Online Dating

Now that Valentine’s Day is behind us, many will forget the flowers and pink hearts lining the stores. But they won’t stop dating.

In fact, there are more studies than ever about the state of dating today – starting with Match.com’s annual survey of singles across America. Match found that daters were pretty optimistic, especially guys. More men than women believe in love at first sight, (and more women than men are afraid of commitment). 

Match.com also reveal women prefer their independence, much more than men do. Ninety percent of women want more personal space, 93% want to pursue their own hobbies and interests, and 64% want more time with friends. Most women prefer to wait 1-2 years before moving in, whereas men prefer to move faster – 6-12 months of dating before shacking up.

Also, there is something Dr. Fisher calls “The Clooney Effect” taking place. That is, men are going for intelligent, powerful women. 87% of single men would date a woman who makes ‘considerably more’ money and who is considerably better-educated and more intellectual than themselves; 86% seek a woman who is confident and self-assured, and 39% would also make a long-term commitment to a woman who is 10 or more years older.

So what’s holding you back ladies? It seems like you are in the driver’s seat when it comes to establishing a new relationship. “Technology is dramatically changing how we court, but it can’t change the brain systems for romance and attachment. And today’s singles are setting a high bar for courtship and marriage,” said Dr. Helen Fisher, anthropologist and lead researcher for Match.com’s study.

Zoosk has also come out with a study about the habits and preferences of online daters, so we can get a better picture of what singles are looking for. According to its figures, women like outdoor types – guys who posted pictures hiking, biking and other outdoor activities received 19% more messages than those who didn’t.

Also, selfies aren’t a great thing to use, unless you are expert with the camera. Women who took selfies received 4% more messages, while guys who posted selfies took a hit – they received 8% fewer messages. But the women who took full-body selfies? They received a whopping 203% more messages.

In both studies, men and women both preferred people who had a grasp of good grammar and spelling. If you chose to answer messages with “cuz” “im” or “u” – on average, you received 13% fewer messages on Zoosk. Match.com revealed this was the number one turn-off for daters (even over text), with 54% of women and 36% of men agreeing.

So if you’re looking for love in 2015, put a little time and effort into your search, and keep a positive outlook – you are in good company!

After more than 5 years DateHookup has received a major Facelift. We are a little slow on reporting this since it appears to have happened in October of 2014. Gone is the navy blue and square box design of the Date Hookup of the past. The new DateHookup look is about simplicity with the use of a solid color pallet (in the pastel range) and an interface that takes up the whole browser window.

With the new facelift comes an almost completely updated list of features. Everything from profiles to searching has changed and been minimized. Profiles attributes have been reduced by half and interests have been completely removed. Searching has been reduced to gender, age, and location. You can filter these results by Best Match, Last Online, and Newest Profile. Email communication also have been dropped in favor of quick instant message type texts.

The upgraded membership has changed as well. DH Points are no more and so is all of the profile highlighting and the higher rank in search results. The new VIP Upgrade gives you a site with no ads plus the ability to see who likes you.

While the new interface is much nicer especially the large photo’s used when finding people I am not sure if I like the simpler feature set. It doesn’t really allow you to find people based on personality or interests. You can’t even search for a text phrase to find people using what information they include in their BIO. Because of this Date Hookup is now purely a Hookup only site. This is ideal for a person who wants to find someone who is online now, based on their photo, age, and location.

We plan to soon update our DateHookup review with all of these latest changes.

517,000 relationships. 92,000 marriages. 1 million babies. Those impressive stats come from Karl Gregory, Match.com's UK manager and European director. “We've been responsible for all of those,” he says, understandably proud. “Isn't it incredible?”

It is incredible, and not just because of all the zeroes on those numbers. Match.com is also the most popular dating website in the world and, on top of that, it's one of the oldest. This year it's celebrating its 20^th birthday.

When Match launched in April 1995, it had only 100,000 users worldwide. Today, that number is 75 million users (registered since inception) spread across 40 countries. It all goes back to December 27, 1992 when, dissatisfied with traditional dating methods, entrepreneur Eric Klien created a 170-point questionnaire to game the system. The questionnaire covered everything from horoscopes, to music tastes, to cleanliness. He dubbed it the “Electronic Matchmaker” and uploaded it to his private internet database. Online dating was born.

In 1993 Klien sold his questionnaire and the domain name Match.com. The buyer was Gary Kremen, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who paid $2,500 for it and launched Match as a dating service on the open internet in 1995. “Match.com will bring more love to the planet than anything since Jesus Christ,” he said during an interview.

He may have been right. Though stigma was high in the early days of online dating, 100,000 people registered with Match.com within 6 months of its launch. The next time it was sold (in 1998 to its current owner, IAC), it was for $50 million. Not bad for just a few years of growth.

Klien's original questionnaire is still part of the service, though it's evolved over the years. Now it's known as “Synapse,” the official Match.com algorithm. It evaluates both a user's stated preferences and their actions on the site, offering 6 tailored profiles for review each day. There is some debate about whether dating algorithms have any scientific credibility, but those big numbers at the top mean Match must be doing something right.

