Online Dating

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.

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.

Yesterday eHarmony started up their Free Communication Weekend (FCW) again for 4 days. You can "Feel the Love" from July 24th to the end of the day on Sunday July 27th.

Free communication allows you to use the eHarmony guided communication process with the matches you receive and that you feel a connection with. Once it is complete you can then send emails to them as well. Free Communication doe not include skip straight to email, secure call (a phone service - see our eHarmony review for more details), and profile photos.

To participate in a FCW all you need to do is signup for an eHarmomy membership and take the profile questionnaire. This process will take you about 30 minutes and is a key step since the information you give them about your interests and personalty will be used by eHarmony's matching algorithm to match you with other high quality members. The membership account, taking the questionnaire, and receiving matches are always free and no credit card is required.

Tinder has hit a bit of a rough patch lately. The company behind the hyper-popular mobile dating app was recently slapped with a lawsuit by its former VP of Marketing, Whitney Wolfe. In the suit, Wolfe alleges that she was sexually harassed and discriminated against at work, stripped of her co-founder title, and forced out of the company when she complained.

There’s no question that Wolfe’s accusations have affected the people involved, one of whom was suspended indefinitely, but what remains to be seen is whether they affect the company as a whole and its majority shareholder IAC.

Investors have been hoping that IAC, which also owns Match.com and OkCupid, would use Tinder’s success to spin off its online dating businesses into a separate company, thereby making IAC shares more valuable. But now that Tinder’s in trouble, that prospect could be in trouble too. “Given what’s going on at Tinder, I would assume that probably would cause IAC and Match to think a little bit longer and harder about pursuing that at this juncture,” Scott Kessler, an analyst with S&P Capital IQ, told Bloomberg News last week.

I’m just guessing here, but IAC and its shareholders probably aren’t too pleased at this complication throwing a wrench in a very lucrative opportunity. Investors have been encouraging IAC execs for months to speed up the process of making Match its own business, but now their plans may be thwarted (or at least slowed down).

Last year, IAC made $788 million in revenue from membership and subscription dues for dating services – well more than twice what it had made five years earlier, despite the fact that they have yet to monetize Tinder. What's more important than revenue for investors is market value, which Tinder has in spades. Tinder is one of the hottest commodities on the market right now, and creating the separate Match group could cause spikes in the stock prices of both IAC and the newly formed company.

History has shown that this is a good move for IAC. When the company separated Match from its search business, its stock price jumped significantly. Barry Diller, IAC’s chairman, has also seen huge profits from spinning off businesses from IAC. The question now is whether or not Tinder is damaged goods and, if so, just how damaged. So far the company is remaining frustratingly tight-lipped about both Tinder’s trouble and the possibility of Match becoming its own company.

I think a lot of things while sitting at my computer, but until now, none of those things have involved which giant Internet company has the hottest employees. I was perfectly content to search for cat videos on Google and order weird home appliances I’ll never use on Amazon without thinking about the attractiveness of the people on the other side of those companies.

Then Hinge came along, a dating app that matches young professionals in similar networks, and decided that was no way to live. According to Hinge, users are 14.2% more likely to “swipe right” for Amazon employees than their counterparts at tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook. Microsoft came in second, with right swipes occurring 8.2% more often than average. Apple ranks as the least attractive tech firm, with a dismal percentage of 0.2, which is a bit surprising given the cool factor attached to all things Apple.

Before you rush to send in your resume to Amazon, consider the facts behind the findings. Amazon reported having 117,300 employees as of January, including part-time workers. In contrast, Microsoft is home to 99,000 employees, Apple to 80,300, Google to 47,756, and Facebook to 6,337. Because Hinge connects daters through their career networks, it’s likely that more Amazon employees are on the app in the first place.

Oh, and there’s also the fact that Hinge found Amazon employees to be the least “picky” of all the tech companies. Meaning, in the app world, that they’re more likely to swipe right on a profile. And meaning, in the real world, that they’re not exactly selective about who they go on dates with (no judgment, of course…do your thang, Amazon employees). Amazon employees’ more open minded approach to dating could also account for their higher numbers.

Facebook employees displayed the most pickiness – defined by how often the users pass on prospective matches by swiping left – of the bunch. Employees at the social network turned down potential matches 7.5% more than the average Hinge user. Apple employees were found to be the second pickiest, though at a rate of only 0.5% more than average.

On the whole, techie types stacked up well against the competition. Men and women at four of the five companies were all rated more attractive than the average Hinge user (the fifth, Apple, got right-swiped at about the average rate).

Good luck ever ordering from Amazon again without thinking about the hottie who may be processing your order on the other side.

IAC is positioning itself to be the center of the online dating world. Its 150 brands are cornering the market, particularly Match.com, OkCupid, and popular dating app Tinder. Now, it’s added How About We to its roster. Neither IAC or How About We disclosed the purchase price.

How About We offers a unique twist in online dating – focusing on the offline part of the process. Members can create date ideas, post them to How About We, and see if anyone cares to join them on the date. This bypasses the typical process of scrolling through profiles and matches as you would do on other sites.

The company has gone through a lot of changes in the last couple of years, starting with broadening its reach to include curated dating services for couples (extending their user base and approach beyond just the singles market). More recently, the company purchased popular online dating site Nerve.com, and added three new content websites to the mix to offer editorial on dating advice, celebrities, sex, relationships, and other hot topics.

Did it spread itself too thin?

According to the New York Times, How About We co-founder Aaron Schildkrout (now the chief executive for This Life, Inc., the parent company of How About We) thinks this will only broaden their opportunities. “We spent the last five years building and scaling HowAboutWe; our unique ‘offline dating’ experience has been used by millions of people and has helped many, many people fall in love. Our new partnership with IAC will help us bring this dating experience to an even larger number of people than ever before.”

This contradicts his statements earlier this year, where he positioned the company to compete heavily with IAC. “The online dating business is completely monopolized — IAC owns online dating,” Schechter told Fortune in January. “So what we’re trying to do is build a media company whose sole focus is love. And we think that’s the way to beat IAC.”

The How About We dating service and media properties were sold to IAC, but a portion of the company remains independent: the couples service. Last month, employees were reportedly left in the dark about whether or not they would be fired in the wake of the acquisition, with some being promised they would stay only later to find that offer recanted.

According to the New York Times, some employees will be moving to IAC, others will be staying to work on the couples service, and some have been laid off.