Online Dating Insider

Online Dating Industry News & Commentary

15 Minute Video Dates

February 5th, 2007 · 1 Comment

Welcome!
Online Dating Insider delivers cutting-edge insight and commentary on all aspects of the online dating industry. Topics include industry news, site reviews, emerging trends, analysis of dating site features, discussion about safety safety, finance and other issues important to the online dating market. Don’t miss our Tools & Services directory, useful to anyone running dating [...]

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Matchdigits Launches Free Calling Service

January 29th, 2007 · No Comments

Matchdigits is the latest anonymous calling company to enter the dating space. Typical of the telcom market, WebPoint Communications are hedging their bets with several other *Digits products, including HopeDigits for battered women, OfficeDigits for SOHO users and FreeDigits, for the rest of us.
From the Press release:
MatchDigits is the first service to offer free phone [...]

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Here’s My Number (for Today)

November 30th, 2006 · No Comments

Hot on the heels of the USA Today article about anonymous calling, the NY Times has a piece about, you guessed it, “the last phone number you’ll ever need.â€?

If a service is going to take off in the social and dating space, it’s got to be easy to use, keep the user on the same [...]

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Match.com Members Remain Anonymous

November 28th, 2006 · No Comments

Match.com reports the initial response to the new anonymous calling feature has been “extraordinary�?.
Jane Thompson, a Match.com vice president (of what?):
275,000 people already have used the feature, which is being offered as a freebie to Match.com’s 15 million user base through the end of the year.
One surprise: Match.com had expected the service to [...]

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Anonymous Calling Overload

November 21st, 2006 · No Comments

Anonymous calling companies continue to court dating sites. It’s deja vu all over again. The Jangl deal with Match is the first big play in the space, but it remains to be seen what the adoption rates are for the service.

Mark Brooks recently interviewed Vumber, an anonymous call company set to launch soon. Basic anonymous [...]

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Match.com To Debut Anonymous Calling

November 1st, 2006 · 2 Comments

When it comes to innovation, the dating industry is usually one of the last places early adopters will look for examples of cutting edge features. Until now. Match is slated to begin offering free anonymous phone calling between members. But this isn’t your garden variety, run of the mill $3.95 per minute anonymous calling.

Free for [...]

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Automated video news program from RSS and game-graphics

October 25th, 2006 · 1 Comment

Northwestern University has developed an automated news-video program, News At Seven, with help from the National Science Foundation.

News At Seven is a system that automatically generates a virtual news show. Totally autonomous, it collects, parses, edits and organizes news stories and then passes the formatted content to an artificial anchor for presentation. Using the resources [...]

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Now That’s Videoconferencing

October 24th, 2006 · No Comments

Cisco, maker of fine routing and networking appliances, has unveiled a $300,000, six screen high definition videoconferencing system. Except they call it telepresence because everyone’s heads are life-size. I spend at least an hour a day videoconferencing in Skype and have grown the love the added expression video brings a conversation.

This is overkill, but in [...]

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Ze Frank on Being Popular

October 23rd, 2006 · 1 Comment

Earlier I mentioned Dating videos on Youtube. Then I realized once again that not many people have a webcam, or knows how to do a decent videoblog, so I’m taking it upon myself to provide best practices for your video profile.

Wait, I’m busy today, so today I hand you over to Ze Frank, my go-to [...]

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Strategy Analysis - Match.com turns dating into ‘live’ ad

October 23rd, 2006 · 4 Comments

DigitalBulletin, part of Brand Republic, has a strategy analysis for the Match.com UK reality show.

My ears perked up until I read this:

The idea was to take Match.com to people by allowing them to interact with the brand, not just each other.

Ugh, who let the markers in the room? Don’t I always say that people don’t [...]

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