Nelson Rodriguez at Love Access in a dating scammer tell-all. Moving from typical Nigerian Ghana to mail-drops to Russian mail order bride scammers. Why didn’t I think of making profiles on Match via my own affiliate ID and taking the money for myself? Those scammers are smart! Nelson mentions a common database of scammer information shared between dating sites. I’ve heard about these things for a while now, time to find out the real scoop.

EHarmony’s Premium Services division offers up a new premium personality profile. Great, more questions! I think I am permanently banned from the eHarmony press list. Why am I learning about this stuff from Yahoo News? I definitely would like to speak with Detlef Uecker, Director of Premium Services at eHarmony, hint hint.

Matchdoctor has a new test and quiz site. What, you don’t user-generated tests and quizzes on your site? Unbelievable! What, are you still thinking about background checks and anonymous calling? That’s so Q4 2006. Just load your site up with questions about favorite Larry the Cable Guy jokes, esoteric Star Wars trivia and “If I could be anyone I would be jailed/in rehab/D-List Celebrity XXX” type queries.

A new dating site called Meetamour has been let loose.

Talk with other members in online chat or privately via instant messenger
Instantly create your own personal profile with photos, video and audio
Easy, affordable, any single can enjoy our services!!

Perhaps the worst press release for a dating site launch ever. This one is definitely going into the Seinfeld category. A Seinfeld is my name for a press release about nothing.

Motodate launches, applies for patent. License plate dating, stickers, clothing with special ID, this stuff never seem to really take off. Service is popular in Los Angeles (surprise!) New and controversial? Guess they haven’t heard of Flirting in Traffic or the other handful of competitors out there. It will be interesting to see who gets the lion’s share of the truly mobile dating market.

Luvoo hires muscle-bound former Mr. Los Angeles to participate in their first matchmaking game (warning, painful to watch). What is it with Luvoo and hollywood, ahem, celebs? What happened to Carmen Electra? Is she in rehab or something? No, she’s in Canada in a mall filming a movie.

Luvoo started an auction site, launched a VOIP & Webcam Service, hired Carmen Electra as a spokesceleb. Each new feature resulted in a lower stock price. Luvoo stock is down to 11 cents from a high of $1.10.

Match.com UK marketing and partnerships manager Sarah Drew is leaving the company to join online recruitment firm TheLadders.com as managing director. Match.com has confirmed she will be replaced and the new head of marketing will report to Match.com’s new managing director Jason Stockwood.

That’s it for the week, have a great weekend.

No related posts.

A new year, and like clockwork a whole slew of unintelligible press releases right before iDate. This one is a real winner. Go take some aspirin before reading any further.

Did You, Inc. Releases an All New Social Networking Website Called DidYouDate.com Which is Creating Controversy Over Extra-Martial Affairs.

Did You, Inc., a New York Corporation since 2005, is set to launch the website DidYouDate.com, and enter into the business of online social networking, particularly with an interest in the area of online dating, online advertising and interoperability (also known as chat). The company is being designed from the ground up as a profit driven organization. It offers a compelling value proposition for its customers, a groundbreaking online promotional tool and a high return for customers on their investment in their product. It will offer a number of features that are unique to, and will enhance the experience of, the entire global market of online dating.

Guess who’s writing their press releases in-house? Talk about confusing, “enter into the business of online social networking, particularly with an interest in the area of online dating, online advertising and interoperability (also known as chat).�?

Why not call it chat? “The company is being designed from the ground up as a profit driven organization.�? Great news, as opposed to what?

As for the rest of the opening paragraph, I have no idea what the hell the company does. So I dig deeper:

DidYouDate, Inc. is in the business of supplying a search tool with the ability to access the historical dating records of anyone who has a profile somewhere online, or will soon have one.

They know I may join a dating site in the future? That’s some hot AI, where do I invest?

DidYouDate.com will generate empirical data received from its applicant’s use of the software, it has the ability to crawl and capture people’s profiles from a virtually limitless supply of existing dating, networking, personal ads, and white page listing websites.

