MacsDatingSite.com

Great article in Newsweek about Match.com and how it changed the face of dating. The history of how the company started is pretty cool, founded in 1993 by a 31-year old Stanford Business school grad, Gary Kremen, who was struggling to cover his rent every month.

He took a look at the amount of money newspapers were making off of singles classified ads (including his own) every week and he figured he would be able to do the same online. He managed to gather a couple of investors and away he went.

The surprising part to me was the fact that after putting in all that hard work and effort in to get the site up and running, Kremen walked away from the first sale of the company with only $50,000 cash and a lifetime account on the site.

Check it out, it’s a nice quick read.

By now we’re all familiar with the term cougar. According to Wikipedia, it’s the popular term for a woman, 35 years of age or older, who pursues younger men, typically more than eight years her junior.

Today’s blurb comes off a complaint from dating site Cougarlife, a site that is catered to Cougars looking for younger companions. The site noticed a large drop off in traffic coming to their site, and after digging a little deeper noticed it had to do with a change to their paid advertising campaign that is run on Google.

The ads were classified as “non-family friendly” by Google and as a result stopped running on popular websites such as YouTube, EzineArticles, AskMen and MySpace. Cougarlife claims that the traffic it receives from their ads across the internet accounted for over 50% of the traffic to the site.

A Google statement sent to Cougarlife went on to say that their Policy teams is sticking to their assertion that the concept of “Cougar Dating” will remain being classified as “Non-Family Safe” for the immediate future. It sounds great in theory, but in the same breath, Google continues to run ads for Date a Millionaire, which is a site that runs along the same lines, although in this case it is younger women looking for older men.

I don’t know about you, but that seems like someone could make a case for discrimination?

I’m a little late in reporting this one, but one of the largest dating sites you’ve never heard of is debuting in TV advertisements beginning in June.  According to USA Today, Zoosk will begin a major advertising push to get their name in front of singles, with ads scheduled to run on networks such as ESPN, Animal Planet, and other cable TV staples.

Zoosk operates differently than many traditional dating sites.  The bulk of the members utilize their free platform, although there is an option to upgrade to a premium service.  What sets Zoosk apart is that they have found a way to top into the social networking phenomenon by tapping in with open platforms like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Hi5.  ~Mac