January 2008
70 posts
Heading Down to Miami →
Busy day finishing up the last touches on various iDate-related projects. I’ll be on the beach in 24 hours, now, where is my swimsuit?
If you want to get ahold of me in Miami, call 617-939-7916 or better yet text me, as I don’t know what the mobile coverage is going to be like in the convention center.
I see my post about Algorithms of Love made it to the front page of Techmeme, bring on the...
Facebook, MySpace join NY AG in Pushing E-Safety... →
Behold what happens when the issue of online security is taken seriously by the right mix of legal entities and online companies. People listen, get involved and forward progress is achieved. New York is now officially the epicenter for online safety legislation.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver have announced...
Algorithms of Love →
John Tierney has a piece in the New York Times, Hitting it Off, Thanks to Algorithms of Love.
The psychologists and academics who created the personality tests at PerfectMatch eHermony and Chemistry.com are mentioned. Chemisty in particular is singled out for it’s attacks on eHarmony.
Until outside scientists have a good look at the numbers, no one can know how effective any of these algorithms...
A Look Into Two Top White Label Dating Services →
This World Dating Partners presentation is a good overview of what to expect from a major white label dating service provider. For comparison, the White Label Dating Tour.
Building a Dating Site with Amazon Web Services →
Dating site startups should read the WSJ article Small Firms Tap Amazon’s Juice, which chronicles how companies are leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS). The AWS page at Amazon contains information about building Facebook applications on AWS, the DevPay billing system and SimpleDB, which I’ve mentioned in the past.
The beginning of an options matrix starts to look like this.
White label...
Understanding Open Social →
Many people have written to ask about Google’s OpenSocial initiative, so I thought I would put a few resources together to get people started thinking about how dating and OpenSocial can work together to improve the online dating experience.
OpenSocial defined:
OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML,...
Weekly Wrapup for 1-25-08 →
And what a week it’s been. Scientific Match, Vidoop and Iovation interviews. Trade show booths shipped off to iDate. Attended the virtual conference, had several new business meetings and responded to the usual press calls and a broken windshield to top it off. Tonight it’s all about DJ Spooky at the ICA, which is just what I need to end a hectic week. Wednesday and warm South Beach can’t come...
Say Goodbye to Passwords with Vidoop →
Perusing the list of presenters and sponsors of the Social Networking and Dating conference in Miami. I came across Vidoop, which is building out a single signon solution based on Open ID. Vidoop provides corporate-grade security to websites, but with an interesting twist.
Vidoop Secure is a software-only, multi-factor user login technology based on categorized images. When a user enrolls, he...
The world’s best compatibility matching engine →
According to No More Dates, they have the best matching system in the business. I will leave the analysis up to Dr. Houran and Fernando in the comments, as usual. FIRO-B and CPI 260, it’s all greek to me.
What I found startling was this:
Please note that although we use the above report for matching purposes, at this time we are not permitted to share it with you as it might contain information...
Perfectmatch Featured in Another Chance for... →
Dr. Pepper Schwartz and Perfectmatch.com’s Duet Total Compatibility System star in Retirement Living TV’s new series, Another Chance for Romance.
Another Chance for Romance is the first dating show focusing solely on Baby Boomers. Hosted by Roger Lodge, former host of the syndicated television show, Blind Date, this half-hour program features Boomers in search of love and companionship as they...
Virtual Social Networking Conference →
I’ve been popping in and out of the chat room at the Virtual Social Networking Conference. Smaller turnout than the December event, maybe 10 people at any one time. Hopefully it will get busier later in the day. If you’re attending the conference, log in and say hello in the chat room and leave me a message.
Feed Subscription Working Again →
Looks like people were unable to subscribe to the blog via RSS feed for the last 24 hours, sorry about that. The code monkeys were condensing categories and upgrading the blog. Everything should be back to normal now.
Launches and Links for January 22 →
I am meeting with Eric Holzle, founder of Scientific Match, and will post details soon. In the meantime, information at TheBostonChannel and the Northeastern News.
Jeff at Longtail Studios wrote to let us know about HurryDate’s SpeedDaters.
Advanced Mobile Applications and Longtail Studios, in association with HurryDate® today announced the release of the first mobile speed dating game,...
Virtual idate and Social Networking Conference →
Mark your calendars. A second virtual conference for idate and Social Networking Conference is happening from 8:00 AM EST to 8:00 PM EST on Thursday January 24. The virtual conference willl allow delegates to see the exhibitiors, learn what they do, talk with them in advance (text, audio or video), and schedule appointments. While the event runs a long time, the most action occurs from 12-3pm EST....
