General News

2012 saw some big changes for Match.com. Most notable among those was the introduction of Stir, Match's events service.

Stir launched in May 2012 to bring singles together in an environment that is both fresh and familiar. On one hand, it's online dating. But on the other, it's meeting people, in person, in a way that feels welcoming and comfortable. It's the perfect win-win.

Singles definitely took notice of Match's latest innovation:

• Stir held just over 1,600 events in 2012
• Over 150,000 attendees came to those events
• Each month, Stir hosted over 300 events in more than 80 cities across the US
• Stir forged partnerships with over 800 different venues of all kinds to host singles events

And that's definitely not all that Stir accomplished in 2012.

Match celebrated National Singles Week by hosting over 8,000 singles at 79 events in 48 different cities around the country. On October 25, Stir reached a major milestone - 1000 events! - and celebrated with a Moulin Rouge-themed party called "Cirque de l'Amour" at San Francisco's trendy Supperclub. Guests enjoyed an evening of games, circus performances, gourmet bites, DJ-spun beats, and extravagant costumes.

During the busy holiday season, Match teamed up with Charity: water to participate in #givingtuesday, a day designed to raise awareness and funds for charities around the world. Charity: water donates 100% of their efforts to providing fresh, clean water wells to cities in Ethiopia. Stir events raise well over their goal of $10,000 and plans to partner with more charities in the coming year.

Stir even branched out from its initial mission to introduce eligible singles by hosting a women-only event at the Rebecca Taylor store in NYC. Attendees learned all about the latest trends and first date fashion. Style for Hire, a national network of personal stylists assembled by Stacy London of What Not To Wear, helped the ladies choose items that showed them off at their best.

If you're looking for a venue near you, keep an eye out for Stir-branded stickers in the window. The bright black, blue, and white stickers name the establishment a 2012 Top Stir Venue and declare "Love Happens Here."

If you'd like to know more about what events are scheduled in your neighborhood, sign into your Match.com account. Match s constantly adding new events to the list, so click the "Events" tab to find the latest happenings in your area.

Here's to more mingling in 2013!

For more on this dating site and their live meeting events you should take a look at our Match.com review.

There's no denying that love looks a little different these days than it used to. Once upon a time, we wrote love notes and sonnets...now we proclaim our love in 140 characters or less.

Technology has changed our lives in every way imaginable, including the ways we meet, date, fall in love, fall out of love, and find our soulmates. The Australian branch of eHarmony recently took a look at how technology has changed the face of dating for 2,000 Australian singles, finding that everyone, regardless of age, has been affected by the new age of digital love.

60% of the Gen Z crowd, ages 18-24, say the text message is their primary form of contact after a first date. That probably surprises no one, but this might: the same number of people in the 55-64 age bracket say that technology is essential to their love lives (in this case, using Google to plan a perfect date).

"Five years ago my parents would have laughed if I had told them they could find a compatible partner via a computer or phone. The old-fashioned phone call is great, but love is now definitely online and mobile," said Jason Chuck, Managing Director of eHarmony Australia.

Here are a few of the ways digital love is taking over:

• 1 in 10 Australians say they have used an SMS to say "I love you" for the first time.
• Unfortunately, the same number of people have also been dumped by SMS. 1 in 7 aged between 18 and 24 think SMS and social media are perfectly acceptable ways to break up with someone.

Guess it's better than Carrie Bradshaw's infamous Post-It note breakup...

• 1 in 5 Australians have sent or received sexy photos, 1 in 10 of whom is over the age of 45.
• Another 1 in 10 think Facebook is the perfect way to announce a new relationship. Most, however, still prefer to let friends and family know about a new love over the phone.
• Nearly 1 in 10 Australians has found love online. The most successful love seekers - 1 in 6 - are between the ages of 35 and 44.
• Young people have fully jumped aboard the online dating train: 1 in 4 know at least one person who has tried it.

And just in case you're ready to write off technology as a young person's game, consider this: 1 in 20 respondents over the age of 65 say they have used email to say "I love you" for the first time.

To find a list of dating sites for Australians and information on them you should check out our Australia dating category.

Last week the dating site HowAboutWe released their new mobile Android dating application. The current version is 1.1.0 and requires Android version 2.2 and up. While the Android version of this dating app is relatively new the iPhone version has been out since 2011. In a relatively short time the Android version of the HowAboutWe app has seen almost 5,000 installs.

Currently the HowAboutWe dating app offers the following features:

• Create your own profile and post your date ideas
• Connect with members by viewing their profiles, photos and date ideas
• Send messages (paid members only)

The apps current average rating on Google Play is 3.3 out of 5 stars. Overall the impression is good from users but there are some requests for additional functionality including control of notifications.

Check out the Google Play Store on your Android phone and search for HowAboutWe to download the app. To find out more about this dating site and why it is so popular in large cities like New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington (just to name a few) you can check out our review of HowAboutWe.

