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The Forbes website wrote an article called "The Top Online Meat Markets" which talks a bit about some current online dating statistics and lists the top ten dating sites according to unique visitors in the month of June from a tracking company called Nielsen (more famously known for tracking TV viewers). I wasn't really impressed with the title since they are referring to dating sites as meat markets. The term meat market is not meant as a compliment and it tells me the author is not very interested in the story and doesn't think much of the concept of online dating. He further expresses his point of view in this sentence:

Call it calculating, unromantic and maybe even a bit unnatural ...

For a media company whose authors are suppose to leave their opinions at the door unless the topic calls for it, I wonder how this piece got past the editor's desk.

Back in early February, 2009 Date.com started offering Virtual Gifts for sale to its members (see Story). Members could send virtual flowers, chocolates, etc.. to someone they wish to date on the site by purchasing tokens for $1 to $5.

The parent company of Date.com, Avalanche LLC wanted to make sure they met any legal obligations to their members when dealing with Virtual Gifts and tokens. No real laws have been made in regards to virtual gifts in most countries. The closest comparison in the real world they could find was gift cards. Lawyers for Date.com

ultimately concluded that the consumer laws pertaining to gift cards didn't apply.

Date.com decided to make purchasing of gifts as clear as possible in their Terms of Service. Specifically this mainly deals with what happens if a user doesn't use their tokens. Date.com's policy for members inactive more than 365 days is to delete them. Unused virtual gift tokens are then deleted as well, with Date.com keeping the profits. Before your account is deleted from Date.com, multiple emails are sent out warning you of this fact and asking you to log in again.

For more about the dating site, read our Date.com review.

According to The National, there are as many as 40 million singles from the United States who are looking for love on social networking sites and online dating services. With the recent bad press online personals has received lately due in large part of several murderers meeting their victims through Craigslist, The National decided to take a further look at the dangerous side of online dating.

The article brought up several cases, including the 2 Craigslist ones mentioned above.

In April a Boston medical student, Philip Markoff, dubbed the “Craigslist killer” by the media, was arrested and charged with murdering a masseuse who advertised on the popular website’s erotic services section.

Two months later Craigslist was hit with another scandal when it emerged that a North Carolina man used the site to hire a man to rape his wife while the husband watched.

One of eHarmony's senior research scientist is psychologist Gian Gonzaga. He holds a doctorate in personality / social psychology from UC Berkeley. KansasCity.com has a short interview with him where he describes briefly what the core qualities partners need to share to have a successful relationship.

The big ones — some of the most powerful ones — are personality traits. Things like how agreeable of a person you are, how open you are to experience. Are you extroverted? So are you looking for a lot of interactions in the social world? Or are you introverted?

Dr. Gonzaga also talks about why it matters that couples share these types of traits.

Because if you are similar to someone, it’s a lot easier to understand what it is they’re thinking. ... They like to believe that what they think is true, and one of the ways that we do that is to look to other people who have the same interests and beliefs and values. So when we see that in a partner, we feel validated in our sense of self, which makes us feel better and makes us like that person.

He further explains that opposites may attract but, these type of relationships really don't last. If you are really different from your partner, negotiating the way you see things from how your partner does over and over again, as each new conflict situation arises, is extremely difficult to do. Over the long run these type of relationships just fizzle out.

Dr. Gonzaga mentions Compatible Partners as well. This is eHarmony's new dating site for gay and lesbian relationships. He was asked a question about if gay relationships share the same characteristics as a heterosexual relationship:

We think so. The existing literature on same-sex couples indicates that a lot of the same theoretical basis of sharing the same deep values is going to predict better relationships over the long haul. So right now we’re moving on the assumption that the same kinds of models are going to apply well, and then over time we’ll work on that model to tailor it as best as possible.

This is the first time that I know of were eHarmony has said they are going to spend some research money to see if gay relationships actually do differ from heterosexual relationships.

For more information on this popular personality matchmaking site, read our eHarmony review.

The Online Dating Insider, David Evans, was quoted in an article on the Washington DC radio station website for WTOP about online dating safety. Apparently another woman last weekend was kidnapped on a date by a man she met on Craigslist.

In the Fairfax County incident, the 23-year-old woman on her third date with Dennis Rother. Police say while at her Fair Lakes apartment Saturday, Rother ordered the woman to undress, threatened her with knives then told her to get dressed and forced her into the car. Her erratic driving caught the attention of a George Mason University police officer. He followed her and she was able to flee at a stop light.

I believe this is the third reported incident in the last month or so of a woman getting kidnapped or murdered by someone they met through Craigslist.

For more on the story and some pointers on how to be safe on a first date visit WTOP.com.

Craigslist is fighting back from the bad press (see Story) they have received lately due to their Erotic Services classified ads category (which is now the Adult Services Category) and prostitution. They are suing Henry McMaster, the Attorney General of South Carolina for:

declaratory relief as well as a restraining order with respect to criminal charges he has threatened against the company and its executives.

The suit is in response to a threatening email they received from McMaster a couple of weeks ago telling them to either shut down Craigslist in the state of South Carolina or, face a criminal investigation and possible prosecution. Craigslist believes they are now in full compliance of the law because of the changes they recently made to the category (see Story).

For the full story, read Tech Crunch.