Types (Niche)

The great thing about online dating is that it opens up the opportunity to meet millions of people you never would have met otherwise.

The downside to online dating is that it opens up the opportunity to meet millions of people you never would have met otherwise. It's hard enough to choose a mate in real life - how can you possibly be expected to choose one when the digital pool you're picking from is so vast?

Enter the solution: niche dating sites. Online dating giants like Match and eHarmony may have the greatest name recognition, but niche dating sites are rapidly finding their way into the spotlight. Here's why:

1. You already have common ground. One of the hardest things about online dating - and about dating in general - is getting the conversation started. On nice dating sites, you already know you have at least one thing in common. No need to stress out about coming up with the perfect conversation starter.
2. Quality over quantity. Yes, the number of options on a niche dating site will be smaller than the number of options on a major dating site, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's easy to get lost in the crowd on a big dating site, but on a niche site you could easily find yourself connecting with someone you missed the first time around.
3. Passion is encouraged. Maybe you hesitated to talk about your sci-fi obsession, religious beliefs, or committed vegan lifestyle on your OkCupid profile for fear of scaring away potential dates. But on a niche dating site, you're supposed to bond over your passions, hobbies, and beliefs. You can be who you really are, and meet interesting people while doing it.
4. Having fewer options is actually a good thing. Remember what I said about how hard it is to make a decision when you have so many options? That's actually a scientifically proven fact. Research done at Northwestern University found that being presented with too many possibilities can actually make it more difficult for you to pick one. The fact that niche dating sites have fewer members might actually work in your favor.
5. They get to the root of compatibility. 81% of singles agree that sharing an interest in the same activities is one of the most important factors in a successful relationship. It's not that you can't find that on a major online dating site, it's just that niche dating sites have already done a lot of the hard work for you.

Does all that mean you should delete your Match.com profile immediately? Of course not. But you should consider adding a niche dating site to your online dating regimen. You never know where your next love might be hiding.

A recent article in The New York Times interviewed Rabbi Yaacov Deyo, whose name is not well-known in the dating world. But it should be.

Back in 1998, Rabbi Deyo was brainstorming with some friends in his L.A. living room about how he could best serve the local Jewish community. This group included many entertainment industry execs, including game show producers. When the subject of love and how to meet romantic partners came up, the concept for speed dating was born.

A few weeks later, the rabbi was at a local Coffee Bean blowing a whistle as couples table-hopped one to the next, spending ten minutes at a time talking to each person. Little did he know the impact it would have in the dating world.

Soon, speed dating started popping up everywhere. It was no longer just the rabbi's idea - others had taken hold of it and used it in their local towns and communities. Speed dating was even featured in an episode of Sex and the City, where it was exposed to millions of people who were interested in trying it.

Since then, speed dating companies have expanded around the world. While the popularity of speed dating has waned in recent years, it is still a concept that many people find intriguing, if fewer are willing to try.

As a former speed dating host, I saw my fair share of awkward first dates and conversations that were stilted. They informed me of how to be a more engaging date. I was also inspired by the many people who put themselves out there to find love.

Speed dating is an interesting way for single people to meet. Some think it works best to introduce people who come from a similar culture, background, profession, etc., who would find it otherwise hard to meet people of their same faith or occupation but who have something in common. It gets a little more complicated when an event is open to the public. There isn't much filtering that can be done at events, other than by age or location. So, you really don't have much control over the types of people you're meeting.

While this can be frustrating, it can also be liberating. You could meet someone that you'd never choose on an online dating site, but in person you hit it off. Also, it forces you to engage with people who aren't necessarily your type. Speed dating is a great way to get past all those hang-ups we have about who we "should" date. It shows you that there are many kinds of people in the dating world, and some of them may surprise you.

It seems that the desire for online dating has reached even the most religiously conservative societies. According to The Jerusalem Post, the Palestinian Authority's Supreme Council has legalized online dating, but with a catch. Daters must abide by Shari'a rules, which means communication between members must be with the intent to marry.

Though Islamic scholars have dismissed online dating in the past, the council stated that the mingling of men and women online was now "a central characteristic of our time" and "unavoidable." This opens the door for many Muslims to date outside their social circles and provides more opportunity for meeting people than ever before.

Islamic dating websites have emerged in recent years, modeling themselves after other popular religious dating sites like JDate. But many Islamists, including Palestinians, already converse freely over social networks like Facebook and Twitter, according to The Times of Israel. It seems that allowing online dating was the obvious next step.

"They've been calling me clairvoyant and I guess I am because I just get these weird 'flashes,' I call them, or premonitions at the oddest times and in the oddest places."

I know I'm not the only one who reads something like that and thinks "Oh God...no thank you. Not in a million years would I trust someone who speaks like that to find the partner I'm going to spend the rest of my life with."

For the past 21 years, however, Janis Spindel has been proving my prejudice wrong. As a professional matchmaker, she has helped everyone from politicians to business magnates find lasting love. She estimates that her matches have led to about 1,000 marriages, even more relationships, and over $5 million in revenue in last year alone.