How To Launch a Successful New Membership Site →
Membershipwebsites has posted How To Launch a Successful New Membership Site. There’s a lot of great information in between the get rich quick ads. If you’re trying to figure out how to market your dating site I would read this stuff until you know it by heart.
Remember, when starting a dating site, you are not only in the relationship business, you are becoming an internet marketer first and...
Zango Brings Reality TV to Trial on the Internet... →
Online dating juggernaut Singlesnet is sponsoring a comedic reality dating show called Date Court, which launched at Zango. The six-episode series — available only at Zango.com — was produced by Telepictures Productions for Studio 2.0, the digital production division of the Warner Bros. Television Group.
The show requires Internet Explorer on Windows, so I won’t be watching it. the trailer was...
January 30th is International Delete Your MySpace... →
Mark your calendar’s, Wednesday, June 30 is International Delete Your MySpace Account Day. Make sure to read the list the many ways in which MySpace had failed the guy who is organizing the day. I share is frustration with almost all his issues, although I have to keep my profile up for work stuff, unfortunately.
Via Mashable.
January 30th is International Delete Your MySpace... →
Mark your calendar’s, Wednesday, June 30 is International Delete Your MySpace Account Day. Make sure to read the list the many ways in which MySpace had failed the guy who is organizing the day. I share is frustration with almost all his issues, although I have to keep my profile up for work stuff, unfortunately.
Via Mashable.
Valentine’s Day Aphrodisiacs: Get in the Mood with... →
This is exactly the kind of Valentine’s Day press release that I enjoy receiving. Survey’s of singles are tired and done with, nobody cares. National Breakup season? Forget it. Food that makes you horny? I’m all over it.
Chocolate and oysters have long had a reputation as sexual superfoods, but if you’re on the prowl for a healthier love potion this Valentine’s Day, the fruit and vegetable...
Astrological Matching Service →
Kelli Fox at The Astrologer says:
We have an astrology match making web service we supply to dating sites. We don’t ask any questions and only require a members birth date. We provide bar graphs, meters and reports.
I’ve talked to several companies offering astrological matching services over the years. I personally feel strongly about astrological-based matching, but most services appear...
Are Facebook Application Users Worth $1.40 a... →
SNAP Interactive (formerly eTwine Holdings), reported $388,000 in revenue for their fourth quarter, which was up from $35,383 in the third. They attribute the growth to their applications: “Are You Interested” finished December with 5.2 million users, while “Meet New People” claims 350,000. Thus, it can be determined that each user was worth about 7 cents in revenue to SNAP in the quarter, or...
Dating Domain Names for Sale →
Domain Asset Management(TM) service Moniker is set to host a social networking and dating domain name auction at iDate 2008 and the Social Networking Conference.
The live auction will take place on Thursday, January 31 at 4:30 pm ET at the Miami Beach Convention Center, the common location of the two conferences. A concurrent online auction begins on January 31 and continues through...
UK Dating Stats →
According to PARSHIP, In 2007, 7.8 million single Britons used some form of online dating service to find romance, compared to the 5.4 million who used a mixture of offline and online services in 2005.
13,000 people were polled in 13 Western European countries for PARSHIP’s singles survey, which determined that three out of four (75%) of UK singles haven’t had a serious relationship in more...
Skadate Weighs in on Dating Software →
Emil Sarnogoev at SkaDate left a long and detailed comment on the recent post about online dating software. A great read if you’re interested in dating software at any level.
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fonlinedatingpost.com%2Farchives%2F2008%2F01%2Fskadate-weighs-in-on-dating-software%2F'; addthis_title = 'Skadate+Weighs+in+on+Dating+Software'; addthis_pub = '';
New Online Dating News Resource →
I started this blog in November of 2002. Over the years I have spent the majority of my time writing longer posts, leaving other blogs like Online Personals Watch to compile a list of the news of the day.
I’ve had blogrolls, categories, tags, chat rooms, aggregated RSS feeds an a plethora of features, some which stick around, others I try for a bit and remove ‘em if they don’t prove to be...
WebInno16 Demo Companies →
It’s that time again.
