Russian Women Secrets - Things You Should Avoid (Humorous and True!!!)

http://www.womenrussia.com/secrets.htm#The%20things%20you%20should%20avoid

Using a girl's name a few times throughout your letter makes it more personal, but check carefully that you have changed it in all the places you used it before printing. Once I received a letter which started "Hello, Elena!" and ended with "Sleep with angels, Irina!" Guess - did I answer? (Tip: there is an option Find and Replace in your Word processor under the Edit task bar.)

-- Hahaha!
DES

A Quick Message About Our ET4 Project 3

Hey Guys!

Thanks for coming out on Tuesday night! Jeannie emailed me and asked me to tell everyone not to go over in our presentation (she will be using a stopwatch!). I will re-evaluate our total time and submit it tomorrow night on the blog. I asked her for 35 minutes total, but I just sent the email to her, so it will take awhile to get a 'yes' or 'no' on that.

Please look for my posts on the blog tomorrow night which will cover what we went over on Tuesday night. I will be online between Sat. night and Sunday night and I will have phone access along with internet access (DSL) so if someone wants to talk on the phone while we go through the sites together online, that is fine. I will be there all night, so you can page me late (213) 205-6400 and leave me your number and I will call you back.

Pursuant to Jeannie's request, I have sent another invite to the blog to Keshwin and notified Jeannie of the situation. So far, I still haven't heard anything from him.

Lastly, I still need those 3 articles from you, Jaime. Submit those ASAP. Thanks in advance.

Take Care Everyone,
DES

Thanks Everyone for Meeting on Tuesday Night!

I just want to thank everyone for making the effort to come out on Tuesday night: Chad, Patricia, Gabriel, Jaime, Teagan, and myself as well. A special thanks goes to Teagan for coordinating everyone through the blog and by phone.

Jaime, I still need you to post your three articles for the blog.

I have heard NOTHING from Keshwin, no email, no blog response, no phone call. As a result, I am officially reporting this to Jeannie, our instructor to deal with accordingly.

Thanks everyone!

--DES

Keep Them Coming Back (Infrastructure Personalization)

1.) Repeat Customers vs. New Customers

2.) Personalization Definition

3.) Types of Personalization
a.) e-analytics
b.) rules-based
c.) collaborative filtering
d.) instant

3.) Overcoming Privacy Issues
a.) privacy policy
b.) don't ask for more information than needed
c.) affiliate with privacy organizations (TrustE, BBBOnLine)
d.) opt out
e.) no trickery
f.) use security
g.) uphold importance of privacy

4.) Reasons Customers Come Back
a.) customer support
b.) on-time delivery
c.) product presentation
d.) products shipping and handling
e.) posted privacy policy
f.) product selection
g.) ease of ordering
h.) produce prices
i.) usability
j.) product information

5.) Access Logs

E-Business Network Security (Infrastructure)

1.) Attacks
a.) denial of service (DoS)
b.) distributed denial of service (DDoS)

2.) Defense
a.) firewall
b.) NAT (Network Address Translation)
c.) DMZ (Demilitarized Zone)

3.) Content Filtering

4.) Virus Protection

Crashproof Your Website (Infrastructure)

1.) High Availability
a.) reliability
b.) capacity (connections, processing power, data storage)

2.) Redundancy
a.) load balancing
b.) clustering
c.) UPS (uninterruptible power supply)
d.) RAID (redundant array of independent disks)

3.) Hosting options
a.) virtual / shared
b.) dedicated
c.) co-hosting / bandwidth rental

Weblog Archives -- Very Important -- Please Read !!!

Hey Guys,

Just wanted to mention that this blog only shows the current days entries on the main page. If you want the previous day(s) entries, you must click on the ARCHIVES link on the lower right hand side of the page under all our other links.

That's it.
--DES

Regarding ET4 Project 3 Group Meeting Tomorrow (Tue., Nov. 11th)

Hey Chad and Everyone!

We can't meet at SMC or AET tomorrow as the campus is CLOSED due to the VETERAN'S DAY HOLIDAY. I am meeting Teagan tomorrow at his place in Santa Monica at noon. Gabriel R. will meet us around 3:00 p.m. when he gets off from work.

Chad and Patricia, I know the two of you are working, so you can't meet until 5:30 p.m., but I can meet you then and perhaps Teagan and/or Gabriel as well. If they can't, I can at least meet you, but we have to meet somewhere where we can sit down and go over this project. I spent this morning putting the project in a binder and organizing the sections, so all the research is ready to go including print outs of the relevant pages of all the articles and websites we will use (see my recent post today regarding which sites we will be using). Chad, I would be honored if you can oversee the Infrastructure section. I just made copies of Jeannie's handouts, so I'm up to speed.

