General News

It's election time!

Politics is the biggest topic in America right now, so naturally eHarmony wanted to get in on all the election excitement by providing a peek into the political perspectives of American singles. The site polled thousands of members on the biggest issues, like taxes, socialized medicine, and the economy, facing Americans right now. Here's what they had to say...

eHarmony members are almost evenly split between the major political parties.

• 29,000 of the 148,000 (20%) polled consider themselves Democrats.
• Slightly more - 39,000 or 26% - call themselves Republican.
• The majority, however, say they are "neither." 80,000 (54%) prefer not to align themselves with a political party.

When it comes to sharing a brew, however, eHarmony members are clear about who they would prefer to crack open a cold one with.

• 64% cast their votes for Obama, compared to 36% who voted for Romney.
• Those 36% are likely to be disappointed...because Romney doesn't drink.

Most eHarmony users are not in favor of socialized medicine.

• 58% sided with Romney on the issue.
• 42% took Obama's side.

On the sensitive issue of taxes, eHarmony users say they think Mitt Romney hasn't paid his fair share.

• 66% say Romney owes more than he has paid.
• 34% think he's all squared away.
• Most eHarmony users also think that millionaires should pay more taxes. 71% answered in the affirmative while 29% answered in the negative.

Do eHarmony users think Obama is responsible for America's high unemployment rate?

• Most don't. 68% say he didn't create the problem and it will take years to fix it.
• 32% think Obama is to blame and he doesn't know what he's doing.

Many eHarmony users think the future looks bleak.

• Just 12% say they think the economy is on the rise.
• 44% say they have completely lost faith in the global economy.
• Another 44% believe there's still hope that the economy will work itself out.

Where the Iraq war is concerned, eHarmony users overwhelmingly think it was a mistake.

• 64% say the war wasn't justified, compared to 36% who support it.

There was also a clear majority for the question "Do you believe in a separation of church and state?"

• 82% gave an emphatic yes, while just 18% said they believe church and state should be tied together.

Most eHarmony users also think the government should be kept small.

• 65% think government is more effective when it's small.
• 35% think government functions better when it's big.

And now for the most important question of all...would eHarmony users want to be president? 40% said yes, they would be happy to trade places with Obama or Romney, but 60% said becoming president would be their "ultimate nightmare."

To find out more about the dating site that brought you this poll you can read our eHarmony review

On October 30, 2012 Plenty of Fish released a new update for their Android dating app. The new version number is 1.4.3.10727 and it includes a number of new features, user interface improvements and bug fixes. The new features include:

• User report right from their profile
• Selecting thumbnails for your uploaded images
• Add images to your messages
• Manage all of your POF.com notifications in Settings
• Notifications for New Matches and Mutual Meet Me

I haven't had any problems with the app but some users are still reporting connection issues and the inability to send messages. The best new feature of this update is being able to add my photos to messages. This makes it a lot easier when messaging someone since I can show them right in the message a picture of what I am talking about instead of referencing a photo in my profile gallery.

Check out the Google Play Store on your Android phone and search for POF to download the app. To find out more about this popular online dating site you can check out our Plenty of Fish review.

Related Article: POF Dating App - New Android Version 1.4.1

It's one of the first questions you answer when joining an online dating site: What's your occupation? It's also one of the first questions you're asked when meeting someone: So what do you do for a living?

We all want to know how our dates pay the bills, and eHarmony knows why.

An eHarmony study looked into how career impacts romance, finding that what you do for a living has - no surprise here - a major impact on what you look for in a partner.

Last year a different study found that the worst careers for romance were personal finance, law enforcement, interactive technology, healthcare, publishing, mental health, optometry, education administration, fitness, aviation, journalism, business ownership, real estate, and law. The trend was clear: the more hours spent at a high-intensity job, the greater negative impact the career has on your love life.

