General News

Are you an eHarmony or OkCupid user? Chances are, you wouldn’t join both sites, because they cater to two different types of users. eHarmony attracts daters who are more serious and committed to finding a partner, whereas OkCupid skews a bit younger and takes itself a lot less seriously.

But regardless of which online dating site you choose – wouldn’t you want to understand how to use it most effectively, so you could obtain better results? Would you want to know how other people are using the site, and potentially how they are matched and communicate with you?

Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj “Misiek” Piskorski is the author of the newly released book A Social Strategy: How We Profit From Social Media. In conducting research for his book, he obtained data sets from both OkCupid and eHarmony to determine how different demographics communicate, flirt, and connect over the websites. He set out to see the differences in communication styles between men and women as well as older and younger users.

In the course of writing his book, which is designed for businesses with social media presences, Piskorski studied the online dating habits of millions of users. After personal information was made anonymous so it wouldn’t be compromised, he started his search: specifically, how online daters send messages to each other, how they flirt online, and how they use the sites.

In a recent interview with Fast Company magazine, Piskorski said, “Where eHarmony varies dramatically is communication. People reach out to each other more on eHarmony, and get more responses on there. The people you traditionally would think have the hardest time reaching out to people do very well on eHarmony.”

What does this mean in terms of day to day use of the site? Generally speaking, because each person's pool of matches is smaller on a site like eHarmony where the matches are qualified, they tend to have an easier time reaching out. For timid users, it’s an empowering thing – they will message more on a site like eHarmony than on OkCupid when they know they are competing with thousands of other members.

Another reason for the increased communication on eHarmony is due to the fact that older women and men who are older, more overweight, or shorter than average daters are also more likely to reach out on eHarmony without feeling intimidated. Again, the limited number of matches he feels is a primary reason. Because eHarmony users have fewer choices than okCupid users, they are more likely to reach out, especially women, to people they are matched with.

So does less mean more? Perhaps. OkCupid users tended to gravitate towards specific matching services that offered more bite-sized options, too. For women, it was Quiver, which showed them matches that OkCupid thought would be good based on their likes and communication patterns. For men, it was a service called Quickmatch, where they could look at photos and basic profile information and rate the users according to what they find attractive.

Perhaps a study of dating app communication will be next on Pikorski’s list.

According to online security firm Symantec, everybody’s favorite mobile dating app is suffering from an “influx of spam bots and fake profiles.”

The presence of spammers and scammers isn't new to online dating sites, but so far it hasn't been a major concern for Tinder users. There are three kinds of spam campaigns currently targeting Tinder users. The first is adult webcam spam, in which bots engage real users in conversation and then try to persuade them to click on links to adult webcam websites.

A second common spam campaign promotes mobile apps, especially games, to Tinder users. Instead of directing people to adult webcam sites, this kind of spam tries to entice them into downloading and playing games like Castle Clash.

The third, and most common according to Symantec, kind of spam campaign involves fake prostitution profiles. These are typically identifiable by photos of women overlaid with text that details services, rates, and contact info. By including the info in photos rather than text, spammers can evade detection from spam filters searching for undesirable keywords in Tinder’s profiles.

What all three kinds of spam have in common is affiliate programs. In each case, the promoted destinations offer spammers money in exchange for converting leads. Spammers stand to make something like $6.00 per lead for a successful sign-up, and up to $60.00 for leads that become premium members. It may sound easy to avoid spammers, but plenty of people are falling for it. Symantec found that some spam links can get hundreds of thousands of clicks.

"For instance,” writes Satnam Narang for Symantec, “from the end of January 2014 until mid-April 2014, a campaign associated with a site called blamcams resulted in nearly half a million clicks across seven URLs. Depending on the offers given by the affiliate program and the number of successful conversions of leads, this particular spammer likely earned quite a bit of money."

So what can you do about it?

Report fake profiles to Tinder. Beneath every profile image there are three red dots. Click that icon to find the option to report the user. From there, a dialog window will open with three options. Select “Feels like SPAM”. It’s up to users themselves to police the Tinder community, so stay alert for fake profiles and spam bots and alert the app’s team so they are detected and eliminated as quickly as possible.

For more on this dating app you can check out our review of Tinder.