Please call me, Chad, after you and Patricia have agreed on a meeting place (somewhere in the Santa Monica area of West L.A.) as we will already be out here) and I will meet you.

Here's my voicemail number: 213-205-6400
and here's Teagan's number: 310-315-3564
and here's Gabriel's number: 818-621-0899

Teagan's address is as follows:
1044 Yale Street (cross street from Wilshire).

If Keshwin or Jaime also wants to meet up tomorrow, please email or call one of us ASAP. Otherwise, I will be available in AET 108 on Friday from 12:30 p.m. to around 6:00 p.m. (you two both know where that is).

Also, Teagan, Chad, Patricia, Keshwin, and Jaime... I sent you guys another invite reminder to register with our blog. Please take care of that tonight so that we can start posting tomorrow. I need all those articles for those who haven't sent them so all our information is up to date on the blog.

Thanks in advance.
--DES

ET4 Project 3 Online Dating Websites Selected

Hey Guys!

Okay, the stupid internet here at AET is working again (phew!), so I decided to get at least one post in before it decides to keel over again. I have picked the following 3 websites for our group to focus on as follows:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Women Behind Bars
http://www.womenbehindbars.com/

Kissy Kat ("Where People Who Love Their Pets Find Love")
http://www.kissykat.com/

Russian Brides Cyber Guide
http://www.womenrussia.com/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have picked these three sites over others for the following reasons:

1.) They are very specific (women in prison, Russian women, pet owners)
2.) They are very unique.
3.) They shouldn't offend anyone in the group.
4.) They are completely different from each other, so it shows diversity in our sector.
5.) They have massive amounts of information. (esp. the Russian women site)
6.) You don't have to log on or join or otherwise become a member to view the
information we need for this assignment.
7.) They all have an interesting and extensive marketing bent which we can explore.
8.) They all have different visual distinct site designs.

I am vehemently against using Match.com as it is too convoluted and, more importantly, I find any site which defaults to the under age 35 crowd as offensive to the rest of humanity. My grandmother is 90, can't she still date someone? Also, the pictures point to very teenage looking white people, so I find this further offensive. At least the Women in Prison site caters to all nationalities... and the Kissy Kat includes a multitude of species :).

I decided against Seniorfriendfinder.com as you have to join it and I am tired of getting email messages from perverted old men, so I don't think anyone else would want that either.

So, start looking these sites over. If anyone has a burning desire to discuss another dating site, please post it here and your reasons why and we can work it into our presentation. Remember, even if we focus on 3 sites, we can include other sites in our overall industry presentation, esp. if we are comparing and contrasting them or want to make an overall point of a site which represents the best or worst of the sector at large.

Enjoy,
-- DES

ET4 Team Leader Comments Re: Gabriel's Post on Articles and Sites

Hello Everyone!

Since these sites and articles are already linked previously, I will not bother linking here again. Just click on the appropriate links to your right of this post ------------------->

I don't know who did the research on the Dating Archive articles, so I co-credited the effort to both Patricia and Gabriel R. Great team effort, guys!

If any of these links are broken or otherwise fubar, lemme know and I will fix 'em ASAP.

That's it for tonight for me. I have managed to get us up to speed on our project pursuant to our emails. Tomorrow, I will use this blog as a database resource to attack our oral presentation, but my brain can't absorb any more at this point.

I think the links on the right give a fair indication of the amount and type of work done so far, so if anyone wants to fill in their gaps in their group participation, please email me as soon as possible and I will get your articles in your link sections.

Time to play a little SSX 3 on my PS2 before I fall asleep.

Thanks for all the hard work, guys and gals! I'm proud of all of you!
-- DES

Gabriel R.'s ET4 Project 3 Comments, Concerns, Articles, and Sites


Hi Des and everyone.



First thing: the articles.



Tomorrow, Friday 7, each one of us is supposed to send 3 articles about dating to Jeannie and we can't repeat anything. I picked these 3 below and the rest are links that can help you finding others. Match.com has tons of those.



Gabriel's articles:

http://www.match.com/matchscene/article.asp?TrackingID=501616&BannerID=501937&ArticleID=152



http://www.love-match-uk.com/full_article.asp?id=42



http://www.match.com/matchscene/article.asp?TrackingID=501616&BannerID=501937&ArticleID=32





Other articles and sites with some lists….

http://www.datingarticles.com/free-dating-article.htm
http://www.mojofat.com/kaycee/11.30.00.html
http://www.dating-sites-dating-services.com/dating_artivles.html
http://dating-sites-directory.com/online-dating-articles
http://www.4everideas.com/online-dating.html
http://www.online-dating.info/online_dating_article_archives.asp
http://www.parent.net/article/onlinedating.shtml
http://www.gotodatingmagazine.com/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Des


We’ll have a holiday next Tuesday and in the following class we’ll present the project – Nov 18.

