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July 30, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
First it was low-tech "Dogging", where people prowl picnic spots, car parks and other such places to watch strangers having sex. Then it was "Toothing", people hooking up using the bluetooth functionality of their mobile phones.
Now, it's naked speed dating. Many young Britons are expected to turn up in the buff at a restaurant in Brighton tonight looking for love as they attend the country's first naked speed dating event. Tickets for his event sold out within two weeks as a dating agency and six other groups block-booked the event. About 200 people are expected to turn up in all, and the popularity means this is likely to become a regular event.
I can't even get people I know to SMS me.
Link
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Events
July 27, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
The Social networking world has embraced mobile phone apps and are leaving the dating world in the dust. Match admits the only thing they get out of mobile dating is exposure to the 20-something audience, revenue is marginal.
Imagine being single and out on Saturday night when all of a sudden your dating services' matching engine finds a prospect within a few blocks or miles, depending on your urban/suburban setting and lets you know with an SMS to your mobile. It will be fun, at least the first few times. Here's a list of social applications that work in a mobile context from Elastic Space.
Link
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Technology
Posted by Dave Evans
As soon as I mentioned Mike's article this came across the wire. Userplane announced Userplane Web Chat(TM) -- a multi-user web text chat room system -- and announced the latest deployment of Web Chat on Connexion.org, an increasingly popular destination in the social networking community.
Link.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Technology
Posted by Dave Evans
Michael Jones, the President of Userplane, wrote an article titled "New Trends Help Seekers Find Love Online" which I've posted here in it's entirety.
...continue reading.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Technology
July 22, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
NYTimes article (reg req) about intra-party relationships. Lot's of niche sites popping up to make sure hawks and doves don't expose their minds to a different worldview. If you watch Fox News 3 hours a day too, you may want to check out Kelly Larson, 34, from Camas, Wash. Her last serious boyfriend was a serious lefty, and they used to argue constantly. Duh!
In other news a new Match.com/Gallup Survey Finds Single Voters Favor Kerry, Oppose Same-Sex Marriage and Believe the War in Iraq Was Not Worth the Price.
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Posted by Dave Evans
TRUE and Rapsheets are busy verifying that people don't have roommates. They even have a former Chief of Police of Dallas working with them. Citing a 75 % success rate as extremely accurate, I'm wondering how useful this service really is.
Here's the rub, "If the program can't rule out people living in the same household such as children, the member is then asked to clarify the relationship and certify that they are providing TRUE and correct information."
So I lie about my live-in girlfriend, my divorced wife still living in the house, or my long term parter, and then I get certified on my own honor?
This whole Identify verification thing is going to take some time to equalize before it's useful on a wide scale.
Press release here.
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July 20, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
FirstMonday has an interesting article called a Manifesto for the Reputation Society.
As I've been saying, identity verification from the likes of Trufina, Rapsheets and Verified Person is the next big thing that dating sites will add to address low customer satisfaction and as a byproduct add an additional revenue stream.
Extracting dubious/spotty information from government data silos is one thing, and a good start. Adding a reputation management system is where it's at, who's going to launch something fine-grained enough to be useful?
Abstract
Information overload, challenges of evaluating quality, and the opportunity to benefit from experiences of others have spurred the development of reputation systems. Most Internet sites which mediate between large numbers of people use some form of reputation mechanism: Slashdot, eBay, ePinions, Amazon, and Google all make use of collaborative filtering, recommender systems, or shared judgements of quality.
But we suggest the potential utility of reputation services is far greater, touching nearly every aspect of society. (online dating sites for example- ed) By leveraging our limited and local human judgement power with collective networked filtering, it is possible to promote an interconnected ecology of socially beneficial reputation systems — to restrain the baser side of human nature, while unleashing positive social changes and enabling the realization of ever higher goals.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
July 19, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Recently I have received several press releases announcing new websites that provide reviews of different personals services. Tryonlinedating.com, DateSeeker.net, DatingSitesReviews.com, eDateReview.com and DatingReviewsOnline.com are just a few of them. Send me the names of other sites worth checking out and I'll list them here.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site
Posted by Dave Evans
Yahoo! is countering a common trend of dating sites using plastic-looking people in their marketing efforts and web ads.
They're looking for real singes to star in their new ad campaign. If you're selected, you're off to San Francisco in September for an unforgettable photo shoot with the other great singles we've chosen. You'll stay at a swanky hotel, enjoy cool restaurants, fun mixers, and a few days in front of the camera. Go behind the scenes of last year's photo shoot and check out the exciting year our current Real People have had in the
If chosen, Yahoo! Personals will provide you with an all-expense paid trip to San Francisco with the other selected singles, where you'll stay at the swanky Adagio hotel. You'll be shooting up to 3 days, but will have at least 1 day off to explore SF. We'll have fun dinners together, but also give you time on your own. It's a BLAST! And we pick up the tab!
Details at Yahoo!
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Site | Marketing
Posted by Dave Evans
After campaigning to ban fund raising during the budget writing season, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has accepted $20,000 from the co-chairman of MatchNet. Contracostatimes.com has more. (reg. req'd)
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Finance
July 16, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Funny article about how Southwest Airlines open seating plan makes it easy for singles to meet on the plane. As a part of building a brand image, the airline used to call its in-flight snacks "love bites" and its in-flight drinks "love potions." Its stock ticker symbol is LUV and it calls its monthly company newsletter "Luv Lines." All this time I thought the supermarket was the ultimate pick-up place.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Rumors
Posted by Dave Evans
Photos from the SITRAS conference in Miami are here.
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Posted by Dave Evans
The marketing machine at True.com remains in full swing. Now they're saying that "Millions of Singles Could Be Using Flawed Compatibility Tests."
