General News

Do you believe in love at first sight? Maybe you don't, but according to researchers at Stanford University, it is possible to form a connection in the four minutes given for a speed dating round. It just depends on what you say, and how you say it.

No pressure right? Stanford researchers studied some 1,000 speed dating sessions to determine what helped couples to instantly click, and what assured that they didn't.

According to researchers Dan McFarland and Dan Jurafski in an interview with Stanford News, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the meaning of signals we send to other people, and the role those signals play in helping to form connections.

McFarland states: "We wanted to see if there is anything about the interaction that matters or is it really just what I look like, what I do, what my motivation is. Is it all things that are psychological or in my head or is there actually something in how we hit it off?...We wanted to get at what the essence of the connection is, what makes people feel like they bonded."

Not surprisingly, women were seen to be more selective than men.

Participants in the study wore audio recording devices during their dates. Each was asked to fill out a "scorecard" to assess each date and whether or not they would want to go out again. Participants were also asked to fill out pre and post-date surveys.

The dates were transcribed and the words and speech patterns were analyzed to see if they corresponded with a feeling of connection among the men and women.

Their analysis found that words do matter, as well as how they are delivered. Women reported feeling connected with a man who used language to indicate that what she said was interesting. A simple acknowledgement like, "oh that's cool" could go a long way in making the woman feel connected.

Daters also seemed to click when one expressed enthusiasm or excitement for what the other person was saying. There was a greater connection if the other person interrupted with an enthusiastic agreement.

"This is a situation in life where women have the power, women get to decide. So talking about the empowered party is a sensible strategy toward feeling connected," McFarland said.

One thing both sides agreed on: asking a lot of questions indicated a lack of connection. This pattern was used mostly to avoid a lag in the conversation.

The study, "Making the Connection: Social Bonding in Courtship Situations," was published this month in the American Journal of Sociology.

The world changed forever on the day Martha Stewart came out in favor of online dating.

I know, I know...it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm really not. Just think about it: what did Martha Stewart stand for before she stood for online dating? Healthy recipes. DIY. Ideas for entertaining. Crafts. Gardening. Kmart. Home décor. Doilies. Assorted other 'good things.'

In other words, Stewart built a multi-million dollar empire on being the most boring, average woman on the planet (other than the insider trading thing, but let's not go there). When a woman like that says online dating is the way to go, no one is ever going to look at online dating the same way again.

It all started with an interview with Matt Lauer. Stewart told the "Today" host that she loves dating, but hasn't yet found "Mr. Right." Her first attempt to take her search online didn't end as planned - she made it halfway through setting up a Match.com profile before abandoning the pursuit in a fit of laughter.

Fortunately, Match.com came to the rescue and posted a profile for Stewart. She's looking for someone "active and fit and healthy and good looking," who doesn't hate children or animals, smoke, or drink to excess. She's also on the lookout for "a nice smile, a nice appetite for good things... a nice person who's also funny and witty and smart and hopefully rich enough."

It might sound like a long list of requirements, but the 20,000 pageviews the profile received in the first few days prove that quite a few men are willing to take on the challenge of dating Martha Stewart. She narrowed a pool of 1,000 suitors down to two men who joined her on "Today" for an interview (and you think your first dates are awkward!).

When Martha Stewart is happy to discuss her online dating exploits with the nation, it's clear that the stigma surrounding it is finally gone. Online dating is so much more than socially awkward loners in their parents' basements...it's an opportunity for everyone, regardless of age, to expand their horizons and open their love lives to partners they may never have met otherwise.

If Martha's into it, it must officially be normal, cool, and mainstream (except the doilies...that will never be cool).

In other words, stereotypes are out. Online dating is in. And now everyone knows it.

What do you think...is Martha Stewart's Match.com profile 'a good thing' for online dating?

For more information on the dating site Match.com you can read our review.

If anyone knows how online love works, it's Sam Yagan. Not only is Yagan the co-founder of OkCupid, he also runs all of Match Inc for IAC. Put it all together and Yagan is pretty much the most powerful man in the online dating biz.

Love is confusing at the best of times. Factor in online dating algorithms, which are so inscrutable that they might as well be matching prospective lovers with some kind of ancient magic, and the mystery of love gets even deeper. I know, at least once, you've wondered: How does it all work?

Business Insider asked Sam Yagan to shed some light on the inner workings of an online dating site. First, he noted, every dating site matches a little bit differently. That's why it's great for a company like IAC to have so many dating companies in its portfolio, and that's why it might be a good idea for you to be on more than one dating site. Each site opens you to a different world of romantic possibilities.

In spite of those differences, there's one thing every dating site has in common: the goal is to find you a good first date. After that, it's up to you and chemistry to take the relationship further.

Online dating sites start by filtering out incompatible partners based on characteristics that Yagan calls "hard filters." Age and location are the primary hard filters, followed by dealbreakers like smoking habits and children. Only when hard filters overlap does a dating site's algorithm take over to analyze other factors, like interests and hobbies.

Billions of data points are calculated to find potential matches for a user. Some are explicitly entered by the user, like religion and favorite pastimes. Others - and arguably the more important ones - are determined implicitly. Every dating site tracks the activity of its users to determine what they really want in a partner.

