Match Made in Cyber
The tri-state
region went from chilly-spring to midsummer-like weather all in the month of
May. Soon summer love madness will be in
full effect before June is out. Do you
have your options to meet your spouse-to-be or a summer amour? Many people choose cyberspace to connect with
those special “someones”.
The pioneer of
web romance connections is Match.com.
Going live in 1995, Match.com still offers online and face-to-face local
events. Quantcast.com, the digital
advertising company, estimates 120.5 million Americans visit the site per
month. 77% identify as Caucasian; 9% as
African American; 9% as Hispanic; and 5% as Asian or Other. If a subscriber has challenges in waxing
dynamic statements to catch the imagination of prospects, Match.com has Profile
Pro® that assigns writers to be the Cyrano de Bergerac for them.
Chemistry.com is
Match’s sophisticated sister site.
Here subscribers take personality tests, write profile essays; and
receive Chemistry Coaching to improve social skills. Dr. Helen Fisher is the in-house
psychologist. While Quantcast.com
estimates “84.6 thousand Americans visit this site monthly”, Chemistry.com boasts
having “over 13 million people worldwide who completed the personality test.”
Apparently having
a psychologist on staff adds to creditability.
e-Harmony.com is founded by Dr. Neil Warren who established “the 29
Dimensions of Capability”.
PerfectMatch.com relies on Dr. Pepper Schwartz and her Duet® Total
Compatibility. Zoosk, the tidal wave that swept the online dating and social
networking scene in 2006, doesn’t trumpet a Ph.D. but uses “Behavioral
Matchmaking”. Why is Zoosk the tidal wave
? “Over 40 million people globally log
onto to it and it has 12.5 million Facebook Likes.
Zoosk is
“available in 25 languages and subscribers in over 70 countries”. As opposed to finding long-term, committed
relationships, Zoosk positions itself as “a fun and social online dating
experience”. Zoosk offers a Facebook
dating app, a Mobile dating app, a singles chat, and video messaging. These offerings can keep things flirty and
non-tactile.
Dr. Julie
Spooner, Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, practicing in Brooklyn, recognizes the
value of such sites. “As a clinician I
have recommended it to people who have trouble meeting people. I don’t suggest it to everyone. If I see that the person can’t meet others,
[I present it as a means] to exponentially increase the number of people to
meet”.
If the income
levels and educational attainment of subscribers to four of the reviewed sites
are factual, then roughly 57% of subscribers have completed undergraduate
studies and did some graduate studies.
Most are prosperous with six-figure incomes. Is this truth or ‘rubbery’ truth?
Dr. Spooner
“encourages moving to the telephone and then moving to the face-to-face
meeting. You shouldn’t interact
exclusively online. The voice and facial
expressions are not there for intimate communication”. Zoosk tries to keep things transparent by
virtue of its parent Facebook. One need
only visit FB profiles. Dr. Lisa
Orbé-Austin, Ph.D., a partner in Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting,
LLP, also sees the value in online dating and has clients who share the good
and bad aspects of it. The bad being
where “some women are surprised by men that were simply interested in a
physical relationship. However, they
later realized that it’s a function of the particular site to which they were
subscribed”.
Some people
reject the online scene. Take Hapi
Kamenthu, Merr (director) of The Earth Center of Maanu, in New York. She believes it would be “disastrous” if
online dating were to eclipse face-to-face as the first choice in the initial
meeting between people. “It would be
disastrous because the modern educational system doesn’t teach people about themselves
and their roles in life. Traditionally,
[people] will do extensive family background checks”. Dr. Orbé-Austin doesn’t see it eclipsing
face-to-face but, “thinks that online dating will be one of the primary ways
that people meet. This is not a
conversation that I was having with my clients 10 years ago, but now it’s a
very normal part of the dating discussion.”
Labels: African Americans, business, Hispanics, marriage, online dating, social media, social networking
The Eyes on Cyber Life
By now, web and
mobile users know there’s no escaping advertising. With advertising comes consumer/market
research to ensure the right message gets to the desired customer. There is a sea of online market researchers
studying the blogs, tweets, clicks, and texts of online users.
Some agencies are
familiar faces to media consumers, while others, consumers will be surprised
that they are in the game. Take
Neilson.com--the agency known for making an average household a “Neilsen
Family” by installing a monitoring box to the television—is still keeping a
pulse on consumer behavior—now in cyber space.
Neilsen boasts
having “approximately 10 million consumers in 100 countries participating in
their research”. Neilsen.com website
claims the organization “studies the use of 181 million blogs, social networks,
and other media”. That other media
includes brick and mortar retail, TV, mobile, and web. The organization’s ace card is NeuroFocus™. It is a worn device that “measures brainwave
activity and eye tracking”, so their clients know what wording, colors, and
designs stimulate particular brain regions and result in making purchases.
