Starting tomorrow and ending this Sunday eHarmony is offering a coupon code for members to receive 50% off on a 6 month membership. You can use the coupon code on the eHarmony website or dating app but it must be used from September 25th to (and including) September 28th, 2014.
The coupon code is: GET50OFF
Once you create a free profile and fill out the personality questionnaire you will be prompted if you want to purchase a subscription or continue on as a free account. A free account allows you to try out most of eHarmony's features but it does not include profile pictures and sending email. If you choose to purchase a subscription you will then be asked to enter the coupon code.
This code is for the United States only and reduces the 6 month eHarmony subscription by 50% which means it will only cost you $29.95 a month. To find out more about this dating service and why it is so popular you can read our review of eHarmony.
Breakups are never easy, especially when it means losing your job. Spark Networks, the company behind dating sites like ChristianMingle.com and JDate.com, has announced that it's cut its workforce and has made substantial progress in expense reduction initiatives. The measures are expected to save the company $4.5 million to $5 million a year.
Although Spark did not disclose exactly how many jobs were cut, the company had previously reported that it had 201 full-time equivalent employees as of December 31. The company expects to incur pre-tax cash charges of approximately $1.3mm for severance benefits and other related expenses.
The cuts come at an interesting time for Spark Networks. Lately, its sites have seen an increasing number of their customers turn to competing services. The company has also undergone a number of recent changes in its corporate structure. David Hughes, formerly chief executive at a digital marketing firm in West Los Angeles, resigned as a director after joining Spark Networks’ board just six months prior. He will be replaced by Jonathan R. Mather, a former Netgear chief financial officer.
Hughes’ exit comes only two months after a very public ousting of four of Spark's six directors (including Chief Executive Greg Liberman). The hope is that a fresh crop of directors will be better able to help the company rise above the competition in difficult times.
Free dating sites like OkCupid and mobile apps like Tinder are dominating the market and have made life difficult for services like Christian Mingle and JDate. Spark Networks experienced a 10% drop in revenue during the second quarter, to $15.8 million. The company reported a total of $29 million in net losses over the last three years.
Looking to future, Spark Networks plans to head back to basics. It's putting its focus on three things in hopes of boosting subscriber count and revenue:
Upgrading its product offerings
Improving its processes for subscriber acquisition, retention, and renewal
Refining its marketing strategy
"Much has been accomplished over the last 30-days to refocus the business on its core properties and to drive operational efficiencies,” said Executive Chairman Michael McConnell in a statement.
“Moving forward, I believe the opportunity to profitably grow our business is significant and we are prepared to execute on strategic growth initiatives that meet our return on capital hurdles. Further, the team is operating with a sense of urgency and commitment to drive improvements in all areas of the business. Importantly, I am confident in the resilience and resonance of our brands within our targeted communities."
We live in a crazy world. And at the moment, nothing is greater proof of that and the fact that there is a Christian Mingle movie.
Yes, that Christian Mingle. The dating website that promises devout singles it will "find God's match for you." Someone in Hollywood apparently thought that sounded like a rip-roaring good time of a rom-com, and here we are, wondering what led us to this strange and confusing place.
Oh yeah, and did I mention that the lead role is played by Lacey Chabert, most notable for her turn as the ditzy Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls? It just gets better and better.
Allegedly there is also a plot. It follows Chabert’s character, a 30-something marketing executive named Gwyneth Hayden, whose life is perfect except for one thing: it's missing a man. In a moment of desperation, she joins the Christian Mingle dating site in hopes of changing her fortunes – even though she is not a Christian. Here’s a synopsis of the rest of the film:
One of the most famous posts ever featured on OKCupid’s beloved OkTrends blog was a massive examination of the ways race and ethnicity affect the online dating experience. It was one of the very first OkTrends posts ever made, way back in 2009, but the issues are still relevant today. Writer Christian Rudder has decided to revisit them in an updated post for 2014.
Back in 2009, race and attraction on OkCupid looked like this:
Non-black men discriminated against black women
But black men showed little racial preference either way
All women preferred to date men of their own race
But otherwise, they consistently discriminated against Asian and black men
So the big question is: has anything changed?
In the last five years, OkCupid users haven’t had any epiphanies of open-mindedness. In fact, Rudder notes, racial bias may have intensified a bit. See the second chart here for a demonstration.
What has noticeably changed are people's answers to match questions like "Is interracial marriage a bad idea?" and "Do you strongly prefer to date someone of your own race?" The percentage of users answering YES to those questions has been slowly trending downwards, although their actual behavior has stayed the same.
This prompts a few other questions, like:
Are people on OkCupid just racist?
Is it possible that a small number of users is throwing off the averages?
Does preferring to date partners of a specific race mean you’re racist?
Is data from an online dating site even relevant in the real world?
Rudder has all the answers.
No, OkCupid users are no more or less racist than anyone else. Online dating data shows consistent results where race is concerned, regardless of the dating site in question. The same basic biases can be found everywhere.
