Affairs of the heart were the hot topic at the Oahu Online Entrepreneurs meetup.

Love Products

Two Internet entrepreneurs have a serious discussion about love products.

They’re Tim Ferriss (author of The Four-Hour Workweek) and Kevin Rose (founder of Digg.com).

SEO Makes You Sexy?

A member received compliments on their looks, and the discussion turned toward how hot images could boost traffic to our websites.  Yes, we’re that cool.

How and When to Use Sex to Sell More (NSFW) — A detailed article about how sex affects SEO and conversion rates.

Dating Startup Case Studies

How I Built a Web 2.0 Dating Website in 66.5 Hours — Matt Inman, better known for his web comic The Oatmeal, describes how he quickly built a dating website.

How Plenty of Fish Conquered Online Dating (Hint: Its founder works just one hour a day) — One of my favorite examples of a solo founder creating a successful website without working himself to death.

Why Craigslist is a Mess — Craig Newmark is the Forrest Gump of the Internet.  By all rational observation, Craigslist should have failed by now.

• The founder doesn’t care about making money.
• Most of the website is free.
• The website is old, ugly and has not been updated with modern features.

In spite of all that (or maybe because of it?) Craigslist is still one of the dominant websites for jobs, real estate, dating and other necessary transactions in daily life.  Extraordinary.

Making a Good First Impression

One of our entrepreneurs was creating a membership site, and asked for suggestions on how to make a good landing page that wins over first-time visitors.

How to Build a Trustworthy Website — This blog post breaks down how to incorporate trust indicators into your web design so that you don’t seem like a scam.  Lots of examples and screenshots help illustrate the principles.

Is Your Business Name NSFW (Not Safe for Work?)

What if you think up a cool business name, only for your first customer to laugh out loud after seeing it? Before you start getting a logo designed, printing business cards, etc., you may want to check your name on Urban Dictionary.  It’s a great resource for looking up slang words you may not know.

For example, you decide to start up a late-night delivery service for businesses that operate at night, e.g. bars and nightclubs.  “Midnight Express” sounds like the perfect name, until you check on Urban Dictionary and see the real definition.  It refers to a different kind of after-hours movement.

Depending on your audience, you may want to have a more edgy name.  A good example is the clothing company French Connection UK (FCUK).  Just one letter away from being a curse word.

How to Write a Romance Story

A member was interested in writing and publishing romance novels. For any other aspiring writers, here are some articles.

Nora Roberts: The woman who rewrote the rules of romantic fiction — An in-depth profile of a popular romance novelist.

How to Write a Nicholas Sparks Movie. — Nicholas Sparks is one of the most successful romance novelists, with many of his books turned into movies.  Here’s an article that pokes fun at his storytelling model.

Photo: Storm Trooper holding a heart. JD Hancock / Flickr.