General News

After two years together, POF has ended its relationship with speed dating and singles event company FastLife.

POF CEO Marcus Frind saw a bright future for the union in 2013. "The direction of online dating is undeniably headed towards a merging of the online and offline worlds,” he said. “Currently our users host over 300 events worldwide each month. Now more than ever, we understand the importance of offering singles innovative, new ways of connecting face to face."

The plan was for POF to invest $30 million into live events over a period of 12 months. Competition in the arena was ramping up. Mega-companies like Match had introduced live events. Services like HowAboutWe were focused on getting online daters off their computers and into the real world. Location-based apps that linked nearby singles for insta-dates were becoming increasingly popular.

The time seemed right for POF to team up with FastLife, a company that held around 2,400 events a year in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. FastLife's exceptional service and venues generated annual revenue of ~$2.5 million. Could rounding out its offerings be what POF needed to take things to the next level?

The answer turned out to be 'no.' POF dropped FastLife in June 2015, 21 months after acquiring the company and 2 months after closing eVow. eVow had been launched to compete with dating sites focused on long-term relationships, but proved unsustainable after 5 years.

Now that POF has lightened its load, what's next for the dating site?

Like many of its competitors, POF is focused strongly on mobile. Frind told an interviewer at the 2015 Traction Conference in Vancouver that 90% of POF's business is now conducted on smartphones. POF is concentrating on keeping its brand strong, so mobile users will continue to choose it over other options in the app store.

POF is also concentrating on maximizing messaging. The more messages a user sends, the more likely they are to get a response. The more responses they get, the more likely they are to go on dates. The more dates they go on, the more likely they are to enter a relationship and have a successful online dating experience. Currently, around 30 million messages are sent each day on POF.

As far as revenue is concerned, POF has opted for a “freemium” model. Rather than a traditional subscription service, POF offers its basic features for free. Users can then choose to upgrade or add features for additional fees. With more than 100 million users and a rumoured $100+ million in annual revenue, it's hard to argue with the POF approach.

2015 is a momentous year for Match.com. The site debuted in 1995, making this its 20^th birthday. In a world that's hit with a new app – the next big thing! – practically every other day, that kind of longevity is something to celebrate.

The world has changed drastically since Match first hit the scene. The intense stigma around online dating is all but gone. And though Match used to be the only one in its class, it's now one of thousands of dating services competing for attention.

In honor of two decades in the biz, Match CEO Sam Yagan sat down with Here & Now’s Lisa Mullins for View From The Top on NPR. He shared his insights on getting ahead and staying ahead in a competitive industry, and the impact Match has had on the world.

Yagan is a firm believer in the power of numbers. “When the choice was: Do I want my love life determined by a psychologist or a mathematician,” he says, “I pick mathematician every day of the week.” He happily puts his trust in online dating algorithms and data as a means of finding love.

However, he also admits that they have limitations. “I think it’s unrealistic to say that we can look through millions of people and find the one person who is best for you,” he adds, “but what we can do is of these millions of people, here are the top 100 that might be the best for you.” It's up to you to do the rest. A dating service may one day be able to predict chemistry well enough to identify “the one,” but Yagan speculates that it's still a long way off.

As CEO, Yagan goes to great lengths to keep Match on top. His first focus is the customer. He regularly asks friends, family, and other singles what's going on in their dating lives, so he knows what pain points his product can solve. He also keeps an eye on the competition. “I have all of our competitors’ apps on my phone,” he says.

So far, his strategies are working. Yagan isn't shy about discussing the influence of Match. “If you think about products that really impact humanity,” he says, “dating is one of the most influential out there.”

It's not just about helping people find love for Yagan. It's about breaking down barriers and expanding horizons. He adds, “The relationships that come out of online dating cross more boundaries than those that don’t, so I think in that way it’s very influential and it has a huge impact in the trajectory of our society.”

Big words and big promises, but with all Match has achieved so far, the next 20 years of dating are guaranteed to be interesting.

eHarmony is having a free communication event this long holiday weekend. It starts Thursday July 2nd and runs through Independance Day, July 4th, to the end of day on Monday July 6th.

Whether you are using the eHarmony dating app (available on iOS and Android) or their website to access the service, you will beable to not only join as a free member and receive matches, but communicate with those matches for no cost. Free communication events on eHarmony are extremely busy which are ideal for new members to try out the service. If you are someone interested in a long-term relationship then eHarmony with their in-depth matchmaking algorithm that takes into account not only your interests but personality traits is an ideal site for you to try out. They have spent millions in research to refine their service to give you the best chance of finding a partner.

Free communication events do not include the viewing of profile photos, secure call (phone service), or skipping the guided communication process to go straight to sending email.

Read our eHarmony review for a lot more information on this dating service and find out why it is a popular choice with singles looking to find long-term relationships.

Every week, someone's in the news with a cautionary tale of online love gone wrong. Online dating critics are quick to point out the threat of scammers, but how big is the risk really?

Apparently a lot bigger if you live in China. A new study of the largest online dating site in China discovered hundreds of thousands of con artists, and their scams are far more intricate than simply lying about their age or adding an inch to their height.

