General News

Wondering if you should try online dating? Before you craft your profile, a new study by Michigan State University and Stanford found that people who met online weren’t as likely to stay together for the long-haul as those couples who met offline.

As it turns out, online dating sites who have been touting their matching success rates may not be telling the whole story. Many couples have successfully gotten together thanks to online dating, but that doesn’t mean they have lasted. The separation and divorce rates for folks who paired up online was much higher than for those who met their partners offline in more traditional ways.

According to the report, 8% of married couples who met their spouses online reported to have ended their marriage in separation or divorce, compared to approximately 2% of married couples who met their spouses offline. And compared to 23% couples who had met offline, 32% of couples who had met online had broken up in the following year of the survey.

In further proof that the Internet is a fickle, fleeting place, it seems everyone has already forgotten about a piece of news no one could stop talking about just a few months ago.

Back in June, Facebook caused a major public outcry when it revealed it had manipulated the news feeds of over half a million users as part of a psychological study to examine how emotions spread on social media. It was a messy situation, to put it lightly, and not long afterwards we found out Facebook wasn’t the only site to experiment on its users.

OkCupid came forward to say that it, too, had manipulated users’ experience - but that it wasn’t really sorry about it. The site’s blog post made the (valid) point that “if you use the Internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That’s how websites work.” Websites - especially dating websites - have to perform tests, otherwise they’d never be able to improve and make the user’s experience as good as it can possibly be.

So when it came down to the question of whether or not you should be upset by Facebook and OkCupid’s actions, opinion was divided.

A University of Maryland law professor is now claiming that Facebook and OkCupid violated a state law when they manipulated customer data as part of company research. Professor James Grimmelmann says the two websites are in violation of a 2002 Maryland law that requires all research on human subjects to have informed consent of the those involved, as well as approval by an ethical review panel.

In response, Facebook’s spokesman Israel Hernandez maintains that the company did not break federal or Maryland law, but says it is examining its internal processes. “We know some people were upset by this study and we are taking a hard look at our internal processes as a result,” Hernandez wrote in an email to the Washington Post. “The requirements specified by the federal Common Rule and Maryland law do not apply to research conducted under these circumstances.”

The allegations are now in the hands of Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, who told the Washington Post, “They’ve already discontinued doing this, so what we’d want to do is talk to them and figure out whether or not what they did was appropriate, whether there was enough notice given to users and whether or not they intend to do something like this again in the future without violating privacy concerns and without giving the ability to opt in or opt out of the testing.”

Most daters gravitate towards what they know when they are meeting potential dates – like those with the same education, socio-economic or religious background. But others are looking to “date upwards,” at least according to websites like SeekingArrangements and SugarDaddie.com.

Money - when it comes to dating - has long been a touchy subject. Men sometimes resent the fact that they are expected to pay for dates, or that some women seem to be gold-diggers looking for someone to take care of them. On the other hand, many women get annoyed by this perception/ stereotype. Some women feel a lack of romance and courting in the current dating environment – wondering why don’t men put a little effort into planning and the pursuit.

Both of these arguments are valid by those who experience such frustration, but not true for everyone.

Brandon Wade, the founder of SeekingArrangments, makes his own argument via an article he penned on CNN.com - that a traditional relationship made by chance meeting and falling in love is not really a viable option. He claims that this doesn’t happen for most people. For men like him who are shy and uneasy around women, there aren’t many options, let alone serendipitous chance meetings. But that changes when you have money, he argues.

He’s not wrong. Plenty of women – and men – are more than willing to take a second look at a potential date if he or she is willing to pay for five-star restaurants or a weekend at a luxe hotel. There’s something very attractive about success and money, and Brandon Wade is quick to point this out: “love is a concept invented by poor people.”

Wade has a rather cynical view of dating, approaching people like he would a business deal where everything is about economic leverage and perceived value. He claims guys like him don’t really have a shot at love unless they can offer something of value that's tangible (like money or lifestyle) to their dates.

He dismisses the more progressive viewpoints of dating and relationships that value gender equality, saying: “Feminists argue that sugaring [men paying for women to date them] reverts women to a submissive, "codependent" lifestyle. But the reality is, we are leveling the playing field. There is no room for feminism in traditional relationships as defined by society. A new generation of independent, strong-willed women has cropped up while society is simultaneously raising boys who fail to ever reach their full potential.”

But how is it that these boys are actually "growing into men" when the only way they feel they can “level the playing field” is by paying for their right to play in the first place?

Some argue that sites like SeekingArrangements are really just an online form of prostitution. But sugar daddy sites obviously have a market and a demand, and people willing to pay and be paid, otherwise they wouldn’t exist.

But giving into Wade's pessimism about dating and relationships only sets us back further. Instead of paying for what you think you deserve, why not try a different approach?

Flirting and kindness never hurt anyone, and have gotten most people a date from time to time. Most people aren't looking for a paycheck - they are looking for love.

To find our complete list of comparable dating services you can check out our Sugar Daddy category.

By now, you’ve probably heard of Tinder even if you haven’t already tried it. The app has taken the dating world by storm, mostly because of its easy access through your phone, simple set-up, and the sheer number of people using it. Tinder makes it seem like dating options are endless.

But accessing Tinder through your phone and looking through each individual match takes way too much time, at least according to some daters. Botinder intends to resolve this problem by offering a desktop version of Tinder, where you can see several potential dates at once.

Developers are launching new unofficial Tinder apps and complementary extensions regularly, just to capture this fast-growing market and capitalize on it with the latest and greatest in dating technology, or at least establishing their own marketing spin. Botinder is an unofficial Google Chrome Extension that allows you to like and dislike Tinder users even faster than you can using the official app. And if there’s one thing Tinder users need, it’s speed. Swiping left and right through each individual candidate is way too time-consuming.

