Welcome to the Monday May 11th Online Personal Watch Weekly News Roundup. I’m Mark Brooks, we're at Kings College in Cambridge, England, and this is what made industry news over the last several days.
Several dating sites have been launched this week, including eHarmony’s new site Compatible Partners. For a limited time, Compatible Partners is offering a free 6 month membership to anyone who joins. SNAP Interactive also announced the beta launch of their stand alone site for Are You Interested, which is currently available through Facebook as well as on the iPhone. MatchMakingInc.com is a new site for single entrepreneurs and business owners who want to meet like-minded singles. They also offer a number of live speed dating events hosted across the country.
Matchmaking website BharatMatrimony plans to grow by about 50% this year and will expand its online matrimony services to a couple of south Asian markets. The online matrimonial site is considering tapping countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where the institution of marriage is quite similar to that in India. Most of the company’s services and business models that have been successful in India will be replicated in these foreign markets. BharatMatrimony recently launched the religion-based matchmaking services ChristianMatrimony and SikhMatrimony in addition to personalized services for the super-rich and celebrities called EliteMatrimony and BharatMatrimony Privilege.
Rumors have come in from multiple sources now that Userplane, the world’s premier social software provider for online communities, is closing up shop. It’s too small for AOL to consider selling, and apparently not worthwhile for them to continue running. Companies like Toksta and Ekko.tv stand to benefit from the void Userplane will leave. We received a number of comments on this post, including one from Jason Grunstra who stopped by the Userplane offices in Santa Monica this week to find all the doors locked and not a person in sight. Felix from Toksta also commented and invited Userplane members to a 15 day free trial at Toksta as well as a 10% lifetime discount for current Userplane members if they sign up by May 15. All signs point to Userplane being well on its way to gone, but we will keep you informed on any further information that pops up.
In 2007, OkCupid founder Sam Yagan decided to launch a marketing campaign in the form of a website called CrazyBlindDate.com to help drive traffic back to OkCupid. It did not go well in the beginning, but after it launched in New York, Boston and San Francisco, the media began to take notice. By early 2008, OkCupid had doubled its monthly userbase to about 2 million, with just over half a million active daters. CrazyBlindDate has become a dating site in its own right, and matches up singles for short-notice blind dates the same night. Yagan says he will continue to expand the CrazyBlindDate network and has tentative plans to integrate the two sites so users can access the CrazyBlindDate platform from OkCupid.
It's certainly not unusual for people to look for romance online. But should prisoners have the right to do just that? Thousands of them, many who will spend the rest of their lives in prison, have personal ads looking for love. But some family members of victims say that is just not right. Prisoners, themselves, are not allowed access to the Web, so they pay an Internet company to post the ad for them. Women either write directly to the inmate in prison or the company forwards the message. Some sites do include the crime the inmate committed, but not "Hot Prison Pals." Founder, Sam Wagner, said anyone who may be thinking of writing to inmates should do their own homework. The courts have repeatedly ruled that inmates have the right to send and receive mail, but many of the victim’s families feel that someone is put in prison to be punished for a crime, not to make new friends.
And finally, WealthyMen.com made news recently when one of the stars of the reality show “Real Housewives of New Jersey” planned to meet a potential new boyfriend she found using the site. Her date, who goes by the screen name “Guccilove”, sadly stood her up at the restaurant. Wealthy Men is a site for women looking to meet men who make over $100 grand a year. Perhaps she will have better luck next time.
That’s all for this week’s edition of OPW’s Weekly News Roundup. Tune in again next week as we bring you the latest and greatest from the world of online dating. No ads, no fluff, just raw news and CEO interviews served up daily. I’m Mark Brooks, from Kings College Cambridge, good afternoon.