A Kiss-Off to Online Dating

According to Sarah Lacy from BusinessWeek the era of Web 1.0 is over, online dating is dead. Going on sites like Facebook or MySpace it's like going to a bar with your friends, whereas a dating site is like walking past a bunch of animals in cages at the zoo. According to comScore, the number of people visiting online dating sites dropped 6% in September. Unique visitors to Yahoo Personals and eHarmony fell 21%, Match.com had a 16% drop, and True.com's visitors plummeted 46%. ComScore does show some names like Plentyoffish.com growing, but these are new sites with far smaller user bases.

here is her funny fictitious letter to the online dating sites:
"Dear Online Dating Sites,
I am writing to tell you it's over between us. It's not you. You've been great. You've helped me connect millions of happy couples and no one can take that away.
It's just that—well, I've changed. My needs and users are different now. And you were right when you asked about my relationship with MySpace and Facebook. I can't ignore the feelings I have for them any longer. Please don't be hurt. We had a good run, and you'll always be a part of me. But I'm moving on. I hope we can still be friends.
Love always,
The Internet "

I agree with here , I don't know if online dating will vanish but we cant ignore the recent statistics showing that the younger generation are using social networks to meet new friends and not using online dating sites.
Although many users use social networks for dating purposes, the social network user experience is not suited for this purpose.
We predicted this trend two years ago when we initiate Copenda ,
Copenda is a revolutionary social people search engine that allows people to search for their soul mate or new friends in social networks and dating web sites. Our complex algorithms crawl semi-structured data from multiple social networks and online dating sites.
Copenda will bridge the gap between social networks and online dating sites by integrating an innovative user interface with dating site features such as personality search and social network features such as ranking, comments and tagging.

See the full article

Windows Live™ Messenger IM Control

I have just found a very cool control from Microsoft , Windows Live™ Messenger IM Control lets people on the Web reach you in Messenger by showing your Messenger status on your web site, blog, or social networking profile. The Windows Live™ Messenger IM Control runs in the browser and lets site visitors message you without installing Messenger first.
Yahoo has a similar presence control , but unlike the MS control when you want to contact the person you are redirected to yahoo web site.

For more details check the folowing post.

I had this IM control to our blog so you can now use it whenever you want to contact us.

Google OpenSocial - new opportunities

Last week Google launched OpenSocial a new set of javascript API's adopted by the industry leaders. these set of API's will enable the development of cross platform applications.
So far the following websites have committed to the new initiative: Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.
From our side it is a very good news , developing Copenda application for the leading social networks in on our roadmap and the new initiative will enable us to expose our app to broader audience.

Read more here

Myspace has been spammed

Today I have found a very odd thing when I browsed Myspce profiles , hundreds (maybe more) of fake profiles , all of them contain some general information and a link to an adult web site.

I cant understand how web site like Myspace can allow such a thing...

If you want to see it yourself just click "browse" on Myspace and browse for women in the US.