Internet Dating / Online Social Networking Industry Association

New York, NY - IDEA OASIS, a not-for-profit association for the Online Dating and Social Networking industries, will have its inaugural meeting on July 15, 2004 at the Internet Dating Conference in Nice, France.

IDEA OASIS stands for the Internet Dating Executive Alliance/Online Association for Social Industry Standards. It is for executives in both the online dating and social networking industries.

The mission of the organization will be to set ethical standards for social networking sites that are members. Examples include standards such as protection of account privacy and verification of membership. The association will focus on providing value to its membership by facilitating information exchange between members, enabling members access to its extensive information repository, assisting members in understanding emerging technologies and its impact, creating relationships for members with various third party vendors, which will include services, and products at discounted prices. We intend to change the economics of the social networking business in a manner beneficial to our members. We also intend to fully insure that our members will have representation with lawmakers. IDEA OASIS will also promote ethical social networking and online dating management for both our members as well as to the general community at large.

Member sites will be given a unique and numbered IDEA OASIS logo to place on their website to show their clients they are in full support of the standards and ethics that Idea Oasis promotes. These standards will increase the level of trust that ordinary members of the public will have in our member sites.

That need for an industry association emerged as a topic at the first Internet Dating Conference. Idea Oasis is that discussion that will become reality. Acting members of the IDEA OASIS Board of Directors that will inaugurate the first meeting will be:

- Meir Strahlberg, CEO, Date.com
- Mark Brooks, Vice President, FriendFinder, Inc.
- Eric Strauss, CEO, Cupid.com
- Brad Hogg, CEO, Relationship Exchange
- Lowell Selvin, CEO, Planet Out Partners
- Judith Meskill, Senior Editor, WebLogsInc.
- Michael Jones, CEO, Userplane
- Ahmed Fazil, Partner, The CTO Group, Inc.
- Marc Lesnick, President, Ticonderoga Ventures, Inc. (Acting Chairman)

Also at the Nice 2004 event, will be the set up of an advisory board to advise the Board of Directors on trends in technology, demographic and social trends, and industry impacts.

More information on IDEA OASIS can be found at http://www.IdeaOasis.org More information on the Internet Dating Conference can be found at http://www.InternetDatingConference.com