These days, Match.com's biggest user-group is aged 25-44 with its fastest growing demographic being the over-55s. There are more men than women on the site, but only slightly. Amongst men, the most common professions are engineering, finance and retail. Amongst women, it's secretaries, teachers and doctors. All sexualities are represented, as are all kinds of relationships. There are people looking for flings, for friendships, and for life-long partners. All these users do a lot of communicating, they send out over 415 million emails a year on Match.com.

Marriages that begin online are 25% more likely to last than marriages that begin in more traditional ways, said a University of Chicago study, so here's to 20 more years of magic from Match.com. To find out more about this service, please read our review of Match.com

While Tinder is looking for ways to increase its revenue stream with new premium service Tinder Plus, it is steering clear of any advertising that affects its service.

Although the company has strategically lent its brand to clever marketing campaigns - like Gillette’s facial hair survey and Domino’s Pizza Valentine’s Day campaign – they have avoided advertising that would compromise the app experience for users. Namely, in-app advertising.

The Gap however, decided that Tinder was the perfect fit for its new social media-inspired ad campaign: #SpringIsWeird, which included in-app advertising on Tinder. The campaign featured fake “profiles” of the Gap logo with messages including “you’re invited to the pants party” and “we’re taking 30% off all Gap denim,” which would appear when users were swiping through potential matches on the app. The Gap also created a “micro series” on Instagram as part of the campaign.

The Gap announced their campaign to a reporter for AdWeek in a story he promoted on Twitter after it was posted. But Tinder never approved the campaign, and apparently did not know it was happening.

In a tweeted response to the AdWeek reporter, Tinder’s VP of Communications & Branding, Rosette Pambakian, responded: “@GarettSloane we will be deleting those GAP profiles. It violates our TOS. We did not approve this campaign and it is not an ad.”

Trishna Nichols, The Gap’s leader of consumer engagement and brand strategies, described the campaign to AdWeek before the fallout: “We did a little something special on Tinder. It's a guerrilla [marketing] idea where you'll see a profile with clever messaging in the spirit of love and the perfect match. It's the perfect fit for Tinder.”

Unfortunately, the campaign wasn’t a fit for Tinder, and The Gap had never received authorization to post the ads. Tinder’s terms of service state that the service is "for personal use only" and that users may not use the service or any content contained in the service for "advertising or soliciting any user to buy or sell any products or services not offered by the company."

Other companies have done guerilla marketing on the app before, such as in 2013 when USA Network was promoting their show “Suits.” Advertisers for the show posted profiles of the show’s characters on Tinder, and they were not taken down. But now that Tinder is gearing up for creating new revenue streams, it could be that they will be cracking down harder on this type of “organic” advertising.

For now, The Gap will be moving forward with the campaign via social media, releasing an episode a week of its micro series on Instagram.

IAC released its Q4 2014 financial results at the beginning of February, reporting a 9% decline in profit for the fourth quarter from last year. Though revenue growth was in double digits, it was offset by higher expenses that ultimately led to the decline in profit. On the plus side, both revenue and adjusted earnings per share for the quarter beat analysts' estimates.

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

With each new dating app that joins the crowded market comes new promises to revolutionize dating. Every app swears it solves the problems of its predecessors, but one by one they all fall short.

We're patiently (or not so) waiting for the real developers to invent the perfect app, but in the meantime, Mic has taken a stab at solving one of the 21^st century's biggest problems. They've invented a Super App – one app to rule them all.

According to Mic, if one app could solve all the worst parts of online dating, it would need to:

1. Filter out lame opening messages. The Super App would have a built in communications rater so you never have to see another one-word message again. Bristlr, a new social network for bearded men, is currently testing a similar feature. Users can rate the quality of the messages they receive and those who are consistently rated highly get a badge on their profile.
2. Block copy-pasted messages. Everyone has either received a copy-pasted message or been guilty of sending one. Either way, it's not cool. Bristlr is also trying to solve this problem, by automatically sending a notification when a message you've received has been sent verbatim to other people.
3. Prevent men from overwhelming women with unwanted advances. Who hasn't, at least once, thought “I could really use a stalker blocker?” A lot of women are turned off by online dating because they feel overwhelmed by the number of unwanted (and sometimes downright creepy) messages they receive. Tinder changed the game when it limited messaging to people who had mutually indicated interest in each other. It doesn't eliminate the issue completely, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
4. Make sure there's something else you're judged on besides looks. Deep down, we know we're all guilty of making snap judgments based on appearance. Enter dating app Talk or Not, which lets users slowly reveal pieces of their profile photo as their conversation with someone progresses. Looks factor into the process eventually, but not before charm, intelligence, and humor.
5. Weed out the creepers trolling for sex. It's not that there's anything wrong with casual sex between consenting adults, it's just that it gets frustrating to only be approached for sex if you're looking for something more. Mic suggests “A feature that would prominently note that the user in question is looking for a relationship versus strictly hoping to score,” in order to “prevent misunderstandings early on.”
6. Send you matches directly so you don't waste hours swiping though terrible profiles. Because no one wants carpal tunnel. The Super App would take the Coffee Meets Bagel approach and send matches so you don't have to waste time searching and swiping.
7. Keep your profile hidden from people you don't want seeing it. Family, exes, co-workers – none of those people need to know what you're up to online. The League allows users to sync LinkedIn with the app so that you never have to worry about someone unwanted peeping your profile.

Let us know what you'd like to see in the perfect dating app, and for more of Mic's suggestions see the original post.