We are a little over a week away from the first Web Innovators Group meeting of 2008 on Tuesday January 29thstarting at 6:30pm. We have another solid lineup of startups demoâing at the event⦠the main presentations to the entire crowd will start at 7pm, thirty minutes after we open the Grand Ballroom at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge:
MakeMeSustainable - Ben Brown...
Global Dating Industry Update →
In preparing for a radio interview, I came across several useful articles containing information about the worldwide dating industry. Time magazine’s We Just Clicked is fantastic, lots of information about online and offline dating around the world. Chock full of useful information, it contains current information about the worldwide dating industry and looks at cultural differences and their...
Facebook Launches Extended Profiles →
Nick O’Neill at Allfacebook says that Facebook has launched extended profiles, a feature that will clean up people’s primary profile pages but some are wondering how this will affect application developers.
For application developers though, this ability may have an adverse effect resulting in the automatic hiding of their application’s profile box across most of their users’ profiles.
Drat,...
Yahoo Implements OpenID →
This is great news. I met most of the OpenID leaders at the Identity Conference at Harvard. While there are a number of usability and safety issues to address, the adoption rate for OpenID is taking off, slowly but surely. What is it up to now, 100+ million people? Problem is, most people don’t know what OpenID is, even if they have one.
More at TechCrunch.
10 Things You Need to Know About the Future of... →
I spend a lot of time reading blogs and websites that have absolutely nothing to do with online dating. I’m always fascinated how the topic of dating pops up in seemingly-unrelated forums.
Case in point, the Future of Broadband report:
#7: Voice will be the catalyst. There will be a rapid rise of non-traditional voice services as voice is embedded into the general online experience. You’ll be...
Active.com Partners with Fitness Singles →
Fitness Singles and Active.com have announced a new partnership to serve single adults who engage in active and fitness-oriented lifestyles. With the partnership, Active.com is helping their members connect to a large database of like-minded, active singles by way of Fitness Singles.
I’ve seen sites where you can add criteria to your search like “runs 8-minute mile” or “loves to rock climb.”...
Online Personals Watch Off The Market →
Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch, took the day off to propose to his girlfriend Irena. Being the PR guy that he is, of course we get to watch the video. Congrats to both of you, we wish you the best. We’ll have an official toast in Miami.
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fonlinedatingpost.com%2Farchives%2F2008%2F01%2Fonline-personals-watch-off-the-market%2F'; addthis_title =...
I Hear You Smiling →
Working with LoveDetect, I’ve become fascinated with what we can learn about people from their voices. Science Daily has a neat article about how we can identify how a person is smiling, just by listening to a person’s voice.
Smiling affects how we speak, to the point that listeners can identify the type of smile based on sound alone, according to a study by scientists at the University of...
MySpace to Let Parents Block Their Children From... →
At first glance, the dozens of measures Myspace has agreed to take to make it’s users safer, those outlined in this New York Times article seem easily hackable and not quite the watershed moment we were expecting, especially since MySpace has been talking to background check and p*rn-removers for quite some time.
Parents blocking kids won’t work. Kids are too smart for this, too easy to...
The Status of Online Dating Software →
I had a good conversation yesterday with a developer who works with various dating and social networking scripts. I ended up venting for a good part of the call which led me to do some thinking about the status of online dating scripts.
I get many calls an emails from startups looking for the best dating and social networking scripts and I’d like to have a stable of people to call on when it’s...
Ok Cupid Let’s Others Edit, Rate Profiles →
Collaborative editing is making it’s way into online dating profiles. Recently Match launched a Testimonial feature and this morning I discovered OKCupid enables friends to edit your profile.
Another weirdo toy by us. With the new WikiProfile feature, you can let anyone you trust propose edits to your profile. Is that a twisted thing for a dating site to do? (You can let us know.) If you want...
Making Money Off Of Paid Memberships →
The Premium Content Toolbox: 100+ Guides, Tips and Resources to Make Money Off Of Paid Memberships may be of interest to those readers running subscription-based dating sites.
Marketing
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fonlinedatingpost.com%2Farchives%2F2008%2F01%2Fmaking-money-off-of-paid-memberships%2F'; addthis_title = 'Making+Money+Off+Of+Paid+Memberships'; addthis_pub = '';
Preparing for iDate →
January sure is turning out to be busy, working with clients to get ready for the only online online dating conference in the US, the Internet Dating Conference.
At iDate, you can:
Get up to speed on search marketing
Learn about potential service partners (background checks, voice and video)
Buy a domain name
Discover which dating software is best for you
Find out why your site doesn’t...
