White label dating platform providers continue to duke it out over at Online Personals Watch. The tone of the accusations does not bode well for the vendors involved. Many of which have contacted me about the skirmish. Private label companies are eager for dating startup business as well as companies who decide not to run their own custom sites any longer. Its a potentially lucrative market which is not well served by the unprofessionalism constantly displayed by vendors. If you can’t say something nice…
Met with Online Buddies yesterday, turns out their offices are five minutes from mine. Boston is quite the hotbed of online dating companies, as is Toronto, Miami, Dallas and LA.
Had a brief conversation with Jeff Hancock, who’s recent Deception on Internet Dating and Social Networking Sites video I found incredibly fascinating.
Jeff recently attended an event at the University of Oxford, where Eharmony Labs is supporting the Me, My Spouse and the Internet academic research.
Deleted my Farmville account on Facebook. Talk about user engagement, I was on it at least an hour a day, tending to my crops, taking care of friend’s farms. 26 million people are playing Farmville every day and Zynga raised $180 million yesterday.
And it could signal the next trend in social gaming, with companies like Zynga initially using the networks to attract users—FarmVille garnered 65 million users overall from Facebook, with 26 million playing daily—and then launching standalone sites with more functionality, and potentially less restrictions on content and ads. Via PaidContent.
This is exactly what Are You Interested and Zoosk did. Launch on Facebook and when you have a few million users, launch your app on your own domain. Now you can monetize with subscriptions and keep all of the money.
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I’ve been talking a lot lately about freemium subscription models. If you know a free dating site which is offering paid upgrades, let me know. PlentyofFish and OKCupid are the only two that I am aware of.
How Facebook Squeezes More From Its Machines: Talks about Facebook’s capacity testing tool, Dyno. Facebook has more than 30,000 servers, according to some estimates. The company adds roughly 10,000 new ones every 18 months.
Facebook Data Team: How Diverse is Facebook? Facebook users nearly mirror the diversity of the overall population of the US.
Premstory is a new astrology-based dating site.
Speaking of online buddies, I’ve been thinking about a dating concierge again, but this time it’s crowdsourcing transparent review of my online dating activities. I would gladly pay a few bucks to have a handful of people to review my profile, cheer me on, provide encouragement, etc. Surprised there isn’t a site that acts as a support group like this. I know some sites have forums, but this would take that to the next level with paid features and more functionality.
Digicraft, my consulting company, is taking a holiday break from December 23 – January 4. Expect lighter posting schedule as we catch our collective breaths and prepare some big news announcements leading up to iDate. In the meantime, don’t forget to follow the @datinginsider Twitter account, which has been a great way for me to send out quick news and idea blips.
