General News

The holidays are behind us, and we've entered a period of new beginnings. Many of us have put together New Year's resolutions. Maybe we intend to exercise more, eat healthier, get a new job, or take that art class we've wanted to try.

It turns out that many people also make a pledge around this time to go on more dates. According to eHarmony, the peak sign-up time for online dating is between Christmas and mid-February (around Valentine's day of course). So if you've been hesitant about joining a new online dating site, this is a great time to do so.

Match.com reports that 64% of singles' 2013 New Year's resolutions are about finding love this year. At this time last year, the company also reported a 55% increase in registration.

If you have sworn off online dating in the past, you might want to rethink your strategy. With so many people registering right now across all the sites, you're more likely to meet someone special, or at least go on more dates. Online dating is a way to meet people, but much easier than approaching someone at a bar. (Although I like to say keep all your options open, because you never know where you could meet someone special.)

Following are some tips to help you find the right website (and the right frame of mind) for online dating:

Identify what you want. Are you looking for a specific type of man/woman - whether it's someone who shares the same faith, the same interests, or the same ethnicity? You might want to consider a niche dating site instead of one of the bigger mainstream sites. If you are serious in your quest for the right person, I suggest sites with a membership fee, longer sign-up process, and questionnaire like Chemistry.com. If you're looking for something a little more organic, there are sites that connect through your Facebook circles, like CoffeeMeetsBagel, or sites that let you choose people according to their interests instead of their profiles, like HowAboutWe.

Be positive. Maybe you've had a bad experience in the past, or you're embarrassed to join an online dating site. But a majority of singles have tried online dating, so you'd be missing out if your fear was holding you back. There's no reason to be embarrassed, or to think that all online dating sites are the same. Keeping a positive attitude and letting go of your fears is the first step, and will lead to a better experience overall.

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.

Plenty of Fish recently announced a wedding contest for previous members of their dating site who were successful in finding love. The winning entry will receive $100,000 USD.

If you are a couple who met on Plenty of Fish all you need to do is upload 4 photos and the story on how you met and fell in love. To enter the contest you can visit this page on POF.com. The contest runs from Dec. 27, 2012 to Jan. 14, 2013 and is open to all members who are living in the US (excl. New York and Florida) and Canada (excl. Quebec).

After the submission portion of the contest closes Plentyoffish Media Inc. will select the entries for the first round of voting by other POF members. Entries will be selected based on originality and creativity. Voting for round 1 will start on Jan. 17,2013 and finishes up on Jan. 23, 2013. The top 6 couples from voting done in round 1 will move on to round 2. The winner of round 2 will be the couple with the highest number of votes. They will win the $100,000 cash prize. Round 2 voting starts on Jan. 28, 2013 and ends on Feb. 7, 2013. Only POF members from Canada, United States, United Kingdom and Australia will be able to vote for their favorite couple. These members must also have belonged to Plenty of Fish before December 20, 2012.

This contest is a great lead up to Valentine’s Day for Plenty of Fish and by the looks of it to jumpstart their new couple’s profiles. On the contest submission page along with your love story and couple questions you are asked to enter information about you and your partner. These details are then used to create a POF Couple’s Profile.

Dating sites have been looking for a way to keep members coming back to visit their service. The problem is once the online dater has met someone they have little need to return. That is until now when sites like Zoosk and Facebook launched their couple profiles which allows them to track the major milestones of their relationships. It is not a large step for POF to do the same so I think we will see a lot more about their couple profiles in the near future.

To find out more about this popular free dating site you can read our [staticpage:PlentyOfFish.com] review.

eHarmony is having a free communication event for the next 6 days! It starts Thursday January 3rd and continues to Tuesday January 8th on both the Canada and United States eHarmony websites.

This is a great time for eHarmony to have one of their famous free communication events. Most people are still off of work and as you found out in one of our posts earlier today that right after the holidays is the best time to join a dating site. Also, did you know that the top resolution for 64 percent of singles this year was to find love in 2013? Well it is and that’s why if you are looking to online dating to help you find your next relationship, eHarmony makes a good choice.

To try it out all you need to do is signup for a free eHarmony membership. No credit card is required and there is no obligation. Once you have signed in you can create your profile and take the eHarmony in-depth relationship questionnaire. It takes a little time to complete but it will be worth it since the more your profile reflects you, the better your matches will be. After your profile and questionnaire is done you will be taken to your main eHarmony member homepage where you will find a set of new matches ready for you to review. Once you have figured out who you would like to contact you can then initiate communication with them by starting with the Guided Communication process and then move on to emailing them. With the free communication event you cannot view photos, use Secure Call (a phone service) or Skip to Mail feature.

In November of 2012 was the last free eHarmony communication weekend (see Story). By our count this free communication event will be #43.

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.