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Trends in the Online Dating Community

Brad — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:00:27 +0000

The dating rituals of yesteryear have all but disappeared as a new style and attitude of the single socializer has evolved into a mode more suitable for this day and age. Though some things have changed rather drastically, some things have not. Everyone wants a chance to meet that possible significant other or at least date an appropriate someone a few times.

Attitude

One of the most obvious differences between then and now is attitude. Whereas women once yearned in silence, waiting for the man of their dreams to appear or reappear, today’s woman isn’t nearly as afraid to approach a man and even initiate the contact. Nor is she in a great hurry. As men have done since the beginning of time, women realize there are, indeed, many fish in the sea and are more inclined to test the waters. Society no longer dictates obvious roles when it comes to dating.

Technology

Technology has certainly played a major role in the dating process. Nowadays, researchers say, students and young adults as a whole are more focused on academic studies and careers and have less time to pursue the social scene than they did in the past. No matter what age one is today, most have joined the lifestyle of the internet. It’s not surprising then that online dating sprang to life as a successful way for people to reach out to the opposite gender from the web. Distance barriers and time restraints are now obliterated at the touch of a button.

The internet offers more than an opportunity to meet someone new, it also affords the opportunity to check the background of a possible love interest by purchasing background security checks and even specific medical and financial disclosures.

Online Dating Services

Voice and video offered by some online dating services offer users a virtual dating experience from the comfort and security of home before meeting in person. The “what you see (and hear) is what you get” connotation provides an added security for users. This is the turn the social markets are taking. In addition, security is a being increased by some sites to protect users from spammers. These amenities, however, don’t come free.

Niche dating sites are on the rise, catering to people of specific ethnic backgrounds, alumni, college groups, etc.

Social Networks

Along the same lines, social networks such as Facebook and MySpace have become nearly as much a place to meet potential dates as a means of staying in touch with family and friends. They are for the most part user-friendly, free, and make meeting new people easy. Members can tell a lot about other members by their pages.

Blogging Sites

Blogging has added yet another tier to the online dating scenario. Weblogs are online journals where one can maintain an ongoing commentary about whatever interests them. While web dating sites often restrict the creativity on the user’s home page, bloggers are free to “soar with the eagles” and can post content immediately while it’s still fresh in their minds. This provides a much clearer picture of an individual then a planned, well-thought out, one-time bio.

All in all, online dating offers a diverse way to represent one’s self and opens new doors to exciting possibilities through various venues. Mr. and Miss Right are out there somewhere. It could be they’re a whole lot closer than you think.

eHarmony CEO Resigns

Brad — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:00:40 +0000

Earlier this week the CEO of eHarmony resigned for uncited reasons. At first I was surprised because I thought this was who the article was talking about:

Not the guy resigning…

Turns out that while Dr. Neil Clark Warren (pictured above) was the founder of eHarmony, he is not the CEO. The CEO was Gregory Waldorf, one of the founding investors.

(Related: see my full eHarmony Review)

So What Does This Mean to Singles Using eHarmony?

Probably nothing. I don’t mean to down-play changing the CEO of a company but eHarmony seems to have a pretty solid place in the market with a formula that works well for its customers. Studies from Harris Interactive claim that eHarmony was involved in 5% of marriages in the U.S. from 2008 to 2009 so obviously they’re doing something right.

That said, you really can never know how things might change. I know a lot of people were upset when the rules changed on some of the eHarmony free weekends and new leadership might reverse things (I wouldn’t hold my breath though). From the BusinessWeek article on this, it looks like this is more about the future and going public:

Though EHarmony hasn’t filed for an initial public offering, Waldorf said in an August interview with Bloomberg Television that the company considers it “all the time.” The leadership change may delay an IPO, giving investors time to become familiar with new management. On the secondary markets, EHarmony is valued at about $660 million, according to SharesPost Inc., an exchange for shares of private companies.

“Without a CEO you can’t go public,” said Lise Buyer, principal of the IPO advisory firm Class V Group. “It’s not just a matter of getting a new CEO — you need to let the new CEO get seasoned. Investors are always more comfortable if the CEO has been in the chair for a long time.”

I think the service will basically stay the same although I also think that in the future we might just see eHarmony go public.

