Dating Services

Recipient
OurTime.com

The Editor's choice for the Top Pick - Senior Award goes to a dating site that has become very popular over the last few years, OurTime.com. This online service has seen very solid membership growth in 2012 and it has continued this trend for 2013. It is now one of the largest dating sites for seniors (singles 50 plus).

OurTime.com is a simple dating site to use. Buttons are clearly labeled as to their function and the tabs at the top of the website make it easy to visit each part of the site. Searching is kept simple by choosing the gender you are looking for, the age range, and your location by entering your State or Zip Code. You can also specify to show profiles that have photos, videos and/or audio greetings. When the search results are returned you can sort by new members, distance from you, and the last time they visited Our Time. If you want more, advanced search options are available for those interested in certain ethnicities, relationship expectations, religion and other important profile attributes.

For seniors interested in online dating, OurTime.com is one of the top dating sites for singles 50 years and older. You can sign up as a member for free to check out the different features offered by the service and search for other seniors who have joined. If the site meets with your expectations and you wish to message other members a small monthly fee will be required.

Read our review of OurTime.com for more information about this dating service or visit OurTime directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Senior People Meet

According to Comscore tracking for November 2012 Plenty of Fish mobile visitors accounted for 50 percent of all mobile dating traffic. POF mobile visitors “Average Minutes per Visitor” is also a lot higher than other dating sites Comscore tracks. This means they make up 67.5 percent of the time ALL mobile visitors used when visiting dating sites. I believe the Comscore data of mobile traffic includes web browsing and dating apps for smartphones.

POF also reports that every day their members exchange up to 30 million messages. In the past year to help fix the technology problems this causes all servers (web and database) have been replaced along with their networking equipment to keep up with the demand. To help with their matching and Chemistry Predictor POF will also be building soon a monster CUDA cluster which will have 147,0000 GPU cores. Wow!

To find out more about these statistics you can read the Plenty of fish blog. Hmmm... Markus Frind's blog use to be called the Paradigm Shift ... I wonder when the name changed? You can also find out more about the dating service here and how it works and stacks up against other services.

Recipient
Match.com

The Editor's Top Pick - Over All Award for 2012 goes to Match.com. Since we started the DSR awards 6 years ago Match.com has earned the Over All award every year. Match.com’s continued membership growth and great site design has led it year after year to be our top recommendation of a dating site for someone wishing to try out online dating.

The new thing last year for Match.com was their Stir Events. These events are designed to bring singles together who are looking for a relationship in a environment designed to make meeting new people fun and stress free. In 2012 they held over 1,600 events across 80 cities the United States. Over 150,000 singles attended these Match.com Stir Events.

Match.com was also the most searched paid dating site on Google in 2012 according to the Google Zeitgeist report. They clearly outpaced other rivals through word of mouth recommendations and their smart advertising on TV and off.

Read our review of Match.com for more information about this online dating service or visit Match directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: OkCupid

Here are the Canadian eHarmony coupon codes for two of their more popular promotions. Both of these coupon codes expire on December 31, 2013.

eHarmony Coupon #1

eHarmony Coupon #2

These coupon codes listed above are valid on eHarmony in Canada (eHarmony.ca).

For US singles, go here for our eHarmony USA (eHarmony.com) coupons.

Read our review of eHarmony for more information about this online matchmaking service.

Here are the eHarmony coupon codes for two of their more popular promotions. Both of these coupon codes expire on December 31, 2013.

eHarmony Coupon #1

eHarmony Coupon #2

These coupon codes listed above are valid on eHarmony in the United States (eHarmony.com).

For Canadian singles, go here for our eHarmony Canada (eHarmony.ca) coupons.

Read our review of eHarmony for more information about this online matchmaking service.

If you're a staunch Republican or a true blue Democrat and this past election season has gotten you all fired up, are you also hurting your dating life? Some people avoid the subject of politics altogether at the beginning of a relationship, since it can make a flirtatious night turn contentious.

Politic Matchmakers, LLC has a different game plan, though. They offer two new sites for our polarized country - "Red State Date" (RedStateDate.com) and "Blue State Date" (BlueStateDate.com) - if your politics play a big role in your love life. With these sites, there's no need to avoid or pretend to tolerate the differences of political opinion between you and your date. Sounds great, right?

Well, ideally, yes. But I think a love connection goes beyond politics - and personal bonds are probably the one thing that can bring people with opposing views together. After all, you don't stop speaking to your uncle (except maybe during election season) because he's at the other end of the political spectrum. And you don't divorce your wife because she voted for a different candidate than you did in the last election.

But if you're tired of dating people who don't agree with your political point of view, and you don't want to defend yourself or get into more arguments, maybe it's time to try something a little more catered to your preferences.

Red State Date and Blue State Date not only offer databases of like-minded politicos, but also offer the latest news from your favorite conservative or liberal sources (Drudge vs. Huffington Post) so you can strike up a conversation. (But since you already share the same views about the world, I imagine you will spend a lot of your date nodding and agreeing with each other.)

While this seems like a good way to filter people who share the same values as you, it also leaves little room for all the other aspects of what attracts two people, not to mention all the people who aren't so led by political beliefs. I mean, what about the independents who share both liberal and conservative ideas that you'll miss meeting? And just because somebody shares your politics doesn't mean they feel the same way as you about relationships or anything else. What if your date is completely religious and you're an atheist? Or what if you are interested in marriage but your date prefers to keep things loose?

While political niche sites are great filters, they can also cause you to miss out on some great opportunities you have when you cast a wider net.