Details specified for Jeanie last class:

- Nobody can read anything.

- Not everyone needs to talk. (but the person needs to have another task specified)

- Besides the articles, we need to pick 3 websites (in total, not everyone) to discuss in all the sections. Teagan suggested match.com (the biggest) and two more that I don’t remember anymore. I only recall that each had a different characteristic, and I thought interesting. I think we need to have that chosen by Monday.

- The presentation needs to take 20 to 30 minutes. Less or more than that, we loose points



The next step would be to separate the sections among us. I’m not sure how you’ll do that, maybe if anyone has any experience in some area would help. Let’s remember that all of us will have the same grade and we need to make everyone doing as better as possible.

The sections to be divided in 7 people are:

1 – Current info about the market

2 – Marketing analysis

3 – Infrastructure

4 – Future of this industry



To be honest, the section that I know less about it is the Infrastructure, but it seems to me that it is the one that can be done by one person. All the others could be done by 2 but we need to divide that as soon as possible. Maybe someone wants to do the presentation (?). At least we’ll have a holiday next week. To whoever I’ll be doing the project with, my telephone is (818) 621 0899. But I can only answer the phone in the end of afternoon. From next week I’ll be working a different shift, from 2:40 to 11:50am and I’m not sure yet, at what time I’ll be sleeping…



We need to communicate. If we can have the section before the weekend would be perfect.



Thank you guys,

Gabriel.

NEW! Updated Thoughts from Your ET4 Project 3 Team Leader

Hey Everyone!

Great work guys! I still need to hear back from Jaime and Keshwin
regarding what they want to do on the project and the articles and
dating sites they sent to Jeannie.

Chad, that's great that you want to do the Power Point presentation. Teagan also volunteered to help with that. I don't know if we need it with the Blog here, but we'll figure it out. Perhaps we can screencapture some stuff and upload it to Teagan or my server and then link to the visuals on this blog like I did with the USDA Approved pic. Lemme know.

VERY IMPORTANT! Chad, you mentioned getting together Tuesday night in person to work on this project. Does anyone else want to do this? I would be willing to meet as well, but I do not want to drive out to Santa Monica and find out everyone bailed. So, email me if anyone is interested. Chad, where and when would be convenient for you? I know you work late. Let us know. I could bring my huge binder of research then. The other time I am available to meet is on Fridays when I run the Game Club in AET Room 108. Teagan is also there as Secretary of the club, so that's two people. Lemme know. Gabriel also wants to meet Tuesday night, but he needs the details of where and when from us ASAP.

I have a huge binder of research I printed out the last two weeks. I
will hole punch this stuff and bring it in next week. I would like to
bring it in for our presentation and we can offer it as a bonus /
exhibit that everyone can look at during the break and/or after class.

As to the sites to analyze, I think match.com is fine as one of them as
it is the biggest. I think kissykat.com (or whatever the link was I
originally sent you guys) should be included as it is PURE MARKETING and
it goes to the affiliate, the charities, the customers, the advertisers,
etc. and describes its money-making objectives very clearly and also
has very nice visual breakdowns. I still like womeninprison.com as it is
very fansite-based and has a unique dating model. Seniorfriendfinder.com
is the one with all the cool statistics and graphs regarding the industry.

I don't think we need a written presentation, but having the binder of
research is a nice bonus in that area. I think this Blog is our written / web
presentation.

I think 4 people to speak sounds good. I personally would like to speak
as team leader. I think Teagan is a great speaker and would add humor
and wit to the presentation. I think Chad would be good. Gabriel or
Patricia would also do well, but I would like to hear from you guys if
you want to do it.

Infrastructure sounds good to me for Chad. I would like to do something
on the future trends of the industry and the current status as the
articles I found lean toward this.

Teagan, it was interesting that you mentioned that you thought mostly
middle aged and older people used dating sites as I found from my
research that most younger people claim that all their friends use
online dating sites.

An interesting thought: what about a poll among our own group to how
many of us have used online dating services and what he felt about them
and whether we would use one in the future, and (if so) which one would
you use and why. We could throw that at the end of our online
presentation.

Oh, I just thought about another site. Gabriel, you mentioned about a
site you were putting together and the research you were doing. Do you
want to include any of that in our presentation? Lemme know.