The study, “Quit Playing Games With My Heart: Understanding Online Dating Scams”, is a collaboration between University College London and Jiayuan. Together they analyzed more than 500,000 profiles, drawn from Jiayuan’s 100 million users, which had been flagged as scam accounts.

The most popular scam – fake profiles promoting escort services – will be familiar to users of any dating service in any country. What's really interesting are the more intricate, culturally specific cons.

Take “the flower basket.” In this scam, lonely middle-aged women are targeted by “attracive mid-age men” who contact them and develop an entirely digital romantic relationship. Once a solid connection has been established, the man will imply that he wants to get married, but that his parents require a gesture of goodwill.

He'll then explain that the gesture is an expensive flower basket that can cost as much as $20,000. The man will refer his target to a florist he has teamed up with, who gives him a cut of the money after the purchase is made.

In another surprisingly ingenious scam, a female fraudster is hired by the owner of an expensive restaurant. She joins a dating site and asks a target to take her to the restaurant she's affiliated with. She'll run up an enormous tab (anywhere from $100 to $2,000) during the date, then disappear, never to be heard from again.

“The success rate of this type of scam is much higher [than traditional online scams],” write the researchers, “because the scammer leverages the desire of the victim to meet an attractive woman. In addition, it is likely that the victim will never realise that he has been scammed, since the date really happened, and the victim possibly had a good time.”

It’s also, according to the study, not strictly illegal, so the con artists involved don’t put themselves at much of a risk. That's some seriously next-level scamming.

Just be glad these shakedowns haven't made their way abroad yet. Or have they? Be on the lookout for pricey flower arrangements.

Online dating sites have long wrestled with replicating the experience of dating in real life.

Offline, the love of your life may find you at any moment. You could be standing in the produce section of the grocery store, wondering how to tell if a cantaloupe is ripe, when suddenly an attractive stranger appears to help you pick. It's all about serendipity.

Online, dating feels calculated. You'll never randomly bump into The One. But if U.K.-based Tab has anything to say about it, serendipitous meetings could soon be a part of your digital dating life.

Tab isn't a dating website. It's not a trendy new mobile app. In fact, it's a browser extension for Chrome. Every time a user opens a new tab, they're shown a potential match. If they're not intrigued by what they see, they simply carry on with business as usual. If they do feel a spark, they click a heart button. Mutual “hearts” are connected.

"Imagine you could bump into the love of your life on any corner of the Internet, just like in real life," Shib Hussain, one of Tab's co-founders, told Fast Company. "It was a light bulb moment. We were discussing how online dating is actually pretty time consuming, regardless of what platform."

“You have to actively look for people, switching from ‘not looking’ to ‘I am looking.’ And this isn’t how it is in real life," he said. "You just bump into people and it just happens."

Tab works its magic based on the profile users fill out during sign-up. The fledgling company is also testing out a more intriguing concept: matching people based on the types of sites they visit. It sounds ripe for a debate about online privacy, but the idea is interesting nonetheless.

Productivity gurus may also find fault with the extension. Tab is aimed at users over 25 who are trying to find a healthy work-life balance, but it may be hard to focus on the work part if life interrupts every time you open a new tab.

Hussain says Tab is trying to combat that issue with a simple, clean aesthetic. The design is intended to give users information quickly, with minimal annoyance or distraction, so they can get back to their busy days (and all the other tabs they have open).

So far Tab has launched in beta in the UK, and hopes to go live in the US later this year. A mobile version could also be on its way in the future.

Next time you think “I would never be stupid enough to fall for an online dating scam,” think again. According to an FBI report, Americans lost over $85 million through online dating and romance frauds last year.

It seems like common sense not to give money to a stranger you met online, but that $85 million tells a different story. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) had a busy year in 2014 and o ne budding crime trend stood out: the increased use of social media to perpetrate frauds.

“Over the last decade, the growth and popularity of social media has increased,” says the FBI report. “Social media has revolutionized the way people interact with others and has become an integral part of life for people of all ages. Criminals have exploited social media by phishing for unwary users to fall victim to their scams.”

IC3 complaint data shows 12% of the complaints submitted in 2014 contained a social media aspect, including online dating scams. Women over 40 were the worst-hit demographic, with total losses of $68,529,135. Men over 40 followed, with losses of $13,766,588, then men and women 39 and under, at $4,417,280.

The amount lost to romance scams averaged out to a whopping $14,000 per complaint.

In one particularly common scheme, scammers assume the identities of military personnel and pretending to seek relationships online. Once they've made a digital connection with someone who falsely believes them to be trustworthy, the criminals present convincing scenarios involving family tragedies, severe life circumstances, and other hardships in attempt to solicit money.

In most cases, scammers exploit their victims' personal information using compromised accounts or social engineering. The FBI offers the following advice to online daters:

• Be wary of individuals who claim the romance was destiny or fate, and you are meant to be together.
• Be cautious if an individual says they are in love with you and cannot live without you, but need you to send money so they can visit you. If you do not send money or otherwise try to help, they will claim you do not love them.
• Fraudsters typically claim to be from the United States (or your local region), but are currently overseas, or going overseas, for business or family matters.

If you see any of these signs, especially if you see more than one happening concurrently, beware. You could soon be contributing to that $85 million dollars.