Life's short. Have an affair. Get hacked.

It's not Ashley Madison's new slogan, but it could be.

The biggest story in the online dating world right now is the news that the infamous dating site for adulterers has been attacked by hackers. A group calling themselves The Impact Team claims to have complete access to Ashley Madison’s database of more than 37 million members. They say they're in possession of financial records, addresses, and other personal information, and are threatening to publish it online unless the site closes.

In addition to Ashley Madison, the same group has compromised two other dating sites, Cougar Life and Established Men. All three are owned by the same parent company, Avid Life Media (ALM).

The hackers said in a statement: “Avid Life Media has been instructed to take Ashley Madison and Established Men offline permanently in all forms, or we will release all customer records, including profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails. The other websites may stay online.”

The issue that prompted the attack appears to be the leavers’ fee that Ashley Madison charges users. Should a member choose to leave the service permanently, Ashley Madison offers a “full delete” of their profile and all associated data for a $19 fee.

However, The Impact Team claims no data is ever deleted. "Full Delete netted [Avid Life Media] $1.7 million in revenue in 2014. It's also a complete lie," the hackers said in their statement. "Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real names and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed."

So far Avid Life Media has defended the service and offered to stop charging for it in the future. Their own statement says: “We apologise for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information. The current business world has proven to be one in which no company’s online assets are safe from cyber-vandalism, with Avid Life Media being only the latest among many companies to have been attacked, despite investing in the latest privacy and security technologies.”

For now, ALM has positive words for concerned users. “At this time,” reads the statement, “we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorised access points.” The company is working with law enforcement agencies to investigate the hack and plans to prosecute all parties responsible for what they're calling “an act of cyber-terrorism.”

For more on this developing story you can check out CNN.

Have you been to a music festival like Coachella or Firefly and wondered who that hot guy was standing ten feet away, singing along to every word of your favorite band’s favorite song? Maybe you chose not to go up and introduce yourself. But perhaps you pulled out your Tinder app and swiped left through a bunch of potential matches trying to locate his photo.

If you felt frustrated at not being able to hook up, or your nerves got the best of you, don’t worry. A Dutch-based company has created an event-based dating app for the festival-attendee market – so you can meet those people you spotted in person but didn’t actually get a chance to chat with.

Glance is the latest gimmick-driven dating app to hit the test market, and is currently in beta only in the Netherlands. However, the company has its sights set on worldwide release.

Glance allows you not only to locate people you might be attracted to at festivals, but if you plan on going, it can hook you up over the app in advance, so you can arrange to meet and hang out in person when you get there.

Hendrik van Benthem, founder of Glance, calls this “event­-driven dating.” In a statement he explains: “We live in a society in which users of products and services demand relevance. Why would you adjust your plans to a date that will probably turn into nothing, if your date can also come the place where you’ll be anyway, surrounded by people you feel comfortable with?”

Glance is not just for festival-goers. The app aims to get people introduced who plan to be at the same night club at the same time, too.

Glance launched in May 2015 in Amsterdam together with “leading partners from the event and entertainment industry.” The entrepreneurs behind Glance did not have any start-up investors, and are funding the company themselves. Says van Benthem: “We talked to different VC’s from the States and the Netherlands. Really cool to talk with those people. They operate on a different level and we learned a lot. The best experience was a meeting in the private jet of Dan Bilzerian. Crazy. But there never was a match...”

Glance is available in the App store for iOS and Play Store for Android, and information is available on its website. It is currently only available for events in the Netherlands but the company plans to launch internationally shortly.

If only all breakups ended as well as this one.

IAC/InterActiveCorp announced recently that Match.com, Tinder, OkCupid, and other dating services would become part of their own spinoff unit. The subsidiary will be called The Match Group and will be a publically traded company. Following the news, shares of IAC rose over 5%.

According to the announcement, The Match Group is likely to issue less than 20% of its common stock. The IPO is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year, after which investors will be able to buy stock in the company. So far, the ticker symbol (the three-or-four letter identifications that represent companies on stock exchanges) is unknown.

