POF (Plenty of Fish)

Here are some dating statistics from the POF Blog. I believe these numbers are for 2011 and just concern the United States.

• There are 54 million singles
• Of those 10 percent (5.5 million) are currently using a dating service
• 2.6 million pay for the service leaving 2.9 million that do not.
• Overall 8.8 million have tried online dating

According to the US Census in 2009 there were 95.9 million unmarried people in the US. So I guess about 40 percent of those must be in some sort of common law relationship and just have not married. I believe that the 10 percent figure of people who use dating sites probably has not changed much over the last 5 years. The trick now for dating sites is to get the other 49 million to try online dating.

Syphilis is not generally the first thing that comes to mind when I think of things that make me laugh, but a new faux-dating site, part of a government campaign in Alberta, is doing its best to help Canadian citizens giggle their way to good health.

Alberta Health Services, in conjunction with Alberta Health and Wellness, recently unveiled a $2-million campaign to raise awareness about the rising syphilis rate in the province. Alberta's rates of sexually transmitted infections are the highest in Canada, and syphilis in particular has spiked in recent years. The campaign includes radio and television advertisements, as well as a parody of the online dating site Plenty Of Fish - PlentyOfSyph.com.

With witty catch phrases like "Spread the love!" and "be a part of something infectious today," PlentyOfSyph.com is garnering plenty of attention. The faux-dating site features imaginary profiles like that of beardedclam_69, who says "Let's not waste time. I like doing things in person;-) msg me now and I'll show you my 4 sexy tattoos, 2 hot piercings, and 50 small bumpy rashes on my body - and if your lucky I'll let you graze your tongue over each and every 1!!!" Another fictional user, Sapphic4syph, says she's looking for someone with whom to walk "rash-covered hand in hand through the forest."

But PlentyOfSyph.com is not all about stomach-turning profiles and graphic photos - the site also offers information on where to get tested in Alberta, and includes links to general information on STIs.

While some, like Angela Mulholland of CTV news, are calling their approach a "refreshingly funny take on a serious health problem," others, like the CEO of PlentyOfFish.com, Marcus Frind, are less amused. "You'd think the government of Alberta would have better things to do than spend millions of dollars creating a parody of Plentyoffish.com and than flood the Print/ TV/Radio with it," he wrote on the Plenty Of Fish blog. "Yes syphilis is a serious issue, effecting ~200 people a year in Alberta. What I don't get is why parody a mainstream dating site? It's completely the wrong demographic in many, many ways. The average age of Plentyoffish is 39 years old not 19."

Alberta officials are sticking by their campaign. "Alberta Health Services has not been contacted by, nor received correspondence from, Plenty of Fish," Shannon Evans, spokeswoman for AHS, wrote to the Calgary Herald.

So far, the eye-catching campaign seems to be working: the site has had 14,000 visitors since going live a week ago.

For more information on the dating site spoofed by Alberta Health Services please read our review of Plenty Of Fish.

According to the blog "Breaking the online dating sound barrier”, the dating site Plenty Of Fish only accepts users from Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Spain, France, Germany and Italy. I did try creating a new user from China and I didn't have any problems (I had the account deleted), so POF must check the IP of the user to see what country it is from before they allow them to register.

The other bit of news about Plenty Of Fish is, it now supports 4 languages. Before now the site was only available in English. As of a few days ago French, German and Spanish versions can be accessed with an Italian version coming soon. This means any text from the user interface (menus, links, etc.) along with all help and information pages are available in the language. The only thing that doesn't get converted is any text a user may have typed for profile fields like the About Me section.

For more information on this story you can check out Fernando's Blog and to find out more about this dating site you can read our Plentyoffish.com review.

Well, it has been complained about for years and now Plenty Of Fish has finally done something about it. Last week their redesigned dating site went live.

As far as I can tell the content hasn't really changed, they basically re-skinned the dating site (like adding a new theme in a WordPress site). The color pallet has not changed much, we still have the turquoise blue color as the main color. The use of color has improved in my opinion though with the text and titles in colors that complement the turquoise. The header has also shrunk significantly on the site. Gone is the tag line "Free Online Dating" and the little fish image logo which is replaced by just the title "PlentyOfFish".

The new theme does give Plenty Of Fish a more professional, modern and sleek look. I think they made a mistake and created the header to small and they should have included a logo. Without some sort of logo, I feel the site will lose a bit of its identity which is something you do not want to do in the competitive world of online dating.

