Big dater

Dave gets to grips with online wooing and robotic drinking, and finds out why tech workers are shunning the Sugarlord

Ours may not be known as the most romantic of industries, and the path from the dating world to the channel is not a particularly well-trodden one. But it is one that has now been travelled by Castle Street Investments (CSI).

The new investor in reseller Selection Services previously ran online dating company Cupid plc, which operated sites such as the flagship Cupid.com, the slightly more risqué BeNaughty.com, the self-explanatory GirlsDateForFree.com, and UniformDating.com – which specialises in those with a predilection for the likes of firefighters, policemen, nurses, and KFC employees.

But with the dawn of quick-and-easy apps such as Grimer and TinPot, the internet romance goalposts have shifted in recent years, and in 2013 Cupid plc took the decision to divest its so-called casual dating operations.

The more traditional dating business followed in 2014, leaving it with a £38m cash pot with which to invest in a new industry. Now rebranded as CSI, the senior management have decided to plough their moolah into the channel, acquiring a 25 per cent stake of the aforementioned Bromley VAR.

And, if they do fancy taking another run at the web dating malarkey, might we suggest that ‘Selection Services’ would also double up as a great name for an executive matchmaking specialist?

Kitty pity

After last year’s multitude of high-profile data breaches, by the time news broke just before Christmas of an attack on Hello Kitty fans many of you may have missed it due to an acute case of hack fatigue.

But, with details of an estimated 3.3 million users leaked online, the alleged breach of the SanrioTown.com online community was not small. Unlike most of the site’s users, who are clearly children and, as such, don’t really have any money, influence, or access to credit.

As such, it’s hard to see what ill-gotten gains the hackers thought they might be in line for, and it’s also difficult to imagine the attack as having any kind of ideological basis. Perhaps it was a tactical assault by the people behind the Tamagotchi?

Inspect a gadget

As I write, everyone who’s everyone in the tech world (present company excepted, natch) is congregating to gawp and gabble over the latest gadgets and gewgaws at the annual CES show.

The gathering in Las Vegas – which attracts an attendance equating to the whole of the city of Ipswich – was just getting into full swing as CRN went to press, but products to wow the audience during early preview sessions included a battery-powered car resembling the batmobile, an alarm clock that wakes users up with smells, and a bendable television screen.

But regular reader(s) of my scribblings will be thoroughly unsurprised to hear that my personal favourite technology is the so-called “robot bartender”. Sadly, the first thing to note about the Somabar device is that it doesn’t resemble a large metal rendering of Woody or Coach from Cheers, but rather just looks like a water-filtering machine, or maybe a coffee maker.

But the clever device does come loaded with 300 recipes and the option to add your own ones, as well as plenty of space for your spirits and mixers, and a wide range of bitters. All sounds very impressive. But can it pull a decent pint of cask ale?

Sugar substitute

I was pretty indifferent to learn this week that “research” has found that more tech workers are like Mark Zuckerberg than are like The Apprentice’s Alan Sugar. Hugely unimpeachable data from recruitment firm Randstad finds that the “Mark Zuckerberg personality type [is] most prevalent in the tech industry as a whole”.

Some 37 per cent of IT workers share key traits with the Facebook head honcho. At the other end of the spectrum the Marissa Mayer and Alan Sugar personality types are the least common, being shared by just five per cent of tech workers apiece. Unfortunately – having not met any of the leaders in question – I clearly lack Randstad’s deep personal insight, and the jobs firm doesn’t really explain what each personality type is.

So I can only assume that more than a third of IT pros wear hoodies constantly, while one in 20 is a grumpy, wizened barrowboy.