There is a strategy to Tinder which makes technology like Botinder appealing, at least for the guys. By saying “yes” to as many women as possible as quickly as possible, you greatly improve your chances of getting matched (or laid). For the women, it’s a bit different. They tend to be much more discerning, turning down potential matches a lot more often than accepting. With Botinder, they too can dislike matches more quickly, making the process more efficient for everyone.

According to website Business Insider, creating a desktop version of Tinder has been a popular request for a long time. Typically, users had been downloading an Android emulator to run a version of the app, but now this is a much easier way to run it on your laptop, for those who aren’t quite so tech-saavy.

Botinder sorts users by row, allowing you to organize your matches so you can compare or view photos several at a time. There is also a “Booster” function where you can choose “like automatically” and Botinder will start liking every Tinder user near you – multiple people a second – so you can’t really even see who you are liking. But that’s not really the point – it’s actually playing a numbers game with dating. It would take weeks of being a dedicated Tinder app user before you got the kind of instant matching success that is likely with Botinder.

The real question is: will Botinder improve the overall dating experience, or just add to the noise and confusion?

For more information on service this Chrome Extension works with you can read our Tinder page.

eHarmony was on the brink of disaster in 2012, ready to be sold to the highest bidder on the auction block, at least according to a recent article on Online Dating Insider. But the company was determined to turn things around.

According to eHarmony executives, “We took our hard won stash of capital and used $153.2M to buy out all the “Class B” shares, and we began the pursuit of our own company.  We asked five of our former and highly-esteemed board members to step aside and give us a chance to do more of what we needed to do to bring this company back.  We made tough decisions…let some people go, terminated vendor contracts. Moreover, we have cleaned up “our house” by appointing an all-new executive management team that is a more aligned team than we have ever had before.”

For those of us who did not know eHarmony was on the brink of financial ruin, this letter came as a surprise. In the time they were desperately struggling to tread water, Neil Clarke Warren, the company’s founder, came back on board as CEO and reminded the company of the reason they were successful in the first place – their focus on matching for long-term relationships.

While most dating sites and apps have gone in the opposite direction – focusing on quantity instead of quality of matches, and casual meetings instead of long-term relationship potential, eHamorny’s serious focus has paid off.

“Instead of losing 100,000 end of period subscribers each year, suffering...losses of 50% every single year, our EBITDA for 2014 will literally be dramatic and the cash in the bank increasing substantially each month. EBITDA is currently running $9.4M ahead of plan as we work with our forecasts. Our end of period paying subscriber count has hit its all-time high...”

eHarmony was not afraid to get rid of what wasn’t working. Trimming staff by over 30%, they went from about 300 employees to only 190 in all of the U.S., U.K. and Australia. They have also dropped vendors who weren’t contributing to the primary focus of the site – relationships. (That is, focusing on the long-term potential.)

eHarmony’s success rate speaks for itself. It claims to have made more than 600,000 marriages, and has only a 3.86% divorce rate (compared to the over 50% divorce rate of Americans in general).

The company plans to take its technology in other directions besides love. They are planning the launch of Elevated Careers by eHarmony, where they hope to make successful coupling between potential employees and employers by using the same psychologically-based matching system to help people find their dream jobs.

While the company didn’t offer exact figures, they did claim to have hundreds of thousands of users as well as 1.2 million matches. It looks like they have turned things around, though most of us didn’t even realize how much they were struggling.

To find out more about this dating service, you can read our eHarmony review.

There’s no doubt about it, mobile dating is on the rise, and poised to take over the traditional online dating industry.

The figures are staggering: mobile dating apps were a billion-dollar industry in 2011, and by 2016, the market is poised to be worth 2.3 billion. This is a huge opportunity for some of the newer dating app developers, and also an opportunity for traditional online dating companies to improve their mobile platforms, as most have been doing the past couple of years.

While many app companies offer free downloads, they make money through advertising deals or through “freemium” services – that is, offering the basic service for free with added “extras” like more matches or instant communication features for a price.

According to an article in The Washington Post, a recent conference in June brought together people from the tech industry to try out different mobile dating apps for a couple of weeks, to see how they fared. The experiences varied for both men and women, with most agreeing that mobile dating offered a more casual dating experience. However, the more a dating app mimicked real life, the more successful the users’ experience with it.

Many daters find a level of comfort in apps that verify through Facebook or other means, for obvious reasons. With online dating, there is a safety factor to consider, especially for women, when you are meeting a complete stranger. There are also plenty of fake dating profiles with traditional sites and some apps, sometimes used to lure unsuspecting singles.

Most mobile apps however are tied to social media accounts like Facebook in order to verify that the dater is a real person. This adds a layer of security that allow users of an app like Hinge to meet someone they don’t know through friends.

Of course, meeting someone through friends is preferable in real life, so it makes sense that it is also preferable in a mobile dating app. Coffee Meets Bagel is an app that provides matches through your Facebook circles – that is, friends of friends - so you have to have a mutual friend in order to date. According to the company, the more mutual friends two singles have, the more likely they are to say yes to a date. In fact, if they have four mutual friends, they are 90% more likely to say yes.

This isn’t a coincidence. Since so many people are online dating, and dating with technology can feel intimidating to many, it makes the experience easier when you have friends in common.

Will newer dating apps come up with even more organic ways of meeting people? Since the mobile dating industry is only getting bigger, it seems the likely choice.

To find a list of popular services that you can use on your phone, please check out our Dating Apps category.