The 8at8 blog, Tales From The Table, has reprinted a story about group dating from the Wall Street Journal.

Is group dating gathering steam in the 20-something set, or is this just a fad? One thing is clear, 20-somethings are not getting what they need from generic internet dating.

In many ways, 21st-century group-dating is a confluence of its past iterations. It’s become a way for people to identify with youth culture, the Facebook generation’s rebellion against the traditional dating model, and a means for women to dial down the pressure of today’s hypersexualized dating scene. All while increasing the odds that these faces in a crowd will find the right someone.

If your dating site sends out press releases, take a moment to read the entire article. Notice how the reporter writes about several group dating companies, not only 8by8. The piece is more of a survey of the group dating landscape, complete with historical perspective, informative, interesting and well written. All dating site press releases should follow this example. Thats what will get you mentioned in the WSJ as opposed to generic internet coverage. Not that getting mentioned in the Journal will make or break your company, but it certainly elevates your brand above the fray of dating sites competing for attention, at least for a few days.

Related posts:

1. Group Dating Survey
2. Online Transparency Leads to New World of Group Dating
3. Group Dating Takes Off In India

Dating Ad Network has posted an interview with Kris Covino and Meir Strahlberg at Date.com.

Everyone is talking about virtual goods these days. I’ve been working with Viximo, which provides a complete virtual goods platform to social networks and dating sites.

One thing I’m seeing is that Facebook virtual gift revenue projections are all over the map. VentureBeat says Facebook’s virtual economy may be making up to $100 million this year.

Lightspeed Ventures thinks Facebook will make about $35 million from its virtaul gift store. That’s about 10% of its projected revenue for 2008, estimated at $300m to $350m. For Facebook, these are gifts that keep on giving. The more users who are willing to pay $1 to send digital valentines, birthday or holiday greetings, the more Facebook is able to collect users’ credit card information and create ”digital wallets.”

Whatever the numbers, virtual gifts are a great way to increase revenue per member.

Mixtt Hooks Up Groups for Dating. Reminds me of TeamDating, which had a big media launch, seen in this video.

The Paradigm Shift says dating sites are undergoing Lots of Changes Lately.

New York Times article on the Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. I’m still waiting for dating sites to enable privacy controls so members can display generic information to everyone while selectively allowing vetted people to view private photos and additional information. I learned a new phrase to describe tracking everyone’s lifestreams, “ambient awareness.”

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/rebuilding-my-firefox-sidebar-amp-ranking-the-seo-blogs

Louis Gray thinks the iPhone users needs their own profiles:

It’s clear that the iPhone has the potential to actually form one of the world’s largest Social Networks, with GPS support, a contacts list (which are your real life friends), and applications that can access that data and communicate back and forth. With such a network monetization potential goes through the roof! However, there is one thing missing that I think would complete the mix – profiles.

Facebook Sandbox, like an extended profile.

I’ve been speaking with companies developing new ways to solve the age-old problem of compatibility, but not just when it comes to romantic relationships. This article about matching college roomates via an online dating-like compatibility program struck a chord, interesting.

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk could be an interesting way to have outsource your dating search. I wonder what dating site Terms of Service say about this?

No related posts.