Dating Services

According to Dan Slater, an expert in the business of online dating, the answer may be "yes."

The recent online dating industry conference in Miami, Florida saw a range of participants - from the major corporote players like IAC, the owner of Match and OkCupid, to the indie industry-disrupters like Plenty of Fish and Grindr. Every company thinks they know exactly what the future will hold for the industry - what's going to die out, what's going to be the next big thing - but who really has a handle on where online dating is going?

Day One of the conference began with a keynote address from Gary Kremen, the founder of Match.com, the Internet's first mass-market dating site. Match was, and still is, a hugely successful venture, but the climate is changing and online dating sites must adapt with it.

In 2007, Alex Mehr and Shayan Zadeh did exactly that, by creating a dating site that was modeled on social networking sites. Mehr and Zadeh launched Zoosk as a third-party dating app for Facebook, and by 2012 it had reached nearly 5 million unique visitors and had climbed to the top of the U.S. Rankings of online dating sites. Zoosk's success begs the question: Is the Match model dying?

"One of its former employees," writes Slater, "who spoke to a packed conference room in the afternoon, believes that Match and its kind--i.e. traditional dating sites, which, by the way, currently account for most of the industry--have seen their day." Brian Bowman, the former VP of product development at Match, has created a new dating application called TheComplete.me in hopes of giving the online dating industry the upgrade it needs.

Rather than giving users a static profile, TheComplete.me will tap into the sites that members use every day, like Netflix, Picasa, or Amazon, to create a dynamic picture of who each user is. The idea is to create a profile that evolves with you, and is a more complete and personalized representation of who you are than the anonymous profiles used by traditional dating sites.

Taking dating in this direction means major changes for the ideas of privacy and transparency. "If online-dating culture advances to the point where the person you're hoping to date has an expectation of transparency," says Slater, "or, in Bowman's words, 'authenticity,' openness will become the new norm."

The idea is still in its infancy, but it's big news for the online dating industry and may be, in the near future, big news for you.

SeekingArrangement.com announced last Friday the launch of their anonymous phone calling feature. The service is called ICALLU which allows members to talk over the phone to each other without revealing their phone number to the member they are calling. Registering for this calling feature is free to members. A member's profile is marked as "phone verified" when they have gone through the registration and verification process (using SMS). Pricing for this service is currently 99 cents a minute ($1.99 for international calls) for the member who initiates the phone call.

SeekingArrangement.com decided to go ahead and offer this anonymous phone service after their research showed that 55 percent of their members have indicated that they are concerned about privacy. 32 percent of members also have already had a negative experience from giving out their phone number to a stranger.

For more information on this story you can read the press release. For similar dating sites to SeekingArrangement.com you can take a look at our Sugar Daddy dating category.

We wrapped up the 2011 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll today. It ran from October 1st, 2011 and ended today, January 30, 2012. We almost reached 1000 votes, the most we ever have had. In total we had 987 voters who answered 2 questions. The first being which paid dating site would you recommend for the "2011 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award". The second question asked which free dating site you would recommend.

The annual Single's Choice Award is our most important award we give out. This is because it is voted on by you. Collectively our visitors spend many more hours online with these dating sites compared to what it is possible for us to do. We do have our own opinions as well which is why we have the Editor's Top Pick awards. These awards are based on our own experiences as well as the comments we receive from visitors throughout the year.

For 2011 we listed the top eight dating sites for you to vote on. The three dating sites which received the most votes will get an award, Gold for first, Silver for second and Bronze for third.

The recipient of the Gold 2011 Single's Choice Award is Match.com. We also gave this dating site the Editor's Top Pick - Overall award as well. Match.com received 331 votes, which is 33.5 percent of all votes. Most other dating sites in the poll only were voted on about 8 percent of the time which makes Match.com almost 5 times more popular than most other sites.

The recipient of the Silver 2011 Single's Choice Award is eHarmony. eHarmony has won this award 4 times in a row. They had 22.5 percent of the vote which works out to 222 votes. eHarmony's match system is as popular as every with users which is also why they were the recipient of the Editor's Top Pick - Match System award as well

The recipient of the Bronze 2011 Single's Choice Award is Badoo. This up an coming social dating site made great strides in popularity in only one year to be able to earn the bronze award. While they only had under half of the votes than what the winner of the silver award received, Badoo did get a respectable 95 votes, which works out to almost 10 percent of all votes.

Here are this year's standings for the Single's Choice award for all dating sites in the poll.

1. Match.com
2. eHarmony
3. Badoo
4. Zoosk
5. Chemistry
6. Date.com
7. PerfectMatch.com
8. Lavalife

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote for the 2011 Single's Choice Award. Our visitors in 2012 will appreciate knowing which dating services are the most popular.

I noticed you now can access MillionaireMatch through a mobile device. They have a new app available on both the iPhone and Android phones.

With the app you can do most things found on the website including updating your profile, searching for matches and communicating with other members by sending winks and emails. You can also view lists of your favorites, who has liked you and members who have viewed your profile.

For more information about this dating service to find wealthy men please read our MillionaireMatch.com review.

The 2011 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll launched October 1st, 2011. By January we had almost 1000 votes cast beating the previous year by just under 200 votes. For the last 3 years we have asked our visitors to recommend the best free dating site. We consider a free dating site one that allows members to create a profile, search for members and communicate with any member by mail messages. A free dating site in our poll may offer paid features but the basic dating features one would need to actually find and communicate with someone must be available to all members for free.

The 2011 Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site goes to Plenty Of Fish (POF). This dating site continues to win this award year after year. They received over 39 percent of the vote in 2011 with 388 votes. This is an increase of 6 percent when compared to 2010.

Here are the final results of the poll:

1. Plenty Of Fish (POF)
2. OkCupid
3. Craigslist
4. DateHookUp.com
5. BookOfMatches
6. Matchdoctor.com
7. Mingle 2

OkCupid came in second this year with almost a quarter of all votes (237), followed by Craigslist with just under 10 percent of the vote. Craigslist fell by one position this year but it was almost two since DateHookup.com had only one vote less than Craigslist at 95 votes. This was all followed closely by BookOfMatches with just over 8 percent of the vote, which is 80 votes. Finally Matchdoctor.com and Mingle 2 brought up the rear with 49 votes and 42 votes respectively (under 5% each).

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

Here are the eHarmony coupon codes for two of their more popular promotions. Both of these coupon codes expire on December 31, 2012.

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.