If that's the case, I better call my girlfriend. After our first date we shared our compatibility tests, annotated in MS Word no less.
Dr. Rense Lange at True.com has analyzed the psychometric reliability and validity of the testing methods used by such services as eHarmony, Match.com, PerfectMatch.com and Tickle.com and finds a lack of proof of scientific validity. The research was presented this week at iDate 2004. "Sharing evidence and findings is a long-established norm among professional and academic scientists, " said Dr. James Houran, chief psychological officer at True.
Welcome to the online dating industry James. I'd like to see established services publicize their Intellectual property, never happen.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Rumors | personality testing
July 13, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
The Online Dating Research Center held a conference in Vienna in April with the title, "Online Personals: "Scientists, designers seek same for good conversation."
About the workshop
Online personal advertisements have shed their stereotype as matchmakers for the awkward to claim a prominent role in the social lives of millions of users. This one-day workshop will bring together social scientists and designers to discuss:
1. How people are behaving in online personals systems and how best to study this behavior.
2. How different personals systems handle self-expression, searching, matching, and communicating.
3. How the design of personals systems interacts with individual and cultural constructs of relationships and attraction.
4. New methods, metaphors, design paradigms, and gadgets for finding and communicating with dating partners.
Extended abstract (pdf). I'll post more after I've talked to the organizers, this looks like it could have been interesting.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Dating Events | Research
July 8, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
David Trastour, Claudio Bartolini and Javier Gonzalez-Castillo have written an interesting paper titled A Semantic Web Approach to Service Description for Matchmaking of Services. The paper (350k) is a super-geeky look at what will undoubtedly become a key technology driving a future version of online dating infrastructure. Give it to your CTO and watch them smile.
Abstract. Matchmaking is an important aspect of e-commerce interactions. Advanced matchmaking services require rich and flexible metadata that are not supported by currently available industry standard frameworks for e-commerce such as UDDI and ebXML. The semantic web initiative at W3C is gaining momentum and generating technologies and tools that might help bridge the gap between the current standard solutions and the requirement for advanced matchmaking services. In this paper we examine the problem of matchmaking, highlighting the features that a matchmaking service should exhibit and deriving requirements on metadata for description of services from a matchmaking point of view. We then assess a couple of standard frameworks for e-commerce against these requirements. Finally, we report on our experience of developing a semantic web based matchmaking prototype. In particular, we present our views on usefulness, adequacy, maturity and tool support of semantic web related technologies such as RDF and DAML.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Research
Posted by Dave Evans
Interesting article in the LA Times (reg. required) talking about Matchmaking in Pakistan. One new television program, in which men and women go on the air and describe their soul mates, then receive e-mail proposals from viewers, has swiftly gone from must-shun to must-see TV.
The show is about to extend its reach — the producers are preparing a searchable online database of marriage candidates and will air the program via satellite in the U.S. in July. The show already airs in the Persian Gulf state of Dubai, home to a sizable Pakistani community.
Next up: plans to film a woman meeting her suitors, and end the program with a flourish when she decides whom she will marry.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: international
Posted by Dave Evans
Online dating service Match.com has selected Interpublic's Mullen as media agency of record, the Wenham, Mass.-based company said Tuesday. Match.com launched a new campaign June 14 and will run through the second half, including cable TV, network radio, magazine, online and event marketing. Mullen's client list includes XM Satellite Radio, General Motors, Match.com, Wachovia, Eddie Bauer, LendingTree and People.
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+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Marketing
July 6, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
True today announced that it is launching a state-by-state campaign in support of legislation requiring online dating services to conduct criminal background checks or to prominently disclose to its members if an online dating service chooses not to provide this safety-enhancing service. Already garnering strong support in the company's home State of Texas, Senator John Carona and State Representative Will Hartnett have joined True's safety movement as sponsors of the legislation. Release is here.
The first thing that caught my eye was the statement that "True is the only online relationship service that actively promotes increasing the safety of its members by performing extensive criminal screening on its communicating member." That's hogwash, everyone in the industry knows that Identify Verification is the Next Big Thing in online dating. Verification is an incredibly complicated process, from effective marketing to consumer through to the actual deliverable. It's Day One and no one has it figured out yet. Verified Person and Trufina are in play, and to some extent Rapsheets, and we'll have to see how things shake out over the coming months.
Legislation at this point is like passing a spam bill in 1995, as an industry we need to collectively discuss the issues and come up with a game plan before heading up to the Hill.
"True stands alone as the world's preeminent online relationship service." Huh?
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July 5, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Lemontonic Inc., now developing an online dating service through Microsoft Instant Messenger, is trimming its private-placement financing to $1.5 million from $2 million.
In a deal with Wellington West Capital Inc., Lemontonic (TSXV:LEM) said Monday it is cancelling plans to sell about 4.4 million units at a price of 45 cents each and will instead sell $1.5 million worth at a price based on the value of class-A shares. Each unit will consist of one class-A share and half of one warrant, with each full warrant entitling the holder to buy one share at 45 cents within 18 months. Press release here.
Lemontonic also announced an advertising agreement with the Toronto.com web portal. "We were faced with the challenge of finding an online vehicle through which to connect with singles in Toronto, our largest Canadian market," CEO Mark Pavan said in a release. "We are delighted to be able to enter into such an enhanced and multi-faceted agreement with Toronto.com, Canada's largest local city portal." More here.
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July 1, 2004
Posted by Dave Evans
Match now lets members video chat live with each other. I'm unclear about their statement "Ready to watch your match change expressions with every message you send?" which implies that it's not live, but a new static photo with each message. Think of all the annoying strangers who will be asking you to cam with them.
I'll post a longer review after the holiday weekend. Here's the login to try it out. You must be a Match member and be careful with the additional charges.
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