(Online Dating Industry Journal) Here's a little humor for you today. The folks at Funny or Die made a fake Match.com video that features "Jon Gosselin" from Jon and Kate plus eight. In the video he shares what he is looking for and who he is. We get to see Match.com's virtually trademarked "it's Okay To Look" line too...
(Online Dating Industry Journal) An upcoming documentary called "Click for Love" explores how the Indian population is using online dating services to find love. It also provides insight into how popular niche online dating services are as many just target the Indian marketplace. There are a lot of interviews with Indians providing insight into the world of Indian online dating. It also contains advice for getting better results, emphasizing that you will get out of it what you put into it.
The documentary is still in editing phase and expected to be completed later this summer. No release date for it has been announced. However, a five minute excerpt has been released that you can view below:
(Online Dating Industry Journal) Christian online dating service ChristianMingle announced today that it had surpassed the two million member mark. The site first launched in 2001.
"Surpassing the two million member mark gives us great pride," said Adam
Berger, Chairman and CEO of Spark Networks, ChristianMingle's owner and
operator. "Our mission is to be the destination for Christian singles to
find soul mates who share their faith, values, and traditions. With
thousands of new members joining ChristianMingle every day, our leadership
position in Christian
dating is solid, and we plan to maintain that position by continuing to
fulfill the needs of the Christian community."
ChristianMingle is owned and operated by Sparks Network, which also owns and operates 21 other online dating services.
(Online Dating Industry Journal) A new company lets online daters delegate their tasks, having a professional expert represent you on online dating sites. The company, called Done For You Dating, manages your profile and all communications, going as far as setting up dates for you. And it's all done under your name.
"Online dating is like hunting for buried treasure," says Luke Chao, founder of Done For You Dating. "The treasure is there, but it takes an incredible amount of digging through dirt before you find it. And most busy professionals don't have that much time or emotional energy to spare."
Here's a message from the founder, Luke Chao:
According to Done for You Dating, company dating representatives, who pose as you on online dating services, are "skilled writers who are knowledgeable about popular culture. They receive specific training in online dating and personal branding."
"We promote the client's best qualities," says Sue Bedford, a representative at Done For You Dating. "It's already a borderline immoral service, so we go the extra mile to represent clients fairly, accurately and factually."
Joe's Comments
I thought I'd heard of everything when it comes to online dating, but I was wrong. This is absolutely unbelievable. There's already enough problems with people lying in their profiles. Now a company wants to pose as you to arrange dates? What's next, a service that actually sends a representative on a date to make sure they look like their photo? And what happens when you take back over your communications and suddenly your whole writing and interaction style has changed? This is a bad, bad, idea...
(Online Dating Industry Journal) eHarmony has announced its eHarmony Free Communication Weekend event for July 2009. The Free Communication Weekend will take place from Thursday, July 2 through Sunday July 5. During that time, anyone who is signed up on eHarmony will be able to communicate with their matches for free even if they are not a paying member.
eHarmony has done its free communication weekend events for several years. Initially they started by doing one every quarter. Now there are Free Communication Weekend events on an average of one every seven weeks.
Also, Online Dating Magazine has just posted two new eHarmony promotion codes.
Below we've embedded one of eHarmony's more recent commercials. Does anyone else miss the old eHarmony commercials against the white backdrops that were so easy to spoof and then copied by TV shows like "Here Come the Newlyweds"?
(Online Dating Industry Journal) Skyecandy, a service that allows users to do video speed dating on Skype, has put out an online demo of its service (see below) as the company prepares to take its service global. Skyecandy is offering free beta tests of its software on its Website as the final touches are put on the program before its global launch. A global launch date has not been announced.
Here's the demo of the service:
Skyecandy is software you download onto your computer. You register and log in and join speed dating sessions that start every six minutes. Each of your speed dates last five minutes followed by a 1 minute interval where you decide whether or not you'd like to get to know the person you just had a speed date with more or not.
(Online Dating Industry Journal) While reading Dave Evans excellent recap of iDate 2009, I came across a video from Blackbox Republic giving their view of iDate 2009:
Here's a direct quote from the video:
"Internet Dating has come and gone. It is over. It has jumped the shark. The pay to view another profile model is antiquated at best."
Somewhere along the line, I must have missed the memo. I'm not seeing the mass exodus from dating sites that she talks about. In fact, last I checked, the major Internet Dating sites have all seen growth this year over last year. Is that truly a sign that Internet Dating has come and gone? That it is over?
The simple fact is that Internet Dating is far from gone. Companies that remain stale, don't advertise, and don't listen to feedback (i.e. American Singles) will be a thing of the past, but as a whole the industry is still growing and Internet Dating will grow with it. LavaLife has shown that it wants to keep tuning its model (i.e. adding a Speed Dating option), but it still remains a "pay to use" service and it is seeing a lot of growth. Match.com is growing. eHarmony is growing. PerfectMatch is growing. This is hardly a sign of the industry being dead and having jumped the shark. But then again, maybe it's like the stock market and it will get so big that it just explodes.
I don't think so. What do you think?
(Online Dating Industry Journal) Julie Spira put together a photo montage of the iDate 2009 event that you can view below. This was the West Coast iDate that took place last Thursday and Friday...
a. Overstating the number of Great Expectations’ participating members, including the number of Milwaukee-area members;
c. Overstating the number of members in particular age ranges or other categories;
d. Overstating the number of marriages that occur between Great Expectations’ members every month;
e. Misrepresenting Great Expectations’ conduct of criminal background checks and screening out of prospective members with criminal histories; and
f. Misrepresenting the purpose for obtaining prospective members’ credit information.
(Online Dating Industry Journal) It's no secret that Today contributor Gail Saltz isn't a big fan of online dating. In her question and answer column, she compares online dating services to the lottery, saying that online dating services sell "dreams". The subtitle of the column is, "Dr. Gail Saltz cautions that meeting romantic partners online is too risky."
In a recent Q&A column, Gail Saltz, who is also author of the book Anatomy of a Secret Life, published a letter from a person who had been scammed out of their life savings from someone they communicated with on an online dating site. In part, she says:
"...I do think that many advice-givers offer warnings and safety tips, but they are often drowned out by gushy stories of people finding their 'soul mates' and being struck by 'love at first sight.' These success stories make the news because they are so unusual.
Remember: Online dating services are companies selling a product. In some ways, they are like the lottery selling a dream. They promote their successes and not their failures..."
She properly warns people looking for love online to be extra cautious and it's advice that all online daters should heed. However, she fails to put the story into perspective of the success people have had with online dating which is why it continues to be the preferred medium for people to find a date.
Joe's Comments
Overall, it was a good answer by Gail Saltz, however she makes it sound like the news only talks about success stories when it comes to online dating. At Online Dating Magazine, we've found the opposite to be true. The news media focuses most of its time on scams, fraud, crime, etc. related to online dating versus the hundreds of thousands of people who have found their soulmate online.