One thing I wish they did update was the displaying of the thumbnail of the profile photos. Plenty Of Fish still stretches those images when viewed in a search. I understand the need for a uniform size but I think this could be accomplished by just shrinking the image based on the height and keep the width proportional. If the width of the image is still too big they could then crop it to the correct size.

Here are two snapshots of Plenty Of Fish. The one on the left was taken today and the one on the right is from August 2010.

To find out more about this dating site, you can check out our review of Plenty Of Fish.

One of the world's largest free online dating sites, PlentyOfFish.com, has been hacked. The site released the following official statement:

On January 18th, after days of countless and unsuccessful attempts, a hacker gained access to Plentyoffish.com database. We are aware from our logs that 345 accounts were successfully exported. Hackers attempted to negotiate with Plentyoffish to "hire" them as a security team. If Plentyoffish failed to cooperate, hackers threatened to release hacked accounts to the press.

The breach was sealed in minutes and the Plentyoffish team had spent several days testing its systems to ensure no other vulnerabilities were found. Several security measures, including forced password reset, had been imposed. Plentyoffish is bringing on several security companies to perform an external security audit, and will take all measures necessary to make sure our users are safe.

In an extremely strange and rambling blog post, PlentyOfFish CEO Markus Frind tells his side of the story. He describes the event as an "an incredibly well planned and sophisticated attack," and says that the man responsible, a 23 year old hacker named Chris Russo who allegedly also hacked the popular torrent site The Pirate Bay, harassed his wife and blamed the security breach on "the Russians." According to the post, Frind's wife received a call from Russo saying that PlentyOfFish had been hacked, and that "Russians have taken over his computer and are trying to kill him, and his life is in extreme danger and they are currently downloading plentyoffish's database." Frind says that he was listening in the background, closed the security breach, and immediately ordered an investigation.

Frind goes on to say that Russo demanded that he fly to either Argentina or Washington, D.C. in order to stop "the attacks from the Russians," who supposedly had access to their bank accounts and were looking to steal $30 million from a string of dating sites. According to Frind, Russo also claimed that 5 or 6 other dating sites had been breached, and then gave Frind the administrative password for eHarmony.com to prove the validity of his claim.

Reactions to the hack have been strong. Dave Evans, an analyst who follows the online dating industry, told CTV News that Frind is "a self-made millionaire who's a total hardcore geek and has built most of the site himself." He continues to express disappointment, saying that Frind "hasn't spent evidently any time on securing passwords" and calling his actions "a lack of respect for your members."

In the same article, PlentyOfFish forum user fnord is quoted as saying "The site owner didn't think it was important to notify the users...but did find it important enough to go off on a crazed diatribe on his personal blog. Despite claiming to have plugged the security hole, Plenty of Fish is still sending out passwords in plain text, which is just this side of just posting them on the Internet for everyone to see." User QuasarDJ adds "I have grave concerns about the security of my personal information on the Plenty of Fish site and I've yet to see even the most simple updates to guard against these problems."

While the convoluted story has yet to be completely confirmed, it's clear that a hack of PlentyOfFish has occurred and that it's in the best interest of all members to change their username, email, and password combinations, particularly if they are also used on other sites.

For more information on this dating site you can read our review of PlentyofFish.

Our poll for the 2010 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award which we started October 2nd, 2010 had almost 800 people cast their votes by the beginning of January 2011. This is the second year in which we asked our visitors to recommend the best free dating site for the year. A free dating site has to offer most features of the dating service for free. This includes creating a profile, advanced searching and communication by mail messages. Some of these free services may offer a paid upgrade of a membership which gives the user additional features but in order to be considered free by us, a free member should still be able to use the site to find and communicate with their matches at no cost.

The recipient of the 2010 Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site is PlentyOfFish.com. This is the second year in the row that they have received this award. In total they gathered 267 votes which is 33 percent of the total and they were recommended 14 percent more than the second most recommended free dating site. When you compare the results to the previous year’s poll, in 2010 singles preferred PlentyOfFish.com 4 percent more than in 2009.

Here are the final results of the poll:

1. PlentyOfFish.com
2. Craigslist
3. OkCupid.com
4. DateHookUp.com
5. Mingle 2
6. Matchdoctor.com

This year's runner up was Craigslist with 19 percent of the vote followed by OkCupid with 18 percent of the vote. PlentyofFish.com had an additional 114 votes (or 14% more) over the runner up Craigslist. Following OkCupid was Datehookup.com with just over 12 percent of the vote. Mingle 2 came in at 7 percent followed by Matchdoctor.com with 5.5 percent.

Read our review of PlentyOfFish.com.com for more information about this online dating service or visit Plenty of Fish directly.