Can you say “violation of terms of service?�?

Rather than searching for people and profiles on countless dating sites trying to dig up information about a cheating sex partner or ex husband or wife, a subscriber to DidYouDate.com will have access to these dating archives at the click of a button, by logging into one site.

Is this cheaper or more effective than paying a gumshoe for a days work?

The feature, named “6 Degrees,�? (i.e. “6 degrees of separation�?) will allow users to choose a dater and view all of the dater’s past, present and possible future relationships and the nature of those relationships.

Ow, my head hurts reading this stuff.

DidYouDate.com will utilize heavy graphical images provided by Gigapixel Creative to add a creative twist to relationship identification.

Make it stop!

DidYouDate.com’s technology will provide subscribers to online dating services the ability to chat with one another across a single platform. A person logged on to DidYouDate.com will be able to connect to any one who is logged on to any of the dating services that DidYouDate.com has enabled interop services. For instance, if there are 200,000 people logged into DidYouDate.com and 300,000 in to Myspace.com or Youtube and 1,000,000 into Yahoopersonals.com, then the DID YOU IM INTEROP TM. tool would have a total of 1,500,000 potential users that could possibly Instant Message each other simultaneously.

This site is DOA. A true Seinfeld of a press release. Get out your tinfoil beanies.

No related posts.

I was not aware until I read this press release that Alon Carmel, one of JDate’s founders, became a JLove investors in June 2006.

The release is question is a clear Seinfeld, which I am making an official category. A Seinfeld is a press release about nothing, although I’m extending that to other mis-steps as well, which the dating industry sends me examples of daily.

Technorati Tags: jdate, jlove

No related posts.

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 be used mostly by younger romance seekers, she says. But so far, 50% of users have been in the 35 to 49 age bracket. About 8% are over 55.

It turns out Match not so large that you can be a Seinfeld-ian VP of Nothing. Jane is listed as the Managing Director of Match Asia Pacific but the Jangle press release lists her as the Vice President and General Manager, Match.com North America.

I didn’t pull out the crystal ball on this one but I would have agreed with the prediction that us “older�? members would be more likely to use the anonymous calling service. Young kids don’t give much thought to giving out their mobil number.

I remain skeptical of Jangl becoming a noun, but initial adoption rates do look promising.

I called someone on Match last night, and promptly forgot to use the calling feature. Match definitely needs to do some consumer education to get people up to speed.

USA Today.

Technorati Tags: anonymous+calling, jangl

No related posts.

Hows that for an ambigious press release headline? I went to a workshop hosted by the Social Mdia Club Boston last week where we talked about Press Release 2.0 and other ways the PR field needs to get with the program in this tagged, metadata, blogged, influencer-driven media world we live in.

After reading some of the blogs written by the leading thinkers in the PR world today, the press release monster in me is in high gear today. First up, this release from The Right One and Together Dating, which reminded me of the Seinfeld show, a release about nothing.

Sorry Paul and Steve, but can you explain the logic used to formulate your argument that traditional brick and mortar dating companies are expecting gains? That’s not news, that’s marketing. Growth of online dating has slowed, the industry as a whole has not declined. That’s a little to grey-area thinking for my liking.

The release mentions your anniversary and the size of your business, which is misrepresented due to the blending of all your businesses and the fact that many members have their memberships on hold. Then you quote a survey that you don’t name or link to. You mention Marketdata Enterprises, but we have no way of knowing if they are related to the survey. I’m confused.

I’m all for the hybridization of online and offline dating. It’s an interesting story that has not been told well by the press, but this is 100% the wrong way to go about telling it.

Maybe explain “higher lifetime customer value” instead of throwing around empty buzzwords and go into greater detail about the human element of working with relationship experts? Just a thought. Or perhaps the ambiguity of the release will get reporters to call and ask just what it is you are trying to accomplish with the release.

Technorati Tags: offline+dating

Related posts:

1. Evaluating Dating Site Press Releases
2. TRUE Becomes first dating service to verify members
3. Matchmakers & Traditional Dating Services Report