Experian, one of
the three largest credit reporting bureaus, leveraged its global store of
consumer and business information to offer marketing services or “consumer
insights” to their clients. These
insights are accessed through Hitwise™ Hitwise Mobile™, Hitwise Audience Viewsm,
Simmons LOCAL sm and Simmons National Consumer Studiessm.. All three Hitwise branded services are fueled
on “the daily activity of 10 million consumers located in over 50 countries
across six continents on one million websites.”
Talk about statistical excess.
United Sample or
uSamp was an online research firm from its inception. The founders Gregg Lavin and Matt Dusig tag
uSamp “The Answer Network” specializing in online market research panels. The firm has 12 million survey respondents
residing in such countries as Egypt, Kenya, Trinidad, Jamaica, Mexico, and of
course, the United States. The panelists
give online and mobile feedback.
Since the global
panel is their gold, recruiting has high standards. The company recruits through “social media,
their global partners, and website publishers”.
uSamp prides itself in locating “the hard-to-find respondent” and
achieving “panel purity”. What is panel
purity? That is ensuring there are no
duplications in email addresses and mobile numbers nor people maintaining
multiple identities. Imagine! The things
people do to earn pre-loaded debit cards, sales discounts, and merchandise
samples.
Labels: advertising, marketing, media monitoring, social media, social networking
Total Black TV Fills Void Left By BET
Does cable, DirecTV and regular TV leave you feeling as if you’re missing something?
Could “what’s missing” be programming that relates to the core values and interests of the black community?
If so, visit
TotalBlackTV.com.
Total Black TV is the cyber spot to view, download and upload black video content.
Knowing the diversity of interests, the videos are organized into 27 categories that include action, sitcom, drama, animation, science fiction, shorts and religion.
The site serves the seasoned and emerging content producer by offering the choice of mailing DVDs AVIs or film cassettes to a post office box or uploading to the site.
Video viewing is limited to a particular PC during free streaming or purchased downloads secured from file sharing, using Microsoft DRM technology.
Thus, producers have another avenue to get their story to the public.
Total Black TV is also a social networking site where members can share photos, videos and messages among themselves or a select group.
This part of the site is called
totalblacktv.com/myview and requires a separate account registration from the main site.
Registration has a page where members may invite eight family members and eight friends/coworkers.
New York attorney Kevin Golding owns Total Black TV and initially launched it in 2005 to serve Ausar Auset Society, an international cultural organization.
The site went from distributing Ra Un Nefer Amen’s
Kamitic lifestyle videos to branching out to other content producers.
Golding says, “The idea of people watching such historians and health practioners as Dr. Sebi, Dr. John H. Clarke, and Dr. ben-Jochannan on an iPod was an exciting proposition.”
Rather than seek angel investors or venture capitalists, Golding and Promotions and Marketing Coordinator Amar Divine opted to make alliances with colleges, film festivals and individual video producers.
The corporation co-sponsored the 2007 African Film Festival in Edinborough, Scotland
. Angie LeMar, a popular radio host on England’s
Choice FM interviewed Golding on location.
These international links result in site visitors from Kenya, Belgium, Hawaii, Japan, India, the Netherlands, Canada and South Africa.
The latest promotion is the TBTV Dance Competition where dancers submit videos of their dance routines to totalblacktv.com/myview rather than travel to a geographic location.
The submission deadline is Saturday, June 7, 2008.
Amar Divine is driven to present positive images and ideas produced by people of color.
Divine compares TotalBlackTV.com to a cable station that promotes black media but “isn’t representative of positive black culture [nor] produced by black people.”
Rather, Divine aspires to experience similar success to that of cinemanow.com.
The corporate team is planning a launch party slated for September 2008.
Academicians, performers and emerging producers have been extended invitations.
While the team is keeping the details of the event under wraps, it is sure to be extraordinary to introduce such a well-conceived Web site.
Labels: black interest, media, social networking, society, streaming video, technology
Meeting Up
Brooklyn 2.0 is a MeetUp group I recently joined. We gathered at Mooney's Pub on Flatbush Avenue, Weds., Feb 13. Nice crowd. The organizer Eric Rochow is an amiable sort. Then, of course the draft beer had everyone mellow and sociable. Rochow does podcasting about easy green practices for people. Check out
Real World Green.
My personal agenda was hunting for tech stories and learning to blog more effectively. I was ecstatic with my finds. There are many developers living in Brooklyn. Of the plus 10 who showed that night, I was the only nondeveloper. Yuri Niyazov described an app to rival Google Reader. Another man tipped me
Bar Camp, a developers conference held at Polytechnical U. This conference is free and requires that all attendees present an application or assist in a presentation of a new app.
People encouraged me to use other 'Net browsers like Firefox and Safari because of the great add-ons. Then, what I couldn't get from Deli.cio.us FAQ: how to get authority. You've got to submit your blog entry's URL with tags so that it can be read by others.
Meeting Up is great because life is all about experiences. What's better than a face-to-face experience?
Labels: PR, social networking, society, technology
