USA today reports on the social software boom, but it looks like they got duped BIG TIME by the folks over at Tickle.
Tickle was a dating site that became a social software site, and it seems that they are counting all their dating users as social software members. Hello? This is so bogus, how on earth could Tickle have 17 million members after a couple of months?!?
Really people, let's get the numbers straight.
Making a match online |
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Web sites helping people find romance, friends and work are attracting investors. |
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|
Site |
Location |
Launch |
Invested |
Users |
|
Friendster |
Sunnyvale, Calif. |
March 2003 |
$13M |
4M |
|
Tickle |
San Francisco |
1999 |
$8M |
17M |
|
Tribe |
San Francisco |
Jan. 2003 |
$6.4M |
58K |
|
|
Mountain View, Calif. |
May 2003 |
$4.7M |
50K |
|
Meetup |
New York |
2002 |
$1M |
870K |
|
Source: The companies |
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Millions using dating sites |
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Top personals sites by users in October 2003. |
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|
Site |
Users (in millions) |
|
Yahoo! Personals |
4.9 |
|
Match |
3.9 |
|
AmericanSingles |
3.7 |
|
MSN Dating & Personals |
1.9 |
|
Netscape Love & Personals |
1.5 |
|
Source: Nielsen/NetRatings |
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