October is here and the awards season is approaching fast for us. It is time to release the 2016 Single's Choice Award poll.

This poll decides the Single's Choice Award which is given by Dating Sites Reviews (DSR) to showcase what our visitors feel is the best free and paid dating site and/or app in 2016. This award is given out on Valentines Day and is the grand finale of the Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards. The first question of the poll asks you to give your pick for the best paid dating service. The second question of the poll asks you to pick your top favorite free dating service. A dating site or app is only considered free if a member can create a profile, add photo's, search and/or receive matches, along with communicating with messages at no cost and with no credit card required (and with no time limit). Free dating services may still offer some sort of paid upgrade but the core of the features must remain free and enable members to use the service unhindered for free.

Please go ahead and cast your vote in the Single Choice Award:

Astute readers will note that there are still several months of 2016 left, nevertheless, the US Dating Awards have announced this year’s big winners.

Established in 2014 in the UK, the Dating Awards recognize both newcomers and established names in the field. This year marked the first US Awards show in New York City, where journalists, websites, events companies, and bloggers came together to celebrate 2016’s best achievements in Dating Technology, Marketing, Media, Customer Service, Expertise and Entrepreneurship.

The judging panel consisted of a variety of dating experts and industry professionals. Caroline Brealey, founding matchmaker of London dating agency Mutual Attraction, served as head judge. She was joined by Charly Lester, Founder and CEO of the UK Dating Awards, and Charreah Jackson, international coach and the Lifestyle and Relationships Editor for ESSENCE magazine, amongst others.

Tinder is like dessert. A little bit is a welcome addition to your life, but too much indulgence - or worse, addiction - isn’t healthy for anyone.

A spokesperson for the company once claimed that the average user spends a whopping 77 minutes a day on the app. Imagine what you could do with that extra hour - hit the gym, read a book, learn a language, cook a meal, work on your side hustle, grab a drink with friends - things that make your life more interesting, thereby making you more attractive and, yes, more dateable.

Spend too much time on Tinder and you risk entering unhealthy obsession territory (and might actually be hurting your chances of finding a date). Not to mention that hours spent swiping doesn’t guarantee you’ll be hit by Cupid’s arrow. What you might be hit with instead is exhaustion.

So what do you do if you need a break from your smartphone? Take a digital detox and remind yourself of what it takes to date IRL. Below, a short refresher course:

Dating app Momo, China’s answer to Tinder, has been a popular dating app among the country’s singles with a record 75 million users. But in recent weeks, Momo seems to be expanding out of the dating business and into something more lucrative.

For its latest update, Momo executives decided to supplement the app's location-based dating service that matches people through swiping and messaging. Now, the app offers a live-streaming function, catering to music lovers and even musicians themselves. The update allows users to watch their favorite musicians perform live, as well as giving them the ability to interact with the musicians.

Online dating can be a commitment. It’s very rare that online daters meet a perfect match within the first few weeks of signing up – usually it’s a longer process, and we have to cultivate some patience.

That said, it’s easy to get frustrated and quit, only to sign up again weeks later, hoping for a different experience. Or maybe you approach online dating without much motivation, thinking that if you get excited or put too much hope in it, you’re bound to be disappointed.

These aren’t the best approaches to take, obviously. But many times, the fear and sting of rejection can cause us to second-guess ourselves and whether or not we can find someone special. So instead of focusing so much on the rejection, or the potential for rejection, it’s time we looked at online dating for what it really is – a process. Not everyone is going to be a good match with you – in fact, most people aren’t. And we shouldn’t beat ourselves up when we don’t find a relationship quickly, or within a certain period of time.

Online dating requires perseverance, and a lot of effort. It requires motivation, positive energy and outlook, and hope. If you decide to forgo any of these, you won’t get very far. Online dating will become a vicious cycle of disappointment, instead of a practical and efficient way to meet people you wouldn’t otherwise be able to through your own networks.

Nothing makes more of an impact on a prospective date than your profile picture (no, not even that incredibly witty joke it took you hours to write). You can have it all - from the great job to the adventures abroad - but an unflattering photo can score you a left swipe before anyone even makes it to the profile.

There’s a science to getting it right. Researchers have discovered all kinds of strange and hyper-specific facts about the perfect online dating photo (women who wear red, for example, are considered more attractive by men). But at the end of the day, few of us would be happy treating our love lives like laboratory experiments.

Dating needs to be more natural, more spontaneous, less calculated. The goal is somewhere between the extremes - a picture that’s flattering and thoughtful, but not engineered down to every detail. Avoid these four mistakes and you’ll be on your way to achieving the optimal balance.