The online dating platform took several years for singles to embrace, undergoing much skepticism from the public. Does it really work? many would ask. It seems kind of desperate to join an online dating site, others might remark. There was a lot of judgment and confusion around the process, who joined, and what results it would yield.

Now all that’s changed because of our phones. According to a 2013 report from Pew Research, one in ten Americans have used an online dating site or app. And among singles looking for partners, that number is even higher, with 38% having used dating sites or apps.

It seems that dating apps have become a popular way to meet other singles, especially for people under 30. Gone is the stigma of looking desperate, or worrying about whether you’ll find “the one.” It seems instead people are opting for something that is simple to set up, simple to use, and completely accessible – scrolling through profiles and photos while you are in line at the drugstore, waiting for your friends at the bar, or bored with nothing better to do on Sunday afternoon.

Are people flocking to dating apps because we have become addicted to mobile technology? Or is it because online dating is much easier when you can access it over your phone? Perhaps it’s that meeting people through dating apps feels more like a game than something to take seriously, so it takes all the pressure off of participants?

According to a recent article in Business Insider, it could be all of these things. Regardless of the reasons, we’re starting to see a trend towards using technology for dating – with both online dating and mobile dating apps.

There does seem to be a generational divide. Younger singles under 30 prefer to use dating apps rather than online dating sites, and app developers are going after this market. There are an endless amount of new dating apps popping up every day, each offering something different, but all still relying on a hefty user base. Baby boomers and older daters however, still opt for the more traditional online dating options, which means Match.com and others share a good percentage of the market.

Most dating apps steer clear of the traditional online model of a monthly subscription service. Instead, they are offered for free, as this model tends to attract most users (and let’s face it – the value of any app or online dating site is in the numbers). In order to make money, several app developers have started offering a “freemium” model which gives users the option to pay for added features, like being able to search through more matches at a time, filtering their searches according to specific preferences, or chatting with someone they previously passed on.

Some are making money through advertising, though this can be distracting for users. Wyldfire, a new dating app, has made their advertising model a little more enticing by offering ads as incentives. When members get a certain percentage of likes, they get a discount on a service like Uber as a reward.

Some dating app developers speculate that the market will trim down over the next few years, and only two or three apps will be real contenders. Considering IAC owns most of the market – Match.com, OkCupid and Tinder are part of their roster – they may be right. In the meantime, we’ll have to see how it evolves.

When it comes to our personal lives and how we spend our time – many of us like to share what we’re doing over social media. We post pictures of the food we eat, talk about the five miles we ran in the morning, and want our friends and followers to know if we’ve started a cleanse or just lost ten pounds.

While these are good updates for your friends to rally around, offering supportive comments over Facebook and likes on Instagram, is it really helping your dating life? According to a new study by dating site PlentyofFish, fad diets and talking about your health routines are a huge turn-off for daters.

Gen Xers and Millennials believe their followers want to see and hear everything about the healthy lifestyles they adopt, but this survey shows that the diet and fitness craze is not only driving couples apart, but preventing singles from creating new relationships.

In terms of restrictive diets, 70% of women and 75% of men don’t want to date someone on a gluten-free, low/no carb or vegetarian diet. In addition, 47% of singles surveyed don’t want to date a vegan, either. (Sorry animal lovers.) While the jury is out on why this is the case, at least among POF users, perhaps most people don’t want to limit their own options or vary their routines, especially if they don’t know the relationship will work out in the end.

Exercise is another challenge for daters, with men being less than supportive of their girlfriends and dates than many people might think. Thirty percent of women have felt pressure from a partner to improve their exercise habits. Even more alarming – men admit it. Twenty-eight percent of men said they pressured a woman they were dating to exercise more, 32% pressured a woman to improve her eating habits, and 11% have broken up with a woman over exercise.

Women are the first to deprive themselves in preparation for a date, too. Twenty-two percent have dieted or not eaten in the time leading up to a big date.

When it comes to keeping fit – men and women differ on what it means to exercise. Thirty-nine percent of women walk, while 40% of men lift weights.

Interestingly, the PlentyOfFish survey targeted the most health-conscious users in North America's 10 fittest cities to reveal how singles view fitness and diet when it comes to forming romantic relationships. As it turns out, the most health-conscious daters are not the most tolerant of others who might be good romantic partners in other ways. Maybe it’s time we went a bit outside our comfort zones.

For more on the dating site which brought us this study you can read our POF review.