Boonex Plans for 2008 →
Boonex is a primary provider of dating site systems. This is taken from the Boonex year-end email. In 2008 I’d like to hear more from Boonex, SkaDate and other vendors. Send in your news and get your name out in front of people in the process of selecting dating site software.
A Present
Yup yup.. we got a small, nice present for you, our dearest customers, readers and supporters! A new Ray...
Second Virtual iDate Conference Jan 24 →
A second virtual pre-conference for the Internet Dating Conference is planned for January 24. Try to have a webcam so you can video chat with other executives in the Social networking and dating industries. Conference organizers will send more info on this later this week, which I will post here. I hope I can log in and grab the contact info that was locked down after the last event.
virtual...
Online Dating Marketing Companies →
Received this from a reader:
We’re about to start putting together our initial marketing campaign and we’re thinking of working with CPA CPC/PPC and SEM for the first run. I was wondering if you had a list of preferred companies offering these services.
I’ve seen lists of marketing companies that cater to the online dating space but for most startups it feels like you’re making one big...
New Jersey Background Checks Legislation →
New Jersey Governor Jim Corizon yesterday signed bill SB1977, which opponents argue will impose what critics consider unenforceable and problematic restrictions on dating sites and foster confusion among dating site visitors. For some historical perspective, similar bills aimed at moderating online dating have been proposed, and have failed, in Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Virginia, Ohio,...
Eharmony Announces New Online ID Verification... →
Good news for online daters, dating sites are starting to adopt background checks.
Today eHarmony announced the release of eHarmony RelyID, a new online ID verification service for eHarmony members. The service, which is a partnership with RelyID, a leading provider of age and identity verification services, gives eHarmony members the opportunity to easily validate key profile details which are...
What Four Hour Work Week? →
I awoke in a post-Patriots party fog, fired up my web browser and I see Markus Frind, founder of PlentyofFish at the top of Techmeme.
Here’s the story at the New York Times. It touches on many of the same complaints and praise leveled at PoF over the years.
My main issue with the article is this, I don’t believe for a minute that Markus works only 10 hours a week.
plentyoffish
addthis_url...
iDate 2005 Industry Overview →
Seeking Alpha posted the transcript of state of the industry talk given by Date.com CEO Meir Strahlberg at the 2005 Internet Dating Conference. Industry issues and trends are explored.
idate
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fonlinedatingpost.com%2Farchives%2F2008%2F01%2Fidate-2005-industry-overview%2F'; addthis_title = 'iDate+2005+Industry+Overview'; addthis_pub = '';
2007 Ad Match spends $145+ million in 2007 →
According to BrandWeek, Match.com spent $92 million in media in 2006, and $145 million between January and October 2007, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus for broadcast, print and outdoor, and Nielsen Online and AdRelevance for online.
Starting a dating site? You need at least $500k to promote your site enough to drive traffic and media interest to the point where your site is showing up regularly in...
Natural Selection Speed Date2 →
Pocket Change is a fun newsletter that highlights the most expensive items and services in New york City and LA. They have announced the next Natural Selection Speed Date event. Seems like HurryDate is involved.
Check out the event requirements. Men are judged solely by looks and be under 35. Women must be over 35, make more than $500k a year and have assets of over $4 million.
Talk about a...
True.com Still Not Paying Affiliates? →
Found this article at LoveSites which states that the True Commission Junction account is turned off. Is anyone being paid by True since we first heard about this last fall?
affiliates, true.com
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fonlinedatingpost.com%2Farchives%2F2008%2F01%2Ftruecom-still-not-paying-affiliates%2F'; addthis_title = 'True.com+Still+Not+Paying+Affiliates%3F'; addthis_pub = '';
Single Edition Lifestyle Site →
New site for singles Single Edition looks interesting.
For singles who know there’s life beyond dating, SingleEdition.com offers a lifestyle destination that embraces the culture of single living. Most single adults, young and old alike, are living life on their own terms, carving out meaningful lives and creating their own communities without regrets. SingleEdition.com will be the first...
22 Million Online Daters in 2007 →
According to Comscore, US internet dating sites attracted 22.6 million users in 2007. Only 60 million more people and we’ll achieve complete market saturation. You have your marching orders, let’s make 2008 the year we hit 40 million users.
Via eMarketer.
Traffic
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fonlinedatingpost.com%2Farchives%2F2008%2F01%2F22-million-online-daters-in-2007%2F'; addthis_title =...