Career addicts striving to achieve work-life balance should look for partners who have very different professions, says the new eHarmony study. Some of the most successful match-ups are:

• Self-employed women with engineers, female business executives with barbers or hair stylists, stay at home moms with dentists, and female doctors with bankers
• Unemployed men with personal trainers, male personal trainers with advertisers, male pilots with beauticians, and soldiers with female business executives

Some professions are willing to communicate with matches from all walks of life, while others are more choosy about who they chat with. The most picky daters are:

• Men who are engineers, analysts, lawyers, web developers, and bankers
• Women who are marketers, business executives, analysts, lawyers, and teachers

The most flexible daters are:

• Men who are soldiers, retired, skilled tradesmen, and students
• Women who are students, skilled tradeswomen, in the food service industry, and in retail sales

The eHarmony study also found that some job combinations are more likely to lead to a date than others. The most successful professional pairings are:

• Male and female business executives dating each other
• Male marketers with female business executives
• Male engineers with female business executives
• Policemen and firemen with female teachers

The least successful professional pairings are:

• Retired men with female administrative assistants
• Male artists with female students
• Male bankers with female administrative assistants
• Male doctors with female students

"When it comes to who's talking to who, most people are looking to talk to someone who does something different than themselves," an eHarmony spokesperson told the Daily Mail.

So I guess that's further proof that office romances aren't the way to go.

To find out more about this online matchmaking site you can check out our eHarmony.com review.

OkCupid seems to be more and more popular with every year that goes by.

It's young, it's fun, it's hip. It doesn't feel stuffy or impersonal like many of its competitors. It has everything that the tech-savvy, younger generation is looking for in an online dating site.

Sam Yagan, CEO and Co-Founder of the site, says that OkCupid has a strong social media strategy to thank for its success. But unlike other websites, Yagan isn't talking about Facebook or Twitter when he attributes OkCupid's popularity to social media - he's talking about OkTrends, the OkCupid blog.

Readers of this site will be familiar with the OkTrends blog. I used to cover every new post, because they were informative, witty, and visually engaging. Much to my dismay, the blog hasn't been updated since April 19, 2011 - not too long after Match purchased OkCupid - but the posts are still relevant, funny, and surprisingly enlightening.

Yagan told Business Insider that the now-defunct blog contributed to OkCupid's success by producing "great, sharable content." The blog used eye-catching graphs and interesting, sometimes provocative topics to draw in readers. OkTrends always walked the fine line between entertaining and educational, and wasn't afraid of the potentially-controversial topics ("Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex," "How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get," "The Case For An Older Woman") that made their readers so eager to pass the articles on.

"If you read any of our blog posts you'll see almost immediately why this concept would be interesting not just to a single person but really to anyone," says Yagan. OkTrends mastered the art of "producing content that was widely, broadly interesting."

Though it was at the forefront of OkCupid's social media strategy, it wasn't just the blog that made OkCupid a hit. The team behind the site has always been conscious of building a wide audience and targeting potential subscribers who don't initially seem to be likely online daters.

"We target people between the ages of 18 and 80 on OkCupid," Yagan explains. "Because dating is an inherently social process, it's very important to also influence the influencers.... That's why it turned out to be a really great thing for our blog to not just target the single people but also the single people's friends and families."

OkCupid has focused significantly less on the major social networking sites - Facebook and Twitter - than its competitors in the industry. As of September 27th this year, OkCupid had only 18,083 Twitter followers and 12,860 Facebook page likes. Compare that to the OkTrends blog, where each post got upwards of 10,000 (and sometimes over 100,000!) likes or shares on Facebook.

So OkCupid...don't you think it's time to bring the blog back? Please? Pretty please?

For more information on this free dating site you can check out our OkCupid review.

eHarmony Australia is offering a free communication weekend that starts in the morning on Friday November 2nd and ends Monday November 5th at the end of the day.

If you are an Australian single and wish to try a dating site which performs the matching for you, then eHarmony.com.au is a service that offers the features you are looking for. To try it out just create a free members account this weekend and fill out the profile questionnaire. This process will take you about 30 minutes or so and is important because the questions you answer are used to determine what other members will make a quality match for you. Once you have finished with your profile you will receive a number of matches right away. From here you can look at their profiles and pick the ones you feel a connection with. Communication is free with any of your eHarmony matches and no credit card is required.

For more about how this Australian matchmaking site in helps singles, please read our eHarmony review.

We have added a new review to the free dating sites category for the popular Latin site Amor en Linea. This dating site is available in English and Spanish and seems to have at least 12,000 members logged in at any one time.

This dating site is extremely easy to use. While this is a benefit for those of you new to online dating, the service does sacrifice functionality because of this. Still, it has all the basics needed by Latin singles who want to find, communicate and meet up with other singles online. One of the main reasons why this site is so popular in its niche is because it is completely free. Unlike other “free dating sites” there are no paid upgrades since everything the site offers is included in the membership.

To find out more about this popular free Latin dating site please read our new Amor en Linea review now.