Are Match.com Inactive Profiles Grounds for a Lawsuit?

Brad — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 04:00:58 +0000

On December 30, 2010, Match.com had a a federal lawsuit filed against it that alleges that the majority of profiles belong to scammers or are inactive members. Check this article out for the details. From the suit itself:

While Match purports to have “millions” of active subscribers, well over half of the profiles on its site belong to inactive members who have cancelled their membership or allowed their subscriptions to lapse and/or are fake and fraudulent profiles posted by scammers and others. To the extent these types of profiles do not belong to the scammers that proliferate the site, the rest are unreachable by legitimate users attempting to avail themselves of the services offered by Match and paid for via subscription fees.

I understand that scammers are a bad thing and if any service could be proven to be willingly allowing scammers to thrive, that’s definitely a problem. I have my doubts that this lawsuit is really going to be attempting to prove this but with the claim that the scammers “proliferate” the site, I might be wrong on that one.

That said, the thing that really jumps out to me is the idea that inactive profiles are worthy of a lawsuit and if my guess is correct this will be the majority of the suit.

Are Inactive Profiles Really A Good Argument?

I should first point out for those who don’t know that I met my wife on Match.com. Obviously because of this I’m a big fan and found the service very helpful, so I guess you could say I’m biased.

My bias aside: is it really a strong argument to complain about inactive profiles? I see a few problems with this type of argument.

First, Match.com makes it clear how long it has been since someone last logged in. As a matter of fact, I just logged in to verify that my memory was correct and not only does it show you the last time the user was active but the searches actually place inactive users (anyone who hasn’t used the service within 3 weeks) at the end of the results. It’s pretty simple to see who is active and who isn’t long before you subscribe.

Second, there seems to be an argument that if someone unsubscribes that their profile should be removed. The problem I see with this is that I took breaks from Match.com several times but the last thing I wanted was for my profile to be deleted. I still wanted my profile visible. If a woman was interested in me and wanted to contact me, I wanted to know if I was paying or not. If Match.com deleted my profile, I would have been really upset about that.

To me, inactive profiles are an okay thing especially when the service makes it clear who is active and who isn’t.

The Unreachable

I’ve had the privilege of working with many people over the years as I’ve run this website. I can tell you that many of people, myself included, do a poor job of representing themselves with their online dating profile and interactions, especially early on. This is why I wrote my guide and it’s also why I encourage everyone to be committed to online dating if you’re going to try it. Don’t try it for 30 days and then say that online dating (or in this case, Match.com) doesn’t work!

Basically the last part of the lawsuit seems to be saying that the only reasonable explanation that a person wouldn’t have success (outside of inactive users and scammers) is because the service doesn’t work. My experience suggests otherwise. I dated online actively for about 9 months before I started having success. Was Match.com horrible when I started dating online and then 9 months later did the service improve dramatically or was it me who was improving? I can assure you it was the second. Some of the things I included in my profile and emails in the beginning guaranteed I wasn’t going to have success…although I had no idea at the time!

While I did struggle for a long time with Match.com, when I improved my online dating approach I was averaging two first dates a week. Yes, there were times that I did see Match.com as the problem but now I realize the service wasn’t the problem at all. Perhaps I’m the exception and this lawsuit will prove what it claims…but I seriously doubt it.

Why Are There 15 Million Singles in the UK?

Brad — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:00:05 +0000

Parship.co.uk has put together a graphic that shows some interesting statistics on singles in the UK. You can see the full graphic here.

There are a lot of interesting things in the graphic but the thing that stands out to me the most is that 75% of singles in the UK haven’t had any type of relationship in the last 18 months. I don’t personally have any statistics for the U.S., but that sounds above normal to me. Perhaps singles in the UK are simply happier being alone!

The graphic does state that 35% of singles are dissatisfied with their single status which obviously suggests that 65% are happy being single. I’m not sure I buy into that: I talk to a lot of singles and often they’ll explain how they’re happy to be alone. However, once we get to talking and once I share my thoughts regarding online dating most people turn from happy being single to curious about dating online. I’m not saying people can’t be happy being alone, just that many people feel that they should appear happy being alone even though they are not.

At any rate, the graphic provides some interesting insight into “the least happy singles in Europe”.