Are you dating and having no luck, or have you had a string of bad relationships and can’t figure out what is wrong?

Sometimes it’s difficult to understand why things happen in our lives – why we’re still single, or why we keep meeting the wrong guys. As I say in my book Date Expectations, sometimes it’s our romantic history and patterns that hold the key to understanding why we’re stuck, why we can’t seem to find a happy, healthy relationship.

If you’ve noticed that you keep meeting and dating the same kinds of guys/ girls, or that you don’t find anyone new that you meet particularly exciting, it could be because you haven’t really gotten over your ex. More specifically, you are looking for your ex in all of your future relationships, even if he or she wasn’t so good for you.

Instead of getting stuck in the past, it’s time to really assess what is happening, and how your own dating habits could be contributing to the problem. While you might be meeting the wrong people, there’s a reason you keep meeting them.

Following are some questions to ask yourself to see if you’re really over your ex:

Do you tend to go for the same “type?” Whether it’s physical features, a sense of humor, or someone who shares the same intellectual curiosity, you find yourself attracted to different versions of your ex in every new person you meet. While you might think you have a “type,” – if you’ve dated several guys who were your “type” and yet none of them worked out, you might want to try something else.

Do you find it hard to commit? When we haven’t moved on emotionally, it’s almost impossible to commit to someone new. Maybe you feel pressure at each new relationship, so you tend to keep things casual or delay any meaningful conversation. Consider this: maybe it’s not your date, but that you aren’t quite ready for anything serious. That’s okay. Better to acknowledge your pain and work through it, so you can be ready when the right person does come along.

Is it hard for you to be single? If you’ve gone from one relationship to the next without taking much of a break, then maybe it’s time to give yourself just that – a break! All of us need to get familiar with our own wants, needs, desires – who we really are outside of a relationship. If you don’t, you’ll have a hard time knowing who you are in a relationship, and that leads to a lot of frustration, insecurity, and unhappiness. Instead of jumping into your next relationship, take a step back. Take up a new hobby, join that amateur Dodge Ball league you’ve been considering, or book that vacation to Belize you were going to take with a future partner. There’s no time like the present to get to know yourself better.

Dating apps and online dating sites have taken the place of many personalized matchmaking services. Thirty years ago, singles who wanted to meet people outside of their networks joined a matchmaking service or placed an ad in the paper, as their options were limited. Using a matchmaking service involved a basic process: the customer would look through video profiles on VHS tapes, screening potential dates to see whether or not they would want to meet in person – much like sifting through profiles on an online dating site. Now, matchmaking services have to offer a little extra personalization if they want to compete with a free dating app.

Matchmaking services don’t come cheap. Because they market themselves as personalized services, catering to specific client needs, they often charge thousands of dollars.

Matchmaking service eLove has gone through a couple of incarnations – first known as LoveAccess until it was acquired by International Dating Ventures and became eLove, but has always been a matchmaking service. Now, the company is finding itself in hot water with dozens of its clients. It has an F rating and 143 complaints listed against it with the Better Business Bureau, mostly due to promises it makes about “referrals” that don’t actually happen.

According to The Courant, One 70-year old female client was promised 33 referrals (or dates) plus a VIP service for the hefty price of $7,000. A year later, she’d only received a handful of referrals, most at the beginning of her membership. A total of six referrals were made to her, costing her over $1,000 per referral. One of the men she met wasn’t even a member of eLove.

Another female client paid $6,000 and received only one referral, which was a phone call – not even an in-person date. And a third female client, a licensed psychologist who was 75 years old at the time she joined eLove, paid $9,566 last year for 16 introductions. After meeting only three men, including one she says who arrived drunk, she requested a refund. When eLove refused, she sought the refund, damages and punitive damages for breach of contract.

Instead of going to court, eLove agreed to settle with one unhappy customer so far. The other cases are still pending.

Should you join a personalized matchmaking service? With all the technology available at your fingertips, many daters don’t think it’s worth it. But for those who lead busy lives and just don’t find the time to meet potential dates, or for those who are nervous about getting back into dating and want a little hand-holding, it’s a valuable resource.

As with any service you decide to use, make sure you check it out first. Know how they are rated, how many complaints are filed against them, and what types of complaints. If the price seems a little high, or there is no obligation on their part in the fine print, you need to consider another service.