Perhaps we can discuss briefly the number of general dating sites (i.e.,
anyone can join) vs. specialty sites (gay men, the disabled, plus-size
women, women in prison, seniors, etc.). If we can have a list of sites
and divide them into some kind of pie chart or graph, that would be nice.
Also, how regional are all these sites? Are they mostly based in Los
Angeles? New York, etc. Do most online dating sites require the members
to have long distance relationships or do they have enough customers who
are local?

Lastly, how do these sites police their customers (i.e., filter out
scammers) and provide feedback for their dating experiences? Perhaps we
could mention a new business model for online dating which would be more
C2C based with ebay auctions for our dates and customer feedback (i.e.,
was the date physically as described, did he or she behave on the date,
etc.)

Just some preliminary thoughts on this subject.

Will email everyone with more detailed thoughts tomorrow night.

Take Care,
DES

Prof. Jeannie Novak's ET4 Project 3 Oral Presentation Summary

Here's a summary:

1) Practice so that you do not go over the time limit (20-30 minutes). The group will lose points if the presentation goes into "overtime."

2) Leaders need to decide how to organize the group. From past experience, the least effective structure involves *everyone* trying to talk about every section. Other ways of structuring include: having different group members focus on research, presenting, designing the visual portion of the presentation OR having different group members speak/research different sections of the presentation. I'm sure your group members have some ideas for you. Leaders should focus on each group member's strengths and assign tasks accordingly.

3) Every person in the group needs to find three articles related to the industry and send them to me via email by this Friday [November 7, 2003].

4) Do NOT read your presentation. Although this is a group project, it doesn't mean that everyone needs to speak. Everyone has had this opportunity in with the current events presentation.

5) Everyone in the group will get the same grade on this project. If someone does not show up for the presentation, they alone will get a zero.

-- Jeannie (posted by DES)

Teagan's ET4 Project 3 Online Dating Sites and Comments

Hey all, Teagan here.

Some more sites to add to the list -

www.adultfriendfinder.com
(the most popular sex/swingers personals site)

www.adultloveonline.com

www.guys4men.com
(one of the few FREE dating sites - specifically for gay guys though)

www.bicupid.com
(site aimed at everyone but the average hetrosexual)

www.kinkysingles.com
(another sex/swingers site)

www.lavalife.com
(well advertised and fancily designed... but doesn't seem all that
popular)

www.date.com

www.datingdirect.com

www.hookuplounge.com

www.lacupid.com
(dating site specificaly catering for the los angeles area)

www.emode.com
(the matchmaking section of emode is increadibly popular - i guess thats

because it is a subsidary of an already popular site, and has alot of
interesting matchmaking features other sites don't have)

www.match.com

www.matchmaker.com
(lycos's dating site - v popular)

www.meetic.com
(a pretty site)

www.one2onematch.com

I have noticed there are large discrepancies in target genders between some sites - the biggest sites seem to go for an even display of men and women, while some others are a little skewed. Especialy the adult/sex personals

sites who seem to be geared more towards men. eg, the title picture on adultfriendfinder.com is two women pleasuring a guy... lol.

Its amazing how many of these datings sites have sprung up all over the place. Maybe one day finding someone online will be more common than finding someone in a bar... who knows.

Seems that dating sites are mostly used by middle aged or older people. Anyone else notice this?

The first personal add recorded was over 100 years ago. A lonely widow advertised that she was single in the local newspaper, shortly afterwards she was deemed as insane and locked away.

Have fun all!

My Comments About The Online Dating Links to Articles and Sites

Hey Everyone!

Here's my complete list of online dating articles and weblinks. I also added two links to the Internet Marketing Reference and Internet Marketing Dictionionary in the general links section. If anyone is confused about some of the terms Jeannie Novak uses in the ET4 Class, well, here is a place online to conveniently look 'em up :). Also, I posted the ET4 Project 3 handout which Jeannie gave us in case anyone misplaced it, so you can have it right here online.

Gotta go and keep posting. Still have the rest of Gabriel R.'s links and Teagan's links. I am still missing the article links from Teagan, Jaime and Keshwin. If you have already emailed Jeannie, then please send me the email and post it here. If you have not, then please find THREE ARTICLES RELATED TO ONLINE DATING and please do NOT use any that anyone else has used. I need those ASAP PLEASE!!!!! (cyber begs). This is not 3 online website links, but three ARTICLES pertaining to the online dating sector. If you have no clue what the heck I am rambling about, just look at the links to the right and that will give you an idea.