Sure, maybe it's clairvoyance that tells her who's likely to hit it off, but I think the explanation she gave to Forbes is more likely: "I am a people person from the get-go," she said. "I can talk to anyone, anywhere, any time and in five minutes I can find out more than you could in dating somebody for six months. It's mind-boggling. I ask the questions, I fire them away, and they just answer them."

Spindel turned her natural talents into a professional pursuit after the fourteenth couple she'd introduced called to tell her they were getting married. She began with a 51-gues networking party at Ovo Café in New York City in 1993. 34 people connected in the party, and her business has been successful ever since.

Today her company has 17 employees and a yearlong contract with her (which is good for 12 introductions) runs NYC-based clients $50,000 upfront plus another $50,000 on the backend if they are successfully matched and stay with that person for a year. If you're out of state, the $50,000 on the backend stays the same but the upfront cost doubles to $100,000. And if you'd like Spindel and her staff to travel to you, you're look at a $250,000 fee and another quarter million on the backend if your match is found.

There are other options for those who have less disposable income, but nothing that comes close to "economic." Love is big business, and clients are expected to pay up for Spindel's unique expertise.

Janis Spindel explains her 3 date rule:

Most recently, Spindel has expanded her services to include a gay division and online dating. Her company has started its own free dating site, 2LoveToday, that uses her staff to make matches for customers who want to pay a premium fee. Her next move is to build a presence in India and begin her expansion into Asia. Clairvoyant or not, the woman certainly seems unstoppable.

There's big news coming out of the Coffee Meets Bagel camp: the free online dating site that provides one match every day at noon is expanding nationwide and releasing an iOS app.

Coffee Meets Bagel launched in New York City in 2012, when three sisters decided there must be a better way to date in the Big Apple. They created CMB based on three guiding principles:

1. Unless you want to tell others, your dating life should remain private.
2. Your friends are the best conduits for your dates.
3. Meeting quality people doesn't have to be so awkward or complicated.

Users sign up through Facebook and receive one match - a.k.a. a 'Bagel' - every day at noon that is somehow connected to them. Members then have a time limit in which to respond with a simple LIKE or PASS. If all goes well, Coffee and Bagel are put in touch via a private company texting line and magical breakfast-y sparks will fly.

Co-founder Dawoon Kang says that with the new iOS app, Coffee Meets Bagel is hoping to find the happy medium between traditional online dating services and the current trend of more casual dating apps. "We want to deliver you a very good-quality match, one that you would expect from subscription services, but with the fun of mobile apps," she told TechCrunch.

Coffee Meets Bagel is full of gamified elements that are bound to work well in a mobile context. Members earn 'coffee beans' in the app when they perform certain actions like inviting friends or filling out information. They can then use the beans to purchase special features, like the ability to return to a missed match or a score and ranking. Coffee beans can also be purchased separately.

After its successful launch in New York City, CMB expanded to Boston and San Francisco, followed by Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. The service is now being released to everyone, but the sisters warn that it could hit a few stumbling blocks along the way. In smaller cities with fewer users, the app may not be able to provide a daily match until word spreads and more local users have signed up.

"As we grow, our member base is going to become a lot more diverse," Kang says. "[We'll] have to refine the algorithm very quickly ... to be able to deliver a personal, relevant match." Coffee Meets Bagel has already made more than 1.5 million matches, so it sounds like that diversity isn't far off.

That's the question posed by Cliff Lerner, founder and CEO of SNAP Interactive, in a recent article on HuffPost.

Personally I like to think we've already decided that online dating is cool, but maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better. Maybe the rest of the world isn't as on-board with the idea as the social and professional circles I run in. For those people, Lerner says, the launch of Graph Search could make all the difference.

When Graph Search was announced, online dating sites went a little bit insane. Some feared that because it could meaningfully connect singles through friends and common interests, it would mean the end of traditional dating sites. It even includes the option to search by "relationship status," making it clear that dating is a key element of the new feature.

"The concern," Lerner explains, "is that singles will gravitate more and more towards Facebook for their online dating needs since Facebook already has superior data and profiles and now is offering enhanced friend and interest-based search and matching functionality for singles."

But fear not, online dating sites, because Lerner also says that line of thinking "couldn't be more wrong."

Facebook's Graph Search could be a valuable opportunity for dating sites. Currently only 1 in 5 singles visit a dating site each month, and the biggest opportunity dating sites have for growth is to crush the stigma associated with them once and for all. The best way to get that remaining 80% of singles to log onto online dating sites is to make it seem as normal as possible.

Enter Graph Search, which subtly blends online dating functionality into the Facebook experience. With the addition of "social dating" to Facebook, a brand new crop of singles is being introduced to online dating in an understated, but effective, way. And once they get a taste of what it has to offer, there's a good chance they'll turn to online dating sites to get more out of the experience.

Voila - Facebook Graph Search might actually be doing the online dating industry a favor, not driving a nail into its figurative coffin.

"It's only a matter of time before the online dating industry says a huge "thank you" to Facebook for removing the online dating 'stigma,'" writes Lerner, "and thus enabling millions of more singles to enter the 'online dating' market, which will ultimately expose many new millions of singles to destination dating sites."