eHarmony will be running a free communication event this weekend. It starts Friday January 26^th and runs to late Monday January 29^th for eHarmony.com members only.

For new and existing members these events are a great way to try out eHarmony, especially if you are new to the online dating world. There is no cost and no credit card is required. All you need to do is create a free account and profile and fill in the personality questionnaire which takes between 15 and 30 minutes. Once that is complete you will receive your first set of matches (usually about 4 or 5 profiles). You can then go ahead and review each profile and send messages to those you like. Every day you will receive a new set of quality matches from the eHarmony matching algorithm for you to look at.

For more about this online dating service, please check out our review of eHarmony.

Recipient
Plenty of Fish

Plenty of Fish (POF) is the recipient of the Editor's Top Pick - Free Award for 2018. Just like last year, Plenty of Fish continues to give members a great platform to meet and communicate on. This year the statistics are even more impressive. POF now has more than 150 million registered users of which they add 65,000 new ones every day. On average 4 million users log into and use POF every day (website and app). With all of this activity, POF says, every year 1 million relationships are the result of members meeting on their service.

Bumble changed the game when it launched in 2014 and required female users to make the first move. Now Hinge is offering its own take on conversation, and it hopes the new feature will help combat one of online dating’s biggest scourges.

After focus grouping, surveying, and beta testing, Hinge found that conversations frequently fizzled out simply because users had forgotten to respond. To offer a gentle reminder, the company has introduced ‘Your Turn’, a feature that lets users decide – regardless of gender – who makes the first move, and politely prompts you when it’s your turn to respond.

This addresses one of digital dating’s most stubborn problems. Conversations often start strong but are later abandoned - or, as Hinge’s research discovered, are unintentionally forgotten. Your Turn is a tiny-but-effective nudge to remind you that someone is waiting to hear back. In early tests, the feature was found to reduce ghosting by 25 percent.

Recipient
Christian Cafe

For 2018 the Editor's Top Pick - Christian Award goes too Christian Cafe. This dating service has been online since 1999 offering Christian singles a place to connect and communicate. A dating service needs members and Christan Cafe has plenty all over North America. Being online for almost 2 decades Christain Cafe has received thousands of tesimonials from happy customers who have met through their service. These testimonials are available online for you to read with many of them including photos and a long detailed description on how the service has helped them.

With over 25,000 marriages associated with ChristianCafe.com this dating service offers the tools needed to find that perfect partner. When you first sign up as a free member you will notice that beyond the normal profile questions the service asks you Christian specfic ones inlcuding your denomination and how active your are with your church. There is also a section where you can describe more about your Christian faith.

Augmented Reality is the future of dating, at least according to the folks at Feeld. The company whose original app was marketed to those interested in threesomes is betting their new app Signal will be revolutionary for the online dating market.

Signal will hit the market in the summer of 2018 according to Feeld. It works by giving members access to a secret location visible through the app, allowing them to meet people this way instead of endless matching and messaging.

The company notes that most dating apps operate in a way that is counterproductive to what people want. Instead of encouraging folks to meet in real life and leave the app, the apps have created a game-like stickiness. App users become addicted to swiping and being on the app rather than pursuing “real-life” relationships.

OkCupid is shaking things up again. After announcing on December 11, 2017 that it would be overhauling its messaging system to more closely resemble those of competitors like Tinder and Bumble, the company revealed plans for an even more controversial change: a real name policy that marks the end for traditional usernames.

A December 21 blog post explained the reasoning behind the elimination of usernames. The post describes the (often frivolous) pseudonyms as “a pain to come up with and a pain to remember”, and notes that though they can be “a great way to show off who you are”, users are instead encouraged to “use your profile to give people an insight into your interests.”

The change erases a key difference between OkCupid and many of its rivals, which require users to log in via Facebook in order to display their real names on their profiles. The 13-year-old dating service said “it’s time to keep up with the times.”