Again, these biases exist throughout the research on race and dating, not just on OkCupid. It therefore highly unlikely that a small portion of OkCupid users are affecting the data in a significant way.
You don't have control over what foods you like and which you don't, and the same goes for your personal preferences in your dating life. Most everyone has a "type" of some kind, and it probably isn't something you actively chose. However, Rudder writes, "the trend—that fact that race is a sexual factor for so many individuals, and in such a consistent way—says something about race’s role in our society.”
There are plenty of situations that aren't romantic that still bear a resemblance to dating. Any time you're trying to make an impression on a stranger, you're essentially going on a first date. “Beauty is a cultural idea as much as a physical one,” Rudder explains, “and the standard is of course set by the dominant culture.” So sure…it's just dating data, but it reveals our definition of beauty and that's something that affects everyone, everywhere.
If you’ve spent any time online dating, you’ve run into some bad profiles, and likely some bad dates, too. How many of us have said at some point “online dating sucks” or “I can’t meet any good guys online!”
According to dating coach Evan Marc Katz at a Tedx Talk he did in May, there’s a reason for this negative perception, but it’s not what we think. He points out that men and women think of online dating very differently, because they have different experiences. Namely, men are typically the ones reaching out to women to try and capture attention and women are the ones sifting through a ton of unwanted messages. So neither one is getting what they want, and both are blaming each other.
Men tend to be reactionary when it comes to online dating. Katz claims they feel like failures at it because they don’t seem to get responses right away (and they tend to look for instant gratification), so they feel the pressure to come up with a more winning formula. This formula is casting a wide net – if they reach out to as many women as possible as quickly as possible, they have a better shot at getting responses and hopefully getting to that date.
The women however, are getting either mass emails, emails that are sexually forward, or long essays about why a man would make a good match. None of these tactics work, because women can tell when it’s a mass email, and they typically don’t respond to sexually aggressive or forward emails because it makes them feel unsafe, and they don’t read the long essays because there isn’t enough time! So guys experience more failure, they cast an even wider net, and keep on repeating the same mistakes.
As Katz says, if both genders understood what was going on behind the scenes, they would have a much better time online dating, and they would have more success. He goes on to give some tips to help:
Use the 2/2/2 rule. Katz suggests the following formula (over the course of a week) can accommodate both men’s and women’s objectives: start with 2 emails back and forth on the dating site, then move to 2 emails off the dating site via your personal accounts, then 2 phone calls (not a text), then go on the date. The point is to find a good balance for both of you, which makes the men more successful and the women feel more comfortable interacting. When you step back and try to treat online dating more like meeting for the first time in real life, you’ll be much more successful.
Think of how real-life connections happen. The reason people get frustrated with online dating is because it doesn’t feel as good as meeting in person and having attraction grow organically. But Katz maintains this can happen online, too. It's all about trying to connect instead of moving quickly through a bunch of candidates or dismissing most of your emails. Most guys get impatient, and most women feel uncomfortable unless there is some kind of connection before a first date.
Both sides just have to put in a little effort.
To find out more on how to find someone online you can check our reviews on some of Evan Marc Katz dating guides.
These days, it's almost hard to believe that online dating wasn't always part of our lives. It feels seamlessly integrated into our daily routines - to the point that it's even infiltrated our phones - but in reality the industry didn't get its start until the late 90s and the road to 2014 was far from smooth.
In the early days of online dating, it was quietly laughed at by the polite and openly scorned by the impolite. It was viewed as an impersonal way to find love, and using an online dating site came with a heaping spoonful of stigma. But over time, a new generation of tech savvy singles arose and with them came a revolution.
Now daters of all kinds, young and old alike, have discovered the benefits of using online dating services and the industry has exploded around the world. As always, with success come new challenges. Online dating still faces criticism, and someone is always ready and willing to tell a horror story of a first date gone awry. Complaints are registered about fake profiles and less-than-truthful users who conceal their identities. Scammers have used online dating sites to cheat people out of thousands.
Online dating is now facing the challenge of maintaining the safety and protecting the privacy of its users – a task that becomes increasingly difficult as more and more of them join dating sites. Different countries are approaching the problem in different ways. In the US, laws have been passed that require background checks for new users. In Singapore, the government acted as a matchmaker through the Social Development Network. In the UK, the Online Dating Association was founded by industry members to take collective responsibility for regulations.
All of these have been important steps towards creating a regulatory framework that will address the issues facing online dating as it continues to expand. Primary among those issues is the rise of mobile dating. Many major dating sites now have a mobile component, and there are plenty of services that are only mobile applications.
The key word here is "innovation." As an increasing number of competitors enter the market, online dating services are forced to get more creative. Creativity is a great thing, but it too comes with challenges. As dating services explore uncharted territory, they will encounter new questions about security and privacy. If dating services want to be here for the long haul, they'll have to match technological innovation with regulatory innovation.
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