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

Outsourced Online Dating

MSNBC - July 14 - Creating profiles, searching for potential dates, sending emails, finding love online can feel like a part time job but now people can hire help. ProfileHelper.com writes profiles and other sites can the full service dating assistant. Scott Valdez’s company Virtual Dating Assistants is one of them.

Scott: We start off with a 2 hour interview to get to know the clients so we can create their profile on a number of dating sites. We browse the sites for candidates and put them in a short list. Then we have the openers and they send the initial messages. Their job is to get an agreement to meet, either to talk on the phone or meet offline. It’s up to them to make an impression on the date.

And here with more of the pros and cons of outsourcing your dating life is Michelle Callahan, psychologist and contributor to Women’s Health magazine.

Michelle: I think a lot of people would be peeved if they found out about it. I think this service is being targeted to people who are really, really busy professional people who just don’t want to be bothered. Then I question their ability to present themselves well when it comes to a first date.

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The Cyber Cyrano

BBC.CO.UK - July 8 - The modern-day cupids are popping up across the internet. They specialise in ghost writing witty, charming, flirtatious messages on behalf of single men and women unwilling, unable or too busy to do it themselves. "We've noticed a definite trend with more and more of these companies springing up- and there is a huge demand," says Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch, a site that tracks internet dating trends. "Necessity is the mother of invention," says Evan Marc Katz, who has worked as a dating coach since 2003 and runs e-cyrano.com, one of the first of this new breed of companies. "There are a surprising number of people out there who don't know how to market themselves in an original way." TargetLove offers everything, from basic profile writing for £150 to dating coaches who, for around £90 an hour, will talk the unlucky and inept through every step of the dating game. Some companies will go so far as posing as their client on dating sites and writing messages to potential partners to arrange first dates. Critics claim it is a dishonest way to try to find true love. Not so, insists Scott Valdez, the founder and president of Virtual Dating Assistants (VDA). "We are representing our clients as honestly and accurately as possible online," he says. FULL ARTICLE @ BBC.CO.UK

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Online Dating Assistants Help The Lonely And Busy

WASHINGTON POST - June 1 - Virtual Dating Assistants (VDA) is one of the first full-scale Internet-dating outsourcing companies. For $600, Virtual Dating Assistants guarantees clients two dates a month; the "executive service" package promises five dates a month for $1,200. VDA do it all: write a client's profile, pick out potential matches, send introductory e-mails and message back and forth until a date is confirmed. Then they turn over the correspondence and tell the lucky fellow where and when he's meeting Madame X. Jared Gordon, editor of A Bad Case of the Dates, a blog that collects dating horror stories, said: "It's awful! You're misrepresenting yourself. You're lying about yourself." Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch, a site that tracks Internet dating trends, says this type of outsourcing is an ethically questionable form of "misrepresentation." Still, he expects the field to grow. Professional matchmakers often charge $5,000 or more a year and have a limited pool of matches. Online dating sites are populated with countless singles but can require more attention than some users are willing to devote. "It may look like instant gratification, like you dive into the pool and instantly come up with a fish, but it doesn't really work like that," Brooks says. "You've got to tap, tap, tap on the keyboard quite a lot to get anywhere." But for many, it's not just their time that's at stake; it's also their egos. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST

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Online Dating Service Outsources The Search For Love

AOL NEWS - May 11 - Virtual Dating Assistants is an online service that helps busy and picky execs improve their chances for love by doing all the boring data-dating entry: writing online profiles, combing online profiles of prospective partners and sending responses to prospective partners. "Online dating is very competitive. Attractive women get 100 e-mails a week, and they may not open up every e-mail," said Scott Valdez, Virtual Dating Assistants' founder. "Our strategy is to write very good e-mails with an interesting subject head. You wouldn't believe how many guys just write 'Hi' or 'Hello' in the subject head -- or nothing at all." The company writes all the profiles and the responses, but runs certain phrases or answers by the client to see if it sounds like something they'd say. They also double-check to see if the client is interested in settling down or catting around. Currently, Virtual Dating Assistants is extending into gay dating. FULL ARTICLE @ AOL NEWS

Busy Women Can Now Outsource Online Dating

PR WEB - Dec 1 -  Virtual Dating Assistants has allowed men to outsource online dating since June of this year. The company has decided to open its doors to time-strapped women. The company’s virtual dating assistants handle everything from profile creation to online interaction and, ultimately, bring online dating offline for its clients for $480/month. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

Outsourced Online Dating

VENTURE BEAT -- June 4 -- Men who sign up with VirtualDatingAssistants.com receive 40 hours of work for $480 a month and are guaranteed at least two dates a month or they get a full refund. VirtualDatingAssistants agents set up their online profiles on sites like Match.com and PlentyofFish.com. They then manage messages and correspond with potential dates. When it comes to a first date, they will get a “pre-date executive briefing” on the woman they’re meeting. VirtualDatingAssistants offers a range of other related services, including image consulting and social coaching services. FULL ARTICLE @ VENTURE BEAT. Also in TECH CRUNCH.