The Match Group is starting out on top. IAC/InteractiveCorp is a $6 billion media conglomerate, and revenue of the new Match Group accounted for nearly one third of IAC's total revenue in the most recent quarter.

Last quarter, The Match Group reported revenues of $239.2 million, marking an increase of 13% on a year-over-year basis. Reports say Match Group’s revenues are expected to increase 18% in 2015, bringing the number to $1.24 billion.

The hope with separating the Match Group, and combining more established businesses (like Match and Meetic) with earlier stage businesses (like Tinder), is that the move will lead to significant cash flow generation and meaningful growth potential.

Or, as Chariman and Senior Executive Barry Diller colorfully put it, “I'm not a believer in simply agglomerating assets in perpetuity. I've long felt that as entities grow into size and maturity it's healthy to give them separation and independence from a mother church."

It's an exciting time for the industry, but dating services haven't always done well on Wall Street. AshleyMadison forfeited an IPO in 2011. Zoosk filed for an IPO in April 2014, but withdrew the application in May 2015. Hinge, on the other hand, skipped the IPO entirely, instead relying on raising capital from venture capitalists. In 2014, Hinge had raised $12 million.

The Match Group will also face stiff competition from other key listed players like Spark Networks and Jiayuan.com. Still, IAC believes this IPO can give new life to the Group. Estimated EBITDA for The Match Group in 2015 is $264.9 million – and that's excluding the $75 million EBITDA anticipated from Tinder alone.

A well-received IPO could not only put IAC significantly ahead of its competitors, but also serve as a litmus test for the entire dating industry.

Did you know crafty ladies love Houston, men in Seattle seek outdoor adventure, and intellectual singles flock to Washington, DC?

It's hard to put much stock in the interests section on online dating profiles. Occasionally you may connect with something, but mostly it's a lot of boring clichés (“I like traveling and hanging out with my friends”). All most of us use the interests section for is scanning for red flags and looking for microscopic signs of compatibility.

Well, it turns out those interests may serve a more important purpose. Using an interest-based algorithm, PlentyOfFish examined the dating profiles of more than 10 million singles over the age of 21 to group them into personality types. The results were released as a new research study called PlentyOfPersonality.

The research identified the top 20 personality archetypes, based on corresponding interests, of singles in 11 major American cities. The data was then broken down by city and gender to asses how differences and similarities in the personality types might impact dating habits.

The 20 personality types are: Artist, Bar Game Buff, Cultured Urbanite, Curious George, Eternal Optimist, Family First, Fast and Furious, Happy-Go-Lucky, Health Buff, Intellectual, Live Event Fan, Mainly Mainstream, Pinteresters, Romantic, Salt of the Earth, Social Butterfly, Sports Fanatic, Weekend Warrior, Well-Rounded, and Outdoor Adventurer.

Scanning the data, it's clear that some cities have greater potential for compatibility than others. Men and women in Detroit, for example, sync up on three of the four top personality types: Weekend Warriors, Eternal Optimists, and Bar Game Buffs.

On the other hand, singles in Boston may have a hard time finding their matches. Female residents are Cultured Urbanites, but most men are partying Weekend Warriors. A similar split is seen in Seattle, where men are Weekend Warriors and Outdoor Adventurers, but women fit into the quieter and more creative categories of Pinteresters and Artists.

So what we can we learn from POF's personality study?

First, don't skip over the interests section. You may be tempted to say “I dunno,” “Ask me,” “Too many to list here,” or leave it blank, but you're missing a valuable opportunity.

When you do fill it out, consider your answers carefully. Discerning visitors are using your interests, consciously or subconsciously, to construct a portrait of your personality. Make sure it's an accurate representation of who you are and make sure the statement it's making is positive.

If all else fails, perhaps it's time to pack up and move. Love could be waiting across state lines. For more on the dating service which conducted the study, you can read our Plenty of Fish review.

Rejection isn't easy to take, but dishing it out isn't a walk in the park either. Most of us aren't out to hurt feelings or break hearts, so when it comes time to let someone down gently, we really do want it to be gentle.

