Online Dating Insider » Audio Video

Jon Stewart on Chatroulette

David Evans — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:17:36 +0000

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Tech-Talch – Chatroulette

www.thedailyshow.com

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Perhaps not the last post I do on the latest Internet phenomenon, but easily the best. Amazing the Stewart got so many top broadcasters to play along.

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WooMe Launches Competitor to ChatRoulette

David Evans — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:31:33 +0000

While Chatroulette is suffering from growing pains with some unplanned downtime, Woome has registered the domain name and launched ShufflePeople to pick up some of the slack.

Dating sites spend millions of dollars to get the amount of users that Chatroulette has acquired in a few months. Chatroulette goes down, and ShufflePeople steps in to deliver a similar service in the meantime. This is how the adult website market works, except they throw up new sites the next day to capitalize on something the competition is doing, or not doing.

The spiral of copycat innovation spins faster and faster. Some 17-year old kid has created the meme of 1Q2010 and now myriad companies are coming in to copy him and take a slice of the pie. Pretty soon AOL will start a similar site and we’ll move on to something else because Chatroulette was so last month. But for now, there is nothing bigger or more hyped.

Plenty of companies out there doing video dating wrong. Maybe, just maybe, a dating site will get it right after they deconstruct what Chatroulette is doing right. Lessons to be learned here people. Video is going to change online dating someday, but we’re nowhere near figuring out how it needs to work. I think I have, but it takes a new way of doing things and change is hard, especially in the online dating industry, which is still running on marketing strategies from a decade ago for the most part. Contact me if you’re in the mood to change the game.

Props to @Jonathan360 for the sleuthing. I received some Tweets from WooMe peeps but they failed to mention it was their site (marketing FAIL). Customized Fail Whale c/o Twitter. More at LA Snark.

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CAMEyeO Partners with Dating Site Platforms

David Evans — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:23:53 +0000

CAMEyeO, Inc. has partnered with PG Dating for integration of ‘faCetalk Online’ embedded into PG Dating Pro.The PG Dating Pro ‘faCetalk Online’ module will be available for purchase at the end of November 2009 from here: http://www.datingpro.com/dating/

CAMEyeO, Inc. has built a niche by providing a packaged feature for online dating software companies. This feature is a web service that provides a scheduled, anonymous, secure, and embedded online video date. In addition, CAMEyeO, Inc. provides the integration services needed to embed their product into any online dating software platform.

CAMEyeO is continuously looking for more partners like PG Dating in the online dating software space. Other recent integrations that CAMEyeO has deployed are for BoonEx and osDate platforms.

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Vooji.com Launches Video-Dating Site

David Evans — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:19:34 +0000

Samuel Agboola has a video-dating startup called Vooji. The site is record-only for now, as they fill up with video profiles I assume browsing will be enabled at some point. My profile is http://vooji.com/relaxedguy.

Vooji is a free video-dating site which allows users to meet new people, over a live audio-video connection, without sharing personal information.
Vooji makes dating safe by allowing users to meet anonymously online before meeting in public.
Users who record video profiles pre-launch will be given beta invites and $10 to spend on the site.
Early users can secure premium URLs for their profile. E.g. http://vooji.com/Sam.
Meeting people online saves users from wasting time dating people whoÊ¼ve lied on their profiles, or with whom thereÊ¼s no chemistry. The money saved makes using Vooji cheaper that other free dating sites.

Sam is tuned into the fact that early testers are incredibly important and will have a say in shaping the direction Vooji takes.

The siteÊ¼s unofficial motto is â€œDating without waitingâ€, they are working hard to make recording a profile a 90-second process. Earlier today I was talking to someone who worked on Match.com’s attempt at video profiles, which were unceremoniously removed several years ago. Timing definitely plays a big part of a startup’s success.

Sam is very excited to see how users are going to apply the tools for sharing and responding to profiles. Contact Samuel Agboola (samuela@gmail.com) to arrange an interview or for additional quotes. Follow @vooji on Twitter to stay informed with their progress.

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Another Woman Kidnapped on Craigslist

David Evans — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:55:54 +0000

Over the weekend a woman was kidnapped after a third date with a man she met on Craigslist. WTOP in Washington DC interviewed me about what singles can do to keep safe in today’s dating environment. Here’s the audio.

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Nation’s Girlfriends Unveil New Economic Plan

David Evans — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:17:03 +0000

Nation’s Girlfriends Unveil New Economic Plan: ‘Let’s Move In Together’

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Upstarts Eye Userplane

David Evans — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:24:55 +0000

Talked to Nick from Topicfox today. For those keeping score, Topicfox offers white label instant messaging solutions, whereas Toskta appears to be more of a webchat service, according to Nick.

Nick says that in the next week or so the sandbox for testing Topicfox will be live and that within two months they will have several integrations up and running, primarily for the purpose of better understanding the needs of potential customers.

Felix from Toska announced today that it has released the public beta of their chat room application today. Video is coming soon. I’ll be testing both solutions out in coming weeks, to give you an idea of the integration process, customization and usability of each system.

Both companies are eyeing recent developments at Userplane, which powers many online dating chat, IM and presence services. Userplane has been unresponsive in recent weeks, despite repeated attempts at contacting executives about the status of the company. I heard back from a founder today, who doesn’t know what’s going on either. Userplane was acquired by AOL in 2006 for somewhere in the vicinity of $35 million.

Globeandmail contacted me about a Twitterdating story. They should have something on the topic out later this week.

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Swap Userplane Chat for Topicfox

David Evans — Sun, 10 May 2009 14:47:24 +0000

Userplane has been quiet about the rumor they are being shut down by AOL. However, the writing is on the wall. Ex-Userplane staff have launched Topicfox, which offers Userplane customers white label social networking tools as a drop-in replacement for the beleaguered social applications company’s products and services.

My name is Nick Schneble, and I used to be the senior developer over at Userplane. Before anyone asks, I can’t confirm or deny any shutdown rumors. :-)

I wrote all of the Flex and AIR applications for Userplane, and since leaving I’ve started a new company, Topicfox, with the intent of providing a robust, stable and highly scalable white-label IM solution.

As a result of my many years at Userplane, Topicfox is 100% compatible with existing Userplane WM configurations, and can be imported and converted for use by Topicfox with very little client interaction.

I’m looking to provide a far more hands-on solution than Userplane, with a greater amount of client feedback.

If you have an existing Userplane Webmessenger (IM) setup, and/or you may be interested in a solution customized exactly the way you want, drop me a line!

Looks like White Label Dating is installing Toksta. It will be interesting to see which chat platform (if any) dating sites replace Userplane with.

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What’s Up With Userplane?

David Evans — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:36:08 +0000

There is some buzz this week about Userplane shutting down, although until I hear from Janet or someone else on the team I’m going to hold off on linkbait blog titles like at OPW. If in fact Userplane is shutting down, dating sites are going to have to find an alternative chat client, or simply remove the feature. I’m talking with some of the companies who are angling to fill in the void Userplane would leave in the chat client market. Felix Fidelsberger, founder of Toksta, is offering a 15-day free trial to current Userplane customers.

I have always liked Userplane, from the team to the technology. They’ve been in the online dating business for many years and were a longtime sponsor of this blog.

Update: Nobody has gotten back to me and the phone system at Userplane is acting wonky.

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Viral Video Bidding Closed

David Evans — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:05:00 +0000

Thank you for playing “Let’s buy a professionally-produced viral video at a fraction of the cost.” We’re finishing up the final bids and putting the impromptu auction to bed. Thanks to all of you who contacted me about the opportunity. I’ll be reaching out to each of you to discuss other viral video options.

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