2010 LoveGeist Report from Match UK

Brad — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 04:00:10 +0000

For the second time, Match has released a LoveGeist report that studies and tracks how people view love and relationships, in particular for those in the UK and Ireland. Even though the study is regional the results can be interesting to anyone and I am sure some of the findings cross borders.

This year’s study was based on working with over 150,000 people and the results are released in a full report as well as in a very interesting interactive map. The results are broken into categories like the percentage of people who consider themselves very romantic, the percentage of people who find it easy to say “I love you” for the first time, and so on.

The report itself is very detailed (which may be a good or a bad thing depending on your interest level) and includes facts such as:

93% of daters are looking for a long-term relationship – rising to 97% among the 18-30s.
Only 13% of daters say they actively don’t want to get married in the future
Having children together (37%) is seen as a bigger symbol of commitment than marriage (33%) for the UK’s daters

These facts are just the tip of what is disussed in the report so if you’re a fan of statistics or just live in the UK and are interested in the dating climate in your area, check it out.

Top 10 U.S. Cities for Online Dating – 2010

Brad — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:00:16 +0000

Photo by Willem Van Bergen

Forbes discusses which cities are the best for singles dating online. These conclusions were actually compiled by OKCupid which looked at all of their users to determine which cities had the most active singles.

Boston was declared the best – the article discusses that Boston’s smaller size (relatively speaking) and high population as giving its singles the advantage when dating online. Other cities were cited for, such as San Francisco, were believed to have an advantage because of its youthful population.

Here’s the full top 10 list for the best online dating cities:

Detroit, Michigan
Dallas, Texas
Los Angeles, California
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Portland, Oregon
Atlanta, Georgia
Seattle, Washington
San Francisco, California
Washington, D.C.
Boston, Massachusetts

See the full Forbes article for more details. Sorry to my friends and neighbors in Pittsburgh – we still don’t rank well for singles.

The Changing Face of Online Dating

Brad — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:00:47 +0000

Photo by Reign4ADay
Gone are the days when internet dating sites were for the desperate and the deranged. They used to have a pretty bad reputation with plenty of horror stories attached: people not being who they said they were, people going missing, identity theft – we’ve heard them all. But something has happened over the last five or so years that has made online dating not only acceptable but an intrinsic part of people’s lives.

Just by looking at the figures we can see the impact it’s had all over the world. China is the biggest user of these sites with 140 million citizens logging in. The US tails behind with 40 million users and India comes third with 15 million. 40% of American singles use the service and dating giant eHarmony has even claimed to be responsible for 2% of US marriages. Some are even saying that this new phenomenon is already bigger than the pornography industry. So what has triggered this dramatic change from horror story to success story? Here are a few factors:

A New Generation

The internet has simply boomed over the last two decades. A generation has grown up using it and more and more people have internet access every day. With the world gradually becoming familiar with this service, it is unsurprising that online sites are becoming increasingly popular. The younger generations have spent years communicating on cyber-space – on MSN, MySpace and Facebook. They are gradually passing their sensible approach to online communication on to their elders and persuading them that, with a certain degree of caution, it is perfectly safe. This has definitely benefited dating sites.

A New Approach

Rather than ambiguous sites run by people who are just trying to make some cash, online dating now has brains behind it. Academics have been employed to really think about the question of how to match people with each other and predict compatibility. The company eHarmony constructs your personality profile with a detailed questionnaire and then finds matches based on this. Other sites instead match people based on lifestyle similarities. Results are reviewed constantly, meaning that the sites are updated to fulfil customer demands. In short, online dating has become mainstream and has some very clever people making it a successful way to meet someone truly special.

A New Language

Initially, people were concerned that meeting someone online misses out some key social cues. This means that people can be easily deceptive and misleading – lying is easier when it’s not face-to-face. However, specialists have proved that we are developing ways to fill in these blanks – photographs, how quickly people respond to messages, what their e-mail address is – lots of things on the web stand in for facial expressions and gestures. Also, as people usually meet quite early in the process, lying is often pointless. What this type of communication does do, however, is remove shyness and make people open and more confident to be themselves.

