A week after baby-boomer social networking site Eons let go 1/3 of their staff, new “experience network”  TeeBeeDee has launched under the leadership of Robin Wolaner, founder of Parentin Magazine. Do you think she knows more about boomers than the Eons founder Jeff Taylor, who’s largest claim to fame is Monster.com?

Next week begins TeeBeeDee’s Online Dating Makeovers with Trish McDermott, former VP of romance at Match.com and Engage.com. Trish will provide useful tips and pointers, while members tap into the experience and knowledge of fellow campers.

More at PR Newswire.

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Yahoo has launched another social network that’s part My Yahoo and Myspace. Mash is currently in beta. TechCrunch has details.

Big question, what about the millions of people who put time and effor into building up their Yahoo 360? They better have an integration plan for users otherwise there will be plenty of pissed-off 360′ers.

Takeaway quote:

It is also appears as though Yahoo intends for users to mash their information together from across the company’s various properties, perhaps making Mash the main hub for Yahoo users.

Facebook for the rest of us?

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I had a great conversation with OkCupid’s Sam Yagan last week. Sam had this to say about social networks and the Facebook application OkCupid is developing:

OkCupid.com has always enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the social networks. Our user-generated content is syndicated across sites like MySpace and LiveJournal which in turn drives tremendous traffic back to OkCupid.com. Our F8 app will take that model to a new level. The key to a successful app is that it promotes something (a) free and (b) fun – and OkCupid is the only dating site with that compelling combination.

I’m getting more calls from dating sites asking about Facebook applications. The idea that a dating site can tap into 30 million people by creating a basic application had dating site executives wondering how they can take advantage of the inexpensive traffic. There various tips and pitfalls to pay attention to when developing Facebok applications.

A look at the 100+ dating apps on Facebook shows that not all implementations are equal. In fact, most stink, thrown together in a few days, difficult to understand and suffering from a lack of interest, as everyone is busy with the Slidem HotorNot and Rockyou applications.

Most dating sites want to know how to take advantage of the potentially massive amounts of traffic a popular application can drive to their site without spending the millions that Match, True and Mate1 are on traditional social networking advertising. I’m here if you want to Talk.

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WPP has invested in the Chinese venture capital firm which is spearheading the launch of MySpace in China. The marketing services group headed by Sir Martin Sorrell has ploughed an undisclosed sum into China Broadband Capital Partners, a Beijing-based investor in the technology and media sectors.

In 2006 WPP Group said it has joined with online community builder LiveWorld to form a joint venture dedicated to developing social networking applications for clients. LiveWorld builds social networking applications for clients like eBay, HBO and Mini. WPP acquired roughly $2 million in stock in LiveWorld.

WPP is certainly making a concerted effort to get into the social networking game. They are smart to get involved on several fronts as opposed to a giant partnership.

Go look at the LiveWorld website and then go look at the dating site platforms, notice the difference? There is so much money to be made private labeling social networking software, these white label companies spend a lot of money on marketing, developers and technology. They have to, because the due diligence major corporations perform is immense and popular social nets tax servers and infrastructure much more than dating sites.

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Playboy is launching a social network for college students called PlayboyU, billed as an exclusive college-only non-nude social network.

I have a feeling this isn’t going to work out so well for Playboy.

Why don’t they sponsor an area on Facebook or Myspace? A much better use of their money based on major brands previous attempts at social and video networks: Bud.tv (shut down), Wal-Mart’s The Hub (shut down).

The Web site has managed to get 2,000 members from 500 colleges during early beta tests.  The site, amazingly, does not contain nudity. Well there’s your problem right there.

Playboy has overextended over the years, and profits are sagging. Online porn  basically killed them off, but the new cable show is titillating and watched by a lot more people than will admit it.

Press release at Yahoo! News.

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1. Playboy.com considers online dating
2. Playboy Rolls Out Racy New Dating Show
3. Sex.com Goes To Playboy

IamFreeTonight has launched on Facebook, although I can’t find the service in the applications listing.

Talking about launching HotOrNot on Facebook (which isn’t a dating site IMHO), Markus at Plentyoffish says:

As for growing pageviews via facebook I think that is a mistake for a dating site,  even when they allow advertising you’d make cents on the dollar compared to what you’d make having the visitor on your site.   I couldn’t even create a dating site in facebook that would run with a profit on facebook.  Most of facebooks pageviews aren’t even in the US and you are looking at splitting 5 cent CPM’s with facebook.

Markus is missing the point. Marketing your dating service to another 10+ million people is why dating sites catering to the younger crowd should look into establishing a presence on Facebook.

Markus says paid sites generate about 10% of their revenue from advertising. I personally despise the fact that Match and other paid sites have advertising on them. I’m already paying you over $100 to use your site, and you’re forcing absolute junk ads down my throat? Thankfully we have Firefox ad blockers to take care of that.

Markus says he will convert to a paid dating site in order to get to $100 million a year. I don’t think that’s going to work for him unless he retains a free tier of membership. Just ask WebDate about converting from free to paid.

As I spend more time in various Facebook dating apps, it’s become clear that there needs to be a consensus about how your friends are invited to take advantage of new applications you embed in your profile. Some apps make it easy to invite all or some of your friends, other apps are much more difficult to understand who is going to be invited, let along what the invitation itself looks like.

One thing is certain, Facebook is getting too complicated to use and some of the apps are incredibly compelling and fun to use. Somewhere in the middle lies a killer apps based on open profiles.

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I am going ga-ga over the new Facebook platform. Compared to what Facebook is doing to change the face of social computing (there’s your real Paradigm Shift, Markus), the recent space of failed dating site acquisitions and summer doldrums leaves me hungry for a new project.

