping tool to help dating sites automatically crop user submitted photos.  Nice.  Check it out at www.croppingtool.com.  Enter referral code 23994 to get a 10% price break.  - Mark Brooks

CroppingTool Offers One Month Free Trial to Dating Sites

PR WEB -- Dec 5 -- LookBetterOnline’s CroppingTool automatically turns sub-standard images into attractive headshots that create a clean and consistent look to dating websites.  CroppingTool is an advanced face recognition software that automatically crops the thousands of irregular snapshots submitted by subscribers to a desired size and aspect ratio.  Dave Coy - 562.537.4424 for pricing and solution options.  RELEASE @ PR WEB

Mark Brooks: Merav and Dave have done a great job with LookBetterOnline and have released another much needed service with their CroppingTool.  The better the photos on online personals sites, the better the site looks...and performs.

Safety? A Nice Photo? Help's Out There, For a Fee

SUNDAY NEWS -- Oct 23 -- Consultation with online dating adviser: $30. Dating profile makeover: $70. Professional profile photos: $130. Criminal background check: $20. Finding the perfect match: Priceless. As the market for online dating continues to grow, so does the array of related businesses helping online daters find their ideal mate. Most online daters are clueless when it comes to attracting, wooing, and catching that elusive fish in the great big sea of online dating. Being more specific in your profile is simple advice that can make a huge difference, said Mark Brooks, editor of major industry blog Online Personals Watch. Posting a flattering - but accurate - picture is also important, but many online dating subscribers have yet to take advantage of the services. "The users still don't quite get it," Brooks said. "They still don't think they need it." Sites such as LookBetterOnline.com and DatingHeadShots.com will set up users with a professional photographer.  Background checks are becoming a more popular way to screen dates, Brooks said. One dating site is taking the initiative and screening members before they are allowed to join the pool. True.com screens for convicted felons and married people, and requires all members to state that they are neither. Approximately 5% of the site's applicants fail to pass the felony screening and another 4% fail the marriage screening, CEO Herb Vest said. "If you go to any other site my guess would be probably 10-11% of the people on the site will have felony convictions, and I've heard estimates as high as 30% of the people on some sites are married," Vest said. Other services likely to grow over the next few years include "Web dating" - Webdate now allows daters to use webcams for "virtual dates" - and anonymous phone services that allow users to chat without handing over phone numbers. "To be honest, it sounds safer than going into a bar and meeting someone," WebDate founder Abe Smilowitz said. "When you walk into a bar and meet someone, you do that at your own risk." Most of the businesses related to online dating sites have only been operating for a couple of years, but Brooks predicts many of them will continue to profit from the boom of online dating. 

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

Singles Hire Coaches to Improve Their Dating Game

ABC NEWS -- Aug 11 -- Liz Kelly, author and dating coach, tells her clients to go out and get professional photographs.  Web sites such as e-cyrano.com and Lookbetteronline.com help singles with their online profiles.  What makes more sense, according to some in the industry, would be for these kinds of services to be bundled into the online dating sites. "I don't think the online dating sites have pushed it very hard and I don't think that users perceive that they need help. But sitting on the other side of the table … I'm here to tell them yes — you jolly well do," said Mark Brooks of Onlinepersonalswatch.com.  "There's a dire need for people to improve their photographs. People, especially guys, are so visual," said Brooks. "It behooves the online dating sites to help the users improve their profiles. The better the profiles look, the better their product looks."  FULL ARTICLE @ ABC

Mark Brooks: All too often daters just don't put enough time into their profiles, or put up old or awful photos.  Surprise!  No results.  Put more time and consideration into your profile.  ..."I like going for walks on the beach."  Why?  What is it that lights your fire and makes you want to dance at the waters edge?  Get up to date photos, from a pro.  At the very least, get your friend to snap 100 photos and pick out the top 5.

Real-life ‘Hitches’ Just a Phone Call Away

PRWEB -- Mar 21 -- LookBetterOnline.com has teamed up with some of America’s leading relationship experts to bring emergency advice to the masses.  Singles can pick a dating expert of their choice, give them a call and — for less than the price of a movie ticket — get a personal consultation. When his kiss is a peck, she can pick up the phone and find out what it means. When she says, “You’re like my best friend...,” he can pull out his finger and dial his emergency number. RELEASE @ PRWEB

Photo Makeover Gives New Hope to Online Daters

(PRWEB) September 28, 2004 -- You"ve seen makeovers that turn a humble home into a palace. You"ve seen surgeons turn a human duckling into a swan. You"ve even seen five gay guys persuade a straight guy to apply moisturizer. Now a real makeover service is going where no television show has ever gone! LookBetterOnline.com is helping cyber-daters find the love of their lives by completely renovating their online look. "We set clients up with a professional portrait photographer, rewrite their entire profile, and offer telephone and chat support throughout their online relationship.