A New Lifestyle

People are very busy in the 21st century. We simply don’t have time to wait around under sprigs of mistletoe or even in crowded bars looking for Prince Charming. The new attitude seems to be: why wait when a dating site can do it for you? People who meet on dating sites have an average courtship period of 18 months, compared with the usual 42 months. So, dating sites speed up the process and therefore suit our manic modern lifestyles.

Whether you’re in Birmingham dating or you’re in London dating – every city and every country’s dating scene is being taken over by the cyber-world. With innovative, time-saving technology behind it that is producing more and more success stories, we can only embrace this new culture.

This article is a guest post by John who is a friend of the site. If you would be interested in writing a guest post please feel free to contact me.

Match.com and Yahoo! Personals to be One Dating Service

Brad — Wed, 26 May 2010 09:46:04 +0000

It has been recently announced that Match.com will become the official online dating site for Yahoo!. As a part of this change, Yahoo! Personals will be offering its current members the opportunity to move to a new co-branded dating service that will be called “Match.com on Yahoo!”.

The CEO of Match.com had this to say about this change:

“The key to a successful online dating experience is having both a thriving community of active members and a sophisticated site experience optimized for dating success,” says Greg Blatt, CEO of Match.com. “By bringing Yahoo! Personals members to Match.com, our community, which we already believe to be the largest and most vibrant in the space, has become even more compelling for our members. When you add this to our unparalleled site experience, evolving every month with new features and enhancements, we feel the distance between the online dating experience we offer and that of others in the space is growing even larger.”

What Does this Mean for Singles?

What this means is that Match.com is clearly going to be the largest dating site around (as far as I can tell). Last year, numbers were published on the top 10 largest dating sites (measured by number of visits per month) and Yahoo! Personals was #2 and Match.com was number #3 on this list. Combining these two services should create one online dating experience with more singles than any other service available today.

This will be a great thing for anyone who already uses Match.com or Yahoo! Personals: you are going to suddenly have access to many more singles to contact. In some cases, it is even possible that your choices may double. With that in mind, if you have never tried Match.com, now would be the best time to try the Match.com 7-day Free Trial.

Time will tell what affect this has in the online dating world but my opinion is that singles on both Match.com and Yahoo! Personals have just had a huge favor done for them. More opportunity could very well translate into more success!

Something to Talk About: eHarmony’s New Feature

Brad — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:20:26 +0000

eHarmony has recently added a new feature to its online dating service. This feature further enhances your profile when other singles view it by helping provide (not surprisingly) something for the two of you to talk about.

How Does Something to Talk About Work?

Now when you view your profile, in addition to the old sections (Basics, In My Own Words, and Values) you will now see the new section, Something to Talk About. This section is broken down into over 10 areas including areas such as Sports, Politics, Music, Pets, Books, Travel and Television.

You can fill in as many or as few of these Something to Talk About areas as you would like although the more information you provide, the more likely eHarmony is going to be able to help you get the conversation started.

Each of the Something to Talk About areas can work a little differently, some providing simple checkboxes while areas such as Books or Music have you also enter your favorite author or musician. Many of these areas allow you to select multiple options. For example, when filling in the Movies section you can select three different types of movies you like and for each of these you can enter your favorite movie. Again, the more you can describe yourself the better your odds of having someone else match up with that interest, possibly increasing the odds of communication between the two of you.

Improve Communication Using Something to Talk About

When you have filled in your Something to Talk About section and then view a profile of someone who has done the same, you will now see a new box describing what the two of you have in common. For example, if you both enjoy similar television show, have matching political views, like the same types of books or if you have similar lifestyles, these areas will be listed. You can now know quickly and easily about your shared interests which can not only encourage communication, it can also make that communication process much easier in the beginning.

Using This Feature to Your Advantage

Just as adding photos to your eHarmony profile is optional, so is entering your Something to Talk About section. However, just as with your photo, if you don’t provide this information you are not going to be improving your odds. Just as many singles look for profiles that share their photos early, many singles will be looking for the Something to Talk About box in your profile to see what you might have in common. If you don’t provide this information or if you only provide a very small amount, the people viewing your profile may believe you have nothing in common when that is not the case!

Interesting Online Dating Statistics

Brad — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:00:32 +0000

Do you like statistics? Do you date online? Well then you’ll love this infographic. Some of the statistics here are very interesting, some are encouraging and others are just plain scary.

Via: Online Schools