Yagan says that one of the great surprises of working in the online dating industry was the realization that people don't always know what's important to them. He offers politics as an example - though some politically passionate online daters say they could never date someone with opposing political views, Yagan finds that that's frequently not the case in practice. People are often wrong about themselves.

For that reason, it's imperative that online dating sites keep careful watch over users' activity. What profiles are you really clicking on? Who do you send messages to? Where do you spend the most time on the site?

By analyzing your behavior, a dating site develops a more accurate picture of the date you really want to meet. And because online dating brings together people who would never have met in the real world, it offers greater odds of finding that perfect partner.

For more information, you can read our review of the dating site Match.com

Not long ago, the once-unstoppable Netflix had fallen to only $50 a share. It was a low point in the history of a company billed as the future of film and television, but the lull didn't last. Netflix quadrupled in value over the last seven months and is now back on top, trading at more than $217 a share.

The rise and fall of Netflix is the stuff of legends. "I've never had a stock quadruple in seven months - to my recollection, any way - in my 15 years of managing money," said Whitney Tilson, founder and Managing Partner of Kase Capital. "Back in October, I said, 'I think Netflix this decade is going to be like Amazon last decade - a stock that can just continue to grow and grow with enormous upside optionality.'"

So if Netflix is the new Amazon, then who is the new Netflix?

Spark Networks is ready to step up to the plate. You may not have heard of Spark Networks, but you definitely know the company's two most famous offspring: Christian Mingle and JDate.

Like Netflix before it, Spark Networks is an Internet-based company with nearly unlimited potential. But instead of expending energy to realize all of that potential right away, both Netflix and Sparks chose to channel current profits from an existing lucrative business into a future growth opportunity.

The major difference between Spark Networks and Netflix is size. Spark Networks is a significantly smaller company than Netflix, and though JDate has been around for over a decade and brings in a great deal of money for the company, the Jewish dating site's growth has stopped. Christian Mingle is nearly identical to JDate and targets a much larger market (30 times larger, in fact), but it is not yet profitable.

Tilson is confident that bigger and better things are in store for the company. "Christian Mingle - if you think it's addressing a market 30 times the size of JDate, has upside, you know, that could make this stock a multi-bagger," he says. "It's a pretty exciting growth story." In the last quarter, revenue grew 45% year-over-year, putting Christian Mingle and Spark Networks on a rapid growth trajectory. Add that to the success of JDate, and Tilson expects stock to double.

The question is: what's in the future for the company? The answer depends on who you ask.

Some think Facebook, which recently acquired a new social dating app, could mean the end of Spark Networks. Tilson isn't so sure. He thinks the future of Spark Networks lies with IAC, the company that owns Match.com.

"I think IAC is the most logical buyer for Spark, and it would be a tiny bite-sized acquisition," he says. He considers Facebook. Yahoo, and Google close seconds to purchase Spark Networks and usher in the next era of the company..

To find out more about these 2 dating sites you can read our review of JDate and Christian Mingle.

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" is solid advice for most every situation, but it rings especially true online. Anyone who has ventured into the untamed Wild West of online dating knows that it comes with certain risks.

Chief among them is the possibility of being ripped off by an unscrupulous Internet scammer. Your rational side knows it's a possibility, but for the most part it's a fear that's relegated to the deeper, darker recesses of your mind. A far as you're concerned, getting scammed is something that happens to other people in the cautionary tales told on the local news. It's not going to happen to you, right?

Odds are in your favor, but it never hurts to be prepared. SeekingArrangement.com recently posted a report called The Face of Fraud to help online daters separate the catches from the catfish. The site reviewed the profiles of 60,000 banned accounts, and discovered that fake profiles tend to have a few things in common. Here are 7 signs you might be looking at the profile of a scam artist:

After Mother's Day celebrations are over, single Moms might be yearning for romantic love as well as affection from their children. It's easy to get caught up in the stress of taking care of a child, but single mothers need other relationships, too. After all, just because you have a child doesn't mean you no longer want to feel sexy or desired.

But many single mothers can be a little uncertain about dating. After all, how many men might shy away from being with a woman whose first priority is her children? And if a single mother is interested in dating someone more seriously, she might be concerned about whether or not he will get along with her kids.

While some women think that being a mother may put many single men off, a new survey by LoveAgain.com, found the opposite to be true. The company surveyed 2,000 men to find out what they really think about women with children, and 85% said they think single moms are sexy. And 77% of men say it wouldn't put them off if a woman they dated had children.

And for those single mothers who have a full house? There was more good news, too. About 77% of men say that they would be happy if the single mom they dated didn't want to have any more children. And for men over 50, 87% would be fine with no more children.

And for those single moms who are worried about a boyfriend not wanting to bond with her children, they can rest assured. Sixty-four percent of men surveyed said they would want to be close to their partner's children, and for men over 50, it rises to 74%. With age comes wisdom, right?

So now that we know the overwhelming majority of men find single mothers attractive and sexy, what is the common attribute these women have that the men find so appealing?

As it turns out, a woman's wisdom and maturity are her sexiest attributes. When asked, the men surveyed agreed that single mothers are wiser and more mature than women without children.

So all you single mothers out there, stop making excuses and start dating. Join online dating sites, get fixed up by your friends, and put yourself out there. You deserve romance in your life, and a chance to fall in love again. It seems there are plenty of men out there who want to meet you (as well as your children)!