If you're unprepared to be asked out, your response can be awkward or unintentionally hurtful. If it's already happened, well, these tips won't help much. But keep them in mind so you can handle things like a pro next time.

• Obey the golden rule. Treat others how you would want to be treated. A “no” that sounds offended or disgusted is a harsh response. Unless the person is intentionally being offensive or disgusting, try to remember that it takes courage to approach someone and that they did so because they think highly of you. Keep your tone polite and calm, while still sounding assured.
• Don't drag it out. Although you do want to handle someone's feelings with care, honesty is the best policy. If you know you're not interested, say so swiftly and directly. Agreeing to a date out of pity, being unclear about your intentions, or remaining silent to avoid confrontation only lead to more hurt down the road. Give a definitive answer so both of you can move on with your lives.
• Make it about you. Yes, turning down a date really is an “It's not you, it's me” situation. If you choose to offer an explanation for your “no,” keep it focused on yourself. No one wants to hear a list of reasons why they don't measure up. Use "I" statements instead. Think “I don't feel that connection between us” or “I'm not looking to date someone right now.”
• Don't keep them on the hook. When you turn someone down, make sure they know it's final. It's important to be kind, but being overly sympathetic or friendly can backfire. Don't give hope when there's none there. It should be clear that your “no” isn't a “not right now” or “let's see where things go” or “keep trying until I say yes.”

When the conversation is happening online, the rules are a little different. Although kindness and clearness are both still encouraged, online dating offers more wiggle room. Most people reach out to as many possible dates as they can, so they're unlikely to be strongly invested in any single one.

If all they do is send you a “Hey or a “What's up?” a response probably isn't warranted at all. If they've written a more detailed message, a polite-but-firm sentence or two is all you need. Wish them good luck and call it a day.

On Tuesday Match Group which is a subsidiary of IAC/InterActiveCorp purchased PlentyofFish Media for $575 million in cash. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Markus Frind which is the founder and sole owner of POF started PlentyofFish.com way back in 2003. It was a side project for him to learn a new programming language. It quickly exploded and by 2008 he was earning $10 million a year from the dating site with only a couple of employees. Early this year POF.com reach a milestone and hit 100 million users. The company also predicted it would earn $100 million for the year 2015. On its newly launch responsive mobile site POF currently reports the following statistics:

• 3.5 million singles log into POF.com daily (through the website and dating apps)
• Those same singles generate more than 9 million conversation every day
• From those conversations 1 million relationships are created every year

In the past two years I have heard several rumors about Match being interested in purchasing POF.com. I had heard around $300 million was offered at one point, but it was turned down. For a site earning $100 million in a year with no debt and it’s only real expense is it’s 75 employees that was a pretty low offer (if it is true). Obviously there was some negotiations going on which resulted in Markus walking away with over half a billion dollars. Funny enough, the general rule of thumb in purchasing a website (now these are much smaller sites [smilely: ;]]), is that it is worth about 4 years’ worth of the income it generates. I guess from using this purchase as an example, that the rule is not too far off!

The Match Group has purchased a number of dating services over the past 6 years:

• In 2014 Match purchased How About We
• In 2012 Match buys DateHookup.com
• In 2011 OkCupid was bought by Match.com for $50 Million
• In 2009 People Media was acquired for $72 Million

Combining all of these sites along with Tinder (which Match had funded pretty early on) and adding POF to the mix, this will make the Match Group the undisputed power house in dating online and on our phones for years to come. Acquiring POF will also make the Match Group’s proposed IPO that much more enticing to investors when it happens, which is most likely near the end of the year.

POF is currently a free dating site that offers a paid subscription for an upgraded membership. This upgraded membership offers a number of features like no ads, viewing extended profiles and seeing who has viewed your emails. I am curious to see if the Match Group plans any tweaks to this formula. If they change POF to a completely paid dating site like Match.com (which I highly doubt by the way), then I am sure POF users would be up in arms. I have a feeling they will leave POF.com pretty much the same for now and let it continue as is, in the same way Match Group let OkCupid continue to operate.