Location

According to a Times article, matchmakers in China have seen an increase in clients ever since the economy started its downturn last year. With the job market frozen in China many young college graduates are not finding any work and are experiencing financial difficulties because of the huge debt of going to school. It is estimated that only 35 percent of the 6.1 million students who graduate this year will find a job. Many young woman are using marriage as a means to ease the financial burden.

Unlike online dating, the matchmaking industry mediates dating through a broker. People who want to find a spouse register at a given agency, and the broker will pick and arrange their dates based on their requirements. The first date usually takes place at the office of the matchmaking business.

Marriage is very important to the Chinese and it is seen almost as a compulsory step for woman. As woman grow older the pressure increases not only though family but friends and the media as well. Many parents agree with their college grad daughters in getting married when work is not found. Some parents will even go out and hand pick the man for them to marry.

New Chinese dating sites like Xiaoyuanlove.com (which means Love on Campus) have seen their member numbers swell. While online dating is not as popular as a personal matchmaking services in China, things are changing fast.

Visit Time for the complete story about Matchmakers in China.

Since the start of the global recession, online dating services in the United Kingdom have grown 13 percent (September 2008 - February 2009). A total of 5 million singles from the UK are now using dating sites. This is 13 percent of the total UK online population. Genders are split evenly and heavy use members were online an average of 4 hours per month viewing and average of 23 pages a day. 65% of UK online daters are 35 or older. The most popular dating site in the month of February was DatingDirect (owned by Meetic, 1.6 million visitors), followed by POF (with 1.4 million) and then Match.com (1 million visitors).

Read NewMediaAge for more information on the story. Visit our DatingDirect review , our POF review and our Match.com review for more information on these dating sites.

I have finished up our new review of the dating site, RSVP. It is the first dating site in our new Australian Dating Site category. I hope to have a few more added to this new dating category by the end of May.

RSVP is owned by Fairfax Digital and currently is the largest Australian dating site with over 1 million members. It uses a stamp/credit system for initiating contact with members and it is free to reply to any message from a member. This is also the only dating site that I know of which Australians can use there mobile phone to access the dating site and receive SMS alerts.

Read the new RSVP review for more information.

The popular UK dating site, DatingDirect, has recently launch a service called DatingDirect Affinity. It is a separate dating site but it is easily accessed through the DatingDirect membership area. DatingDirect Affinity provides a service based on a unique psychometric test. The test is designed to bring together compatible members and to build strong and lasting relationships. It has almost 100 questions that touch on 71 different psychological criteria. The Affinity test will explore your fundamental values, interests and gather information on your views of love, life and family. The test was designed by a group of psychologists who are specialised in psychometrics and dynamics of human relationships. The test is based on the highest standards of analysis as defined by the American Psychological Association and the Educational Testing Service.

Once you have completed the test, you can view your confidential personality report as well as see a detailed breakdown of your compatibility with other members who meet your search criteria. The compatibility is defined by an affinity score, which each member who has taken the test will have. Your personality report is made up of three groups of criteria. These are:

Australia's largest online dating site, RSVP, reported strong growth in membership over their last quarter. They saw a 31 percent increase in members in the first quarter of 2009 when compared to the last quarter of 2008. Men memberships increased by 30 percent while woman jumped even higher at 36 percent. The month of March even had higher numbers than January, which is usually one of the best months of the year.

Apparently even in Australia, online dating sites like RSVP.com.au are experiencing growth while the global economy suffers a recession.

For more on the Australian dating site, you will find our RSVP review here.

The Richard Ivey School of Business (The University of Western Ontario), Intouch Magazine (Winter 2009 edition), has a feature story about the history of a few of their graduates who are successful business men in the online dating industry. Lavalife co-founder Nicholas Paine (HBA ’83) is interviewed first. He talks about his experience in the early 1990's of converting their Tele-classifieds business (Classifieds over the phone) into a web personals site, and by 2001 into the popular dating site Lavalife.

Sam Moorcroft (MBA ’95), is also interviewed about how he started the popular Christian dating site, ChristianCafe.com. In the late 90's Sam had used a U.S. based Christian dating service to meet women locally and on the advice from a friend decided to start a website himself.

The key to the success of Christian Cafe.com was filling a niche in the market. Moorcroft knew from the women he had dated that they wanted to meet believers like themselves.

In the beginning years Sam and his brother held down several jobs to support themselves while they got their online dating site off the ground. In ten years ChristianCafe.com has grown into a multi-million dollar business.

To find out more information about these dating services from Canada, read our ChristianCafe.com review and our Lavalife review.