So far the summer has brought us eHarmony and Chemistry duking it out over the definition of the term “million” while eHarmony’s exclusionary tactics have gays feelling even more persecuted that usual. The spin-meisters in the dating world are working overtime this quarter.

Recently I had a dream that I would receive a call out of the blue from someone with the resources and cojones to start a dating site based on Facebook. If that was you, contact me and let’s talk.

Related posts:

1. This Facebook Data Set Will Blow Your Mind
2. fbFund Incubator for Firms Focused on Facebook
3. Facebook Continues to Limit Viral Marketing Opportunities

I can’t believe that the Facebook Platform is three weeks old and I’m just getting to it. Busy with clients, moving and life in general, plus the usual summertime blogging malaise has set in. I really need to get a Treo so I can blog on the run, as I can’t seem to make the time to keep up with my usual blogging schedule.

Mark Andresson, creator of the Netscape web browser, has done an overview and analysis of the FaceBook platform. Sometimes it’s better to link to other people’s opinions if you agree with them.

ADD version: The web has knocked down various walled gardens in the past, and Facebook continues the tradition by launching the Facebook API, which enables outside web developers to inject new features and content into the Facebook environment. Think Myspace widgets on steroids.

I heard that Bunchball, recently featured on Eons, is now the second most popular application on Facebook

Mashable on Facebook apps.

I have been pushing the open API agenda with dating sites for years. Match won’t touch it, too scared to loose control. Yahoo kind-of-sort-of has something in the works, and everyone else is sitting back as usual waiting for a big service to take the first step. There have been some upstarts that have attempted aggregating dating site profiles, or doing stuff with them via Greasemonkey and other client-side hacks, but nothing with the blessing of the dating site itself.

Microsoft’s Cardspace is going to provide a whole new paradigm for sharing profiles. Whoever creates a dating site based on Cardspace profiles is going to do very well for themselves. For now, pay close attention to FaceBook, because that is the future of shared social spaces and profiles.

iLike says about launching on FaceBook:

In our first 20 hours of opening doors we had 50,000 users sign up, and it is only accelerating. (10,000 users joined in the first 12 hrs. 10,000 more users in the next 3 hrs. 30,000 more users in the next 5 hrs.

Three million users in three weeks, 300k new users a day. This makes online dating growth appear glacial by comparison.

If you want to launch a dating site and have a few million dollars, you should strongly consider doing it on FaceBook. If you do, you better have 250 servers (unless you are Markus) and a strong development and CTO team.

Andreessen goes on to say:

When you develop a new Facebook application, you submit it to the directory and someone at Facebook Inc. approves it — or not.

If your application is not approved for any reason — or if it’s just taking too long — you apparently have the option of letting your application go out “underground”.

This means that you need to start your application’s proliferation some other way than listing it in the directory — by promoting it somewhere else on the web, or getting your friends to use it.

Underground dating apps on FaceBook, this is going to be interesting.

That reminds me, I need to get “Creating a dating site version 4″ up soon.

Finally, from the Grey Lady, the New York Times on the social operating system for the Internet.

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Mycircles seems to have launched as a beta, again. I thought it was supposed to be adult dating, seems like something for everyone this time around. Lame intro Flash animation, what is it, 1998? Is it dating, social networking, or both?

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There are scores of companies focused on connecting people on the Internet. But what about people without computers, or prefer to communicate by phone?

Ccube, in Cupertino, CA, is making it easier for billions of people without computers to communicate. To use the CCube Service, one only needs a phone. after a brief web-based signup process – which will not be necessary in future versions of the service, all search and conversation will be phone-based.

I spoke with Ccube CEO, Mahesh Lalwani to learn more about the service and how Ccube is different from other anonymous calling services.

Lalwani started out the conversation by mentioning Tom Friedman’s book, A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, in which Friedman talks about 10 “flatteners� that have leveled the global playing field.

Lalwani thinks Click, Call, Connect, the concept behind CCube, is another flattener to add to Friedman’s list. Ccube combines Lalwani’s speech technology and telcom experience to make matching and finding people based on shared interests extremely simple.

Putting together a working anonymous calling system is not difficult. What’s interesting about CCube is that anonymous calling is just the beginning.

There are two primary differentiators between Ccube and other high-end anonymous calling systems. One is the features.  Concepts like call windows are useful when scheduling times you are available to talk throughout the, making it easy of the service without worrying about someone calling you at 2am.

Trying to win the anonymous calling arms race based on features is an uphill battle. The signup process needs to be dead simple and the value proposition clear to users right up front. Then it’s up to the marketing and business development team to go partner with as many communities as possible.

Or in CCube’s case, throw out a free ‘Call Me On Ccube’ widget that gets  embedded in web pages, blogs, email and classified ads and let the users come to you. Building the Ccube community around a web-based, and soon phone-based directory of people. This is a much different model than say Jangl, which is relying on Match to drive adoption via the same “call me” buttons used by Ccube. (Update: Jangl is now the number 2 service on Facebook.)

The ability to search for people by keyword, geographic location, interest or other attribute is the real value of Ccube. Listening to audio descriptions of sofa’s on Craigslist or brunettes over 5’5″ within 100 miles is where Ccube really shines. Match.com had voice profiles years ago and Craigslist may allow some anonymous calling services but Ccube is a meta- directory where categories of daters, sellers and affinity groups can find each other.

Ccube currently offers both free and subscription levels of service for US phone users, including:
Free – 30 minutes per month
$7.00 – 250 minutes per month
$20.00 – 1000 minutes per month

Bring in one friend and receive 10 minutes in addition to the free 30 minutes.

Ccube is a small startup which needs funding and lots of traffic in order to succeed. From what we know so far, Ccube’s success could be a phone call or two (million) away.

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