Thanks Chad, Gabriel, Teagan, and Patricia for all your imput and hard work. We all put a great deal of effort into this project, now I just need to get it all up so that we can start organizing and coordinating our offline assault on Nov. 18th.

You all rock!
--DES

ET4 PROJECT #3 -- Industry Sector Analysis

DUE DATE: Tuesday, November 18, 2003. Oral in Class Presentation re: Online Dating

References: Textbook, handouts, your articles, lectures
Length of Presentation: 20-30 minutes

Descriptions: You will research your industry sector and present your findings to the class as a group, using visual aids (either PowerPoint or web presentation). Each group will be responsible for researching a total of 3 sites within the sector.

Your presentation will consist of 4 sections:
1.) description and current information on your sector (utilizing the articles you sent to me)
2.) analysis of marketing techniques used by the sites in your sector (utilizing handouts and lectures/class discussions)
3.) analysis of infrastructure issues related to your sector (including high availability and security, utilizing handouts)
4.) future of this industry online (where do you think it's going? how will the industry need to improve in order to be successful?)

Online Dating Team Members:
1.) Des (Team Leader, Blog Administrator, a.k.a., "Phoenix Genesis")
2.) Teagan
3.) Gabriel
4.) Patricia
5.) Jaime
6.) Keshwin
7.) Chad

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guys!

This is the official handout sent to us by our instructor, Jeannie Novak. Please use this as a guideline in following the requirements of the project.

Email me if you have any questions.
--DES

My Online Dating Sites and Introductory Thoughts

Hey Everyone!

Here's the links to the websites pertaining to online dating which I have researched so far. I have printed out hard copies of relevant pages. Feel free to study these sites and post to this blog with additional sites and information (if you haven't signed in as a member yet, please do so ASAP). If I inadvertently typed in the wrong URL or a link is broken, lemme know.

When you look at these (and other) sites, keep the visuals in mind. Are the people displayed in the ads and homepage of a certain age, race, body type (plus sizes vs. model quality), etc. How does the ads compare with the actual customer's profile. For example, Kissy Kat showed very sexy young men in their male profile, but all the women were older, fatter, and ugly!!! (Seriously, see for yourself...). This made me wonder if the site used male models to lure women into joining the service. As my friend Rob said, "No respectable guy would allow himself to subscribe to an online dating site called 'Kissy Kat'." You be the judge. It is interesting to note that the site is owned by Tucows, a huge very well-known internet company. Try to do searches at Register.com in their "whois" database to see who owns all these online dating sites. Try to look at the advertisers they are targeting which also shows the actual customer-base. Do some Google.com searches and see where all these dating sites rank. Why does one particular site achieve a top ranking? Anyway, these are just a few ideas of things to keep in mind.

HERE'S THE LIST OF SOME OF THE SITES. I ALSO HAVE ONLINE ARTICLES PERTAINING TO ONLINE DATING IN GENERAL WHICH I CAN BRING IN ON TUESDAY.

Online Dating Services
http://www.meet-singles-online.com/Online-Dating-Services.html

Match.com
http://www.match.com

Friendster
http://www.friendster.com/index.jsp

Women Behind Bars
http://www.womenbehindbars.com/

Kissy Kat
http://www.kissykat.com/

Executive Asian Dating
http://www.executiveasiandating.com/

Jewish Singles Site
http://www.jewishcafe.com/

The Spark.com - Pimpin' Cupid
http://cupid.thespark.com/newuser.mpl

Crush Party.com
http://www.crushparty.com/

Datadate
http://www.datadate.com/ltsample.asp

Senior Friend Finder.com
http://www.seniorfriendfinder.com

(I found 2 interesting articles on the Senior's site. One is:
"15016 Listings in California" and the other is: Poll Results for "What's your longest romantic, committed relationship?")

Searchenginez.com Romance Search
http://searchenginez.com/romance.html

MSN Dating & Personals
http://msn.match.com

Russian Women (Bridal Service)
http://www.womenrussia.com/

(specifically examine: who.htm, blacklist2.htm, antiscam.htm, faq.htm, myths.htm, agencies.htm, secrets.htm)

That's it for now.
--DES

Phoenix Genesis Blog Launches!

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to the new Phoenix Genesis Video Game Weblog! The wonderful team for the Academy of Entertainment Technology ET4 Online Dating E-Commerce Project (taught by >Jeannie Novak) will be posting from now until Monday, November 17th regarding the industry analysis of online dating. So, grab a nice warm cup of coffee, sit back, and learn the ins-and-outs of online dating and videogames.

Take Care,
>Phoenix Genesis (a.k.a., "PG")