General News

Facebook's IPO is one of the biggest news stories of 2012 so far...are you up to speed? Here's an overview of the most important details of the IPO, from promising start to disappointing finish.

After abundant speculation and much anticipation, Facebook finally filed paperwork for an initial public offering on February 1, 2012, the same week the massive social network celebrated its 8th birthday. The S-1 revealed that Facebook had an estimated value of $100 billion and was hoping to raise $5 billion dollars, which would have made the company about four times as valuable as Google when Google went public in 2004.

Facebook filed with Morgan Stanley as lead underwriter, while Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and others took secondary positions. Shares were planned to hit the market in May 2012, but rumors soon began to fly that the IPO wasn't living up to the hype. Investors were skeptical about Facebook's prospects, as the site's ad revenues hadn't kept pace with its user growth. An investor poll conducted by Bloomberg found that 79% of investors, analysts, and traders thought that Facebook's $96 billion valuation was too high.

Facebook amended the S-1 filing several times, each time painting a bleaker picture of Facebook's future. One of the largest problems facing Facebook was the site's mobile versions. Facebook has yet to find a way to capitalize on its smartphone-based users, so the more users who check Facebook from their phones, the worse Facebook's average revenue per user (or ARPU) gets. Users are increasingly accessing Facebook from their mobile devices, meaning that Facebook's revenue is sinking.

After all the hysteria, the IPO's debut was anticlimactic. On its first day as a public company, Facebook's stock closed at $38.23 a share. That's down from the opening trading price of $42, but up from its IPO price.

Many theories attempt to account for the IPO's disappointing performance. One suggests that it's NASDAQ's fault, for failing to the stock until 11:30 am EST, 30 minutes later than planned. Another theory places the blame with GM, which pulled its advertising from Facebook shortly before the IPO because it wasn't working. Others say that Facebook was overvalued, or that investors are now weary of social media stock.

Whatever the reason, the rocky IPO cast doubts for many on Facebook's second-quarter revenue potential, and the doubts continue. After all the rumors and hype surrounding Facebook's IPO, what was billed as one of the biggest stories of the year became a non-story. There was little to tell, except that Facebook had underperformed.

In the weeks following the IPO, Facebook stock fell as low as low as $25.52. It is now around $28, but its future is still uncertain.

To find out if this social network can be a good way to meet new people for dating, please check out our review of Facebook.

In what I find as a bit of a surprising move according to TNW, Plenty of Fish has launched a site called Luv My Box (luvmybox.com).

The premise behind Luvmybox is that you pay a monthly subscription fee ($34.95) and they will ship you (or whoever you want) once a month a package called a LuvBox filled with adult oriented items that one would find in a sex shop. The packages are discreet and can include anything from sexy costumes, to games, to other tools of the trade. 😉

Badoo introduced last month a dating app for Windows phone users. The Badoo app requires Windows Phone 7.5 or higher and includes most of the features found on their other apps like location based dating, profile updates, matches and sending messages. To try out the new app just search the Windows Phone Marketplace for “Badoo”.

Badoo also has apps available on iOS, Android, and Blackberry phone platforms. If you do not wish to use an app you can also access Badoo through your smartphones browser. To find out more about this dating service and why it has 150 million plus users you can read our review of Badoo.com.

A lot of travel stories are about bad in-flight meals, sub-par hostel accommodations, and confusing cultural mix ups. But this travel story is about a couple who joined MissTravel.com, met for the first time in Cabo San Lucas, and fell in love.

Their story was featured on ABC 20/20's "Vacation Confidential" segment, alongside an interview with the site's founder and CEO, Brandon Wade. ABC is the first to document one of "the newest and wackiest vacation trends" via a reality travel dating show that isn't too far off from its travel-and-romance hits "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette."

MissTravel.com claims to be the first online dating site to blend travel with romance, by bringing together generous singles looking for travel companions with attractive singles who cannot afford to travel alone. The idea is proving to be a popular one: more than 100,000 members have joined and over 50,000 trips have been planned in the 3 months the site has been live.

MissTravel.com has stirred up its share of controversy with critics who have compared it to a travel escort agency, but Brandon Wade is on the defensive. "Most people are uncomfortable with the idea of taking any kind of risk," he said during his interview with ABC, "so they choose to look at all the things that could go wrong with MissTravel.com, meanwhile ignoring all its potential for greatness."

Sibel and Steven, the couple featured in the segment, are bound to agree. Sibel is a 27-year-old from New York who signed up for MissTravel.com with minimal expectations. Shortly after joining, she received a message for Steven, a 31-year-old financial planner from San Diego who was looking for company on his upcoming trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Sibel says she found the idea of joining a man she'd never met on a trip abroad daunting, but decided to give it a go after days of talks on Skype and over the phone. They met for the first time at Villa Marcella, a beachside mansion Steven rented out for a whopping $2500 a night. It was a weekend full of indulgences - dips in the Jacuzzi, fine dining, a private yacht, snorkeling, horseback riding, massages - and when it came to a close, Sibel and Steven kissed each other goodbye and returned to their homes.

A few weeks later, Steve traveled to New York to visit Sibel, and a few weeks after that, she traveled to San Diego to spend a weekend with him. The first success story of MissTravel.com is still being written: Sibel and Steve found what they were looking for on MissTravel.com, and the couple is still dating.

Our newly updated review for the dating site PerfectMatch.com is now available for viewing. Since our last major overhaul of the review about a year and a half ago PerfectMatch.com has done a number of changes to their service. This includes:

• Adding more and changing a number of profile questions
• Updating the Duet Compatibility Test
• Streamlining membership length options
• Adding Paypal as a payment option
• Updating their search parameters. Video search is now available

To find out more about this service and the changes please read our updated PerfectMatch.com review now.

Online dating has been a thing for a long time now, so I guess it's about time someone invented online group dating. After all, the double (or more!) date is a well-respected dating institution, and it deserves a virtual version just as much as one-on-one dating does.

Grouper brings together matchmaking, blind dating, and networking for a unique new experience that pairs two friend groups based on their Facebook profiles and their answers to a short survey. That all sounds pretty standard, but here's where it gets a little different: Grouper users never exchange emails or chat using an instant messenger. In fact, they don't interact virtually at all.

Here's how it works: 3 friends pay the $20-per-person registry fee, answer all required questions and emails, then meet at the assigned date, time, and bar. The meet and greet then occurs over a round of complimentary beverages (but drinkers take note: the "complimentary" thing only applies to well drinks and beers).

Michael Waxman, CEO and Founder of Grouper, came up with the idea for the "social experiment" and coded the website on a whim. A week later he launched his new venture from NYC, convinced that group dating "would be way better than a dating site."

But there were still plenty of questions for Waxman and the rest of the Grouper crew. Would people actually be willing to meet in person without ever contacting each other? No emails, phone calls, Skype calls, texts, chats, tweets, Facebook messages, carrier pigeons, or other communication of any kind...would any singles actually be brave enough to give it a shot?

The answer, it turns out, is yes. The site sparked interest right away, and thousands of Grouper meet-ups have been conducted since the first, in which Waxman set up two friends on a blind date. One couple, who met during the sixth Grouper, are still dating. Grouper even sent them a gift for their one-year anniversary.

Waxman believes the success of the Grouper model lies in its low-key atmosphere. “We’re not fond of labels, and we think that a lot of people nowadays want to meet more casually, more organically,” he says. “We find that by not throwing it in a bucket of ‘this is networking,’ ‘this is dating,’ ‘this is whatever,’ people just show up more open-minded and have a better time.”