We recently learned that Neil Clark Warren took over at eHarmony again as CEO and made a number of major changes to the company. The 78 year old plans to be the CEO for the next 5 years before he retires for good. A post from the LA Times includes a bit more information about eHarmony and how the dating site has been performing.

eHarmony is a privately held company so revenue numbers and projections are all estimates. According to IBISWorld eHarmony holds a 13.6 percent share of the online dating market which is estimated to be a $2 billion USD a year industry. As a comparison InterActiveCorp (IAC) suite of dating sites which includes Match.com, OkCupid and SinglesNet.com has a 23.7 percent share of the market. Revenues at eHarmony for 2012 are estimated by IBISWorld to be $275 million which is up 3.8 percent when compared to last year. As a comparison in the boom years of online dating (2005-2010) a number of popular dating sites reported double digit growth every year. In 2008 it is estimated that eHarmony saw a 16.4 percent growth.

eHarmony did release a few interesting facts and financial details to the LA Times. Since their launch in 2000 eHarmony has had 44 million users register which has resulted in 1.2 million marriages. Membership numbers in November have increased 20 percent since October and the average amount spent by the a member on the dating site has increased by 15 percent.

To find out more about this service you should read our review about eHarmony.

We're told from a young age not to judge a book by its cover. And yet most days, we make snap judgments without a second thought about who we do and do not want to date.

We avoid eye contact in bars so we don't have to engage in conversation. We click through dating profiles online faster than if we were shopping for a pair of shoes. And we attend speed dating parties where the entire purpose of the event is to judge someone as quickly as possible.

It's clear that we judge books by their covers all the time. How we make those decisions, however, is less understood.

John O'Doherty, Jeff Cooper, Simon Dunne, and Teresa Furey, a team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology, have shed light on the subject of speed-dating decisions in a new paper called "Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex Mediates Rapid Evaluations Predicting the Outcome of Romantic Interactions."

The paper found that two factors are considered in speed-dating decision-making:

• Unsurprisingly, physical attractiveness is the first factor in determining whether someone gets a lot of date requests.
• The second most important factor is an individual's personal preferences, like how compatible a partner may be.

Each of these processes takes place in two distinct parts of the brain.

Seeing someone who is considered attractive (and therefore receives the most date requests) is associated with activity in a region of the brain called the paracingulate cortex. The paracingulate cortex is part of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, or DMPFC, which is used in cognitive control and decision making.

In addition to physical attraction, which was taken into consideration consistently by all participants in the study, a person's likeablity was also found to be important. The rostromeidal prefrontal cortex (RMPFC) was also engaged in the speed-dating decision making-process, a part of the brain associated with consideration of other people's thoughts, comparisons of oneself to others, and perceptions of similarities with others. Choosing a partner, then, is based on both physical attraction and potential compatibility.

"Psychologists have known for some time that people can often make very rapid judgments about others based on limited information, such as appearance," says John O'Doherty. "However, very little has been known about how this might work in real social interactions with real consequences-such as when making decisions about whether to date someone or not."

The study, published in the November 7 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, is one of the first to examine what happens in the brain when people make rapid-judgment decisions that carry real social consequences.

Senior dating might be the hottest thing in online dating right now. Every week I see another study or article proclaiming that senior dating is in, and mature singles are becoming the most rapidly growing segment of the online dating market.

Now AARP has produced an online dating survey, which I think confirms it: senior dating is officially a massive phenomenon. AARP spoke to 1,000 adults who are single, aged over 50, and currently dating or interested in dating to understand exactly what role the Internet plays in their love lives.

They found that the top 3 reasons people over 50 try an online dating site are:

• They are able to meet a wider range of people
• There is not pressure to reply or talk to people they aren't interested in
• A friend recommended it

Gender was a factor in many people's choice to give online dating a shot:

• Women are more likely to try it based on a friend's suggestion
• Men, on the other hand, are more likely to turn to online dating because they feel they "don't have time to go out and meet people the traditional way"
• Men are also more likely to try it just because they think it sounds fun

Looking at it by age, AARP found this:

• Those age 50-59 tend to feel that they don't have time to meet people offline
• Singles in that age group also don't like feeling pressured to reply when they don't want to
• Slightly older singles, age 60-69, tend to try online dating based on a recommendation from a friend

AARP also found differences based on location, income, education, and employment. Singles in the West are more interested than singles in other locations in the broader range of potential dates online dating offers. Wealthy singles turn to online dating sites for the same reason, as well as because they don't feel they have time to date in person. Singles on the other end of the income spectrum try it because there's no pressure to respond.

Where education is concerned, AARP found that significantly more of those with high school diplomas or some college education give online dating a go because of the lack of pressure to respond. Those who attended college or graduate school like that online dating exposes them to a wider variety of people.

Results based on employment reveal similar trends:

• Those retired tend to try because there is no pressure to reply
• Those employed try because of the broader range of people and because they don't have time to meet people in more traditional ways

To find a list of popular dating site for single 50 and over you can check out our Senior Dating category.