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We got word of some new features at Perfectmatch.com.

The first one is called "Like It" and it allows members to tell other members if they liked one or more of their photos, personal statements, and the "In My Words" content section. What makes "Like it" personal is the ability to tell the member why you liked the photo or other statements. For example with photos you can select from 6 preselected answers which include telling them you liked the energy of the photo, too their eyes or smile. Once you tell someone you have liked a part of their profile an email message will be sent to them, informing them of this connection.

Another new feature is a quick compare tool. When you click on "Compare Us" when looking at a profile you will be presented with a 2 column layout showing on the left the person you are interested in and on the right your own profile details. This includes a photo, the Duet Analysis showing the Similarity Factors as well as the main parts of the profile that can often be deal breakers in a relationship. Some examples include smoking, drinking and food preferences.

Perfectmatch.com also launched a revamped dating guide called "Life, Love and Dr. Schwartz" which offers a column from their relationship expert, Dr. Pepper Schwartz, as well as content from members including dating disaster stories and their favorite date night recipes. This is also where you go to find the latest Polls and Quizzes on love and relationships. Online safety tips and advice is also available from here as well.

To find out more information about this dating site, read our review of PerfectMatch.com.

According to Date Daily, Mate1.com has launched their 1st annual video contest called "Inglourious Daters". All interested participants need to do, to enter this contest is, make a video about their online dating experiences.

There are a total of 7 prizes:

• 1 Grand Prize of $1000
• First place ($500) and second place ($200) in 3 categories. The categories are "Most Romantic", "Most Popular/Viral" , and "Funniest".

A panel of Mate1.com dating experts will decide the winning videos from the contestants entries based on their viral strengths and entertainment value. The contest will run from March 10, 2010 to June 20, 2010 and is open to people 18 years of age and over.

You can find out more information and rules about this contest on Mate1's Facebook page found here. For more information on the dating site itself, read our review of Mate1.com.

The owner of DateHookup.com, Dustin, wanted to find out if sending a Virtual Gift with your mail message to a member would increase the chance that the member would reply back. He took about 1 million first contact messages from last month (first contact refers to the fact that the member hasn't communicated with the person before) and compared the ones which included a virtual gift with ones that did not.

He found out that it did greatly improve your chances of getting a response. Your average mail message sent on DateHookup without a gift will have a 14 percent chance of getting replied to. With a virtual gift your chances nearly double to 26 percent. It sounds like if you really like the person, it would be stupid not to include a virtual gift to increase your chances of a reply.

I was surprised at the results. I figured that virtual gifts would improve the chance of someone replying, but not by almost 100 percent. Another thing I was surprised about was the actually reply percentage of 14 to 26 percent. I do not know the overall average reply rate, but if an equal number of virtual gift messages were compared with messages without virtual gifts then it would be 20 percent. This means 80 percent of all messages sent that are first contacts go unanswered. Is this reply percentage rate (which feels low to me) a DateHookup problem, or does this average reflect most dating sites which operate similar to DateHookup? I bet this average reply rate is similar across most free sites.

For more on the story visit the new DateHookup Blog. For more about this dating site you can read our review of DateHookup.com.

The United States and Canada have more than 85 million baby boomers (people over 50) and over 25 billion are single. To help these singles navigate the world of relationships and online dating, SeniorPeopleMeet.com recently launched a free online magazine. Senior singles will benefit from articles on love, dating and relationships. They can also expect advice and guidance from marriage and family therapist Dr. Terri Orbuch.

Readers of this senior dating online magazine can expect regular updates and an online interactive experience as well. Polls are available to users and you can submit your dating related question online for Dr. Terri Orbuch.

To find out more about this dating site read our SeniorPeopleMeet.com review.

I was surprised when I learned that 80 percent of members at the dating site Mate1.com have never been married and have remained single. On the flip side this means on average at Mate1, 19% of men and 21% of women have been divorced. When you look at the data by country Ireland comes out on top at 94 percent for men and 91 percent for women who have never been married. Let's look at the data for other Countries:

• United States - 76% of men and women have never been married.
• Canada - 86% of men and 79% of women have never tied the knot.
• United Kingdom - 88% of men and 80% of women.

One other thing that I did find interesting was for all countries, there was always a higher percentage of men who were never married than women. Also, since Mate1 has such a high percentage of members who have never been married this seems to suggest that Mate1 members are more likely to be in their twenties and thirties.

For more on the story (including data for other countries) read Date Daily and to find further details about this dating site, read our review of Mate1.com.

It looks like the rumor was true (see Story), Match.com released a press release yesterday which confirm that they have made a deal to acquire the dating site Singlesnet.com. Financial terms of the deal have yet to be released but Match CEO Greg Blatt did state that Singlesnet will continue to be run largely as a standalone business. Adrian Ong of Match.com will be taking over the helm from the previous owner of Singlesnet, Quinn Lipin. Mr Lipin will still continue to work for Singlesnet.com as an executive.

Singlesnet was once the most visited dating site in the USA back in December 2008. Since then traffic has slowly declined with a major drop happening in February 2009 from 7 million unique visitors to just under 5 million.