Location

In a poll that appears to be from eHarmony (though it is reported on a UK website) found that 19% of married couples surveyed met online. The poll was conducted in 2006 and 2007 and surveyed 10,000 married couples. 17% of these couples met at work with the same percentage meeting through friends. In a similar poll conducted in 2004 and 2005, of the 5000 married couples surveyed, 14% met online, with 20% meeting at work and 17 percent through friends.

In the 2006-2007 poll if you looked at the age group 45-54 for couples, the result showed 31% met online. In the 20 to 44 age range this is much lower at only 18% of couples met online.

I was surprised by the poll results and I would have expected the numbers regarding married couples meeting online to be slightly lower than it was. I wonder what this percentage would be for couples who are not married yet? If this was an online poll (it is not mentioned if it is or not) then I would also expect the numbers of married couples who met online to be higher since the couples who are polled are people who are tech savvy and have been online.

These poll numbers are also backed up by some eHarmony statistics we reviewed a little while ago (see story). If you look at the comments section you will note it is calculated that eHarmony has a 32% to 40% success rate. A success is measured by if a couple who met on eHarmony actually got married.

Go to Mirror.co.uk News for the full story or check out our review of eHarmony for more information on this dating service.

Update - August 16, 2008

I found another news item regarding this survey which gave me a few more facts. It was an online survey and it was done by Harris Interactive.

Australia's largest dating site, RSVP, announced this week that they have launched a dating community for singles in rural and remote parts of their country. Of their 1.3 million members, 25 percent of them state they live in regional areas of Australia. This is up more than 60 percent from 2 years ago. RSVP saw the need of this new community to allow these singles an easier time of meeting other like minded people, where time and distance make a crucial difference.

Not much online dating news as of late since we are in the midst of the most popular weeks people go on holidays. I did find a well written article from Times Online that looks at one authors humorous view of online dating in the United Kingdom. I especially liked the question he asks:

Is getting drunk and pouncing on the person least able to resist really less superficial than meeting someone online?

I would say it depends on the dating site! At least with online dating sites you can take peoples interests and goals into consideration and not just their looks.

In the end the author says that internet dating is a "no-brainer" for single people serious about finding a match. After looking for someone special at work and the bars, where else do you have to look?

Well it looks like eHarmony United Kingdom has been launched. Originally rumoured to open in June, 2008 the dating site is now accessible (props to the unofficial eHarmony Blog for finding out this). No official press releases as of yet have been found and no links exist on the other eHarmony sites pointing to the new UK dating site.

For a limited time when new eHarmony members living in the United Kingdom sign up, they will receive a free 90 day membership. I would assume, all current eHarmony members living in the UK who signed up at the main eHarmony.com dating service will have the option to be moved to the UK dating site to take advantage of its UK specific matching system. eHarmony United Kingdom will need to get a lot of members fast so they can start competing with other popular UK Dating Services and, giving away free memberships is one way to do it. They will just need the marketing campaign to back it up.

eHarmony UK has partnered with the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) to help predict what makes a couple compatible in the United Kingdom. The Oxford Internet Institute is a department of the University of Oxford and was founded in 2001. A research team from OII gathered relationship data from 1000 married couples living in the United Kingdom that ranged in age from 19 to 81 and with relationships that spanned from under 1 to 65 years. With this data eHarmony was able to come up with a scientific matching system based on their key dimensions of compatibility. This matching system shares many similarities with its US counterpart but differences were found by the UK research team which are now taken into account.

Visit the eHarmony United Kingdom home page or check out our eHarmony UK Review.

Related Story: eHarmony to open a dating service in China

MarketingWeek is reporting that OgilvyOne won the marketing account for eHarmony. I am unsure if this is the entire marketing account for eHarmony or just the United Kingdom part. eHarmony was reported to open a UK specific dating service in June (see story) but that appears to be less and less likely as there is just over a week left this month. Hopefully we will see it by summer's end. I did notice that the domain eHarmony.co.uk is registered but it currently just reroutes you to the eHarmony US site.

For more information on eHarmony, please read our review.

India's matrimony market is estimated to be worth almost $230 million annually (£118 million). This includes online dating and matrimony services which brings in about $13.5 million (£7 million). An Indian matchmaking service called Shaadi.com has become quite popular among singles in the 20 to 40 age range and is now one of India's five most popular sites according to the Britain’s Telegraph newspaper. The dating and marriage service reports it has over 10 million members and is responsible for a million marriages worldwide since its inception in 1997. 6000 profiles are created every day on the site with 60% of them being male. Shaadi.com is not just a website, there are more than 150 Shaadi Centres in 87 Indian cities. This allows parents and children to sit down with a relationship adviser and review the dating services huge database of potential matches.

One of the reasons Shaadi.com succeeds according to the Telegraph is because: