General News

Are you looking for a snapshot of dating services in the United States? Besides our own data of online dating and relationship statistics that you can review for free, IBISWorld has released a [staticpage:www.ibisworld.com/industry/default.aspx?indid=1723 report] that covers online dating, mobile dating, matchmakers and singles events. It includes industry statistics, market size, industry analysis and a forecast of trends. To purchase the report it will cost you $825 USD. (hmmm maybe I should write my own report if that is what you can charge 😉)

As an enticement for visitors to buy the full report they have released a few interesting statistics. IBIS World notes that revenues for the online dating industry in 2012 is expected to be $2 billion and that in previous years (2007 to 2012) the online dating industry revenues have grown on average of 3.5 percent. Currently there are 7,085 people employed in the dating industry made up of 3,745 businesses.

If you are interested in other facts broken out by year please read our own Online Dating Statistics page. You will also find links to statistics and facts of individual companies that own popular online dating sites.

eHarmony has announced it's closing the doors on its short-lived sister site, Jazzed.com. Jazzed will be no more on September 18, two years after its launch in 2010.

Years ago, Match.com introduced Chemistry.com, its algorithm-based answer to eHarmony. eHarmony responded with Jazzed, a more casual site that allowed users to freely contact other members instead of connecting only with matches provided by the site. eHarmony hoped Jazzed would be a strong competitor for Match's massive market share, but alas - it seems their dream was not to be.

Jazzed barely managed to get off the ground, despite eHarmony's efforts. The site launched a photo-sharing app last year and was featured on a dating television show called "Excused," but that was the extent of its popularity. After the initial excitement over the site wore off, it never returned to the public's radar.

If you're a Jazzed member, you now have three options:

• Take no immediate action, and continue to use the site until it shuts down on September 18.
• Cancel your subscription before the site closes, and receive a prorated refund for the remaining portion of your subscription. (Users who do not cancel their subscriptions will be issued a prorated refund after the date of closure.)
• Sign up for eHarmony instead, which is offering a discount to former Jazzed users. Use the promo code JAZZEDEH to receive a special rate of $9.95/mo for three months. The offer expires on September 20 at 11:59 pm PST, after which your account will automatically renew at a rate of $29.95/mo.

Upon closure, Jazzed members will not be able to view or edit profile information on the site or access their Jazzed mailboxes. "Any data associated with your account will be deleted shortly after the closure," says Jazzed, "provided that we may archive certain information for record keeping integrity, fraud prevention, enforcement of our terms, or to the extent it relates to a pending dispute."

Unfortunately, that last bit raises a lot of questions for Jazzed users. Exactly what does "shortly" mean? How can data be both "deleted" and "archived?" Does it still exist or not? And if it still exists, what's going to happen to it? How can a site that's no longer active enforce its terms?

What's going to happen to Jazzed profiles? Will the URLs remain active? Will they be sold to other companies? Will they be merged with the eHarmony database? Will the database go offline?

Right now Jazzed seems to be creating more questions than it's answering. I advise all users to keep a close watch over their privacy and data, and monitor the progress of this story as Jazzed shuts down.

There's no denying that Facebook and other social media have become a big part of our lives. The vast majority of us have a Facebook page, (and many also have a Twitter or FourSquare account and a Pinterest page among others). So what does that mean for our dating lives?

Facebook has become a way for us to update our network of friends on everything that is going on in our lives, sometimes on a minute-by-minute basis, depending on how much time you spend on the site. It's also a way for us to check in on other peoples' lives. People use their status update tool to announce everything from a new baby to an engagement to what kind of coffee they had for breakfast. While it's great to keep updated on the lives of our friends, when is it too much?

Studies have been conducted recently on this topic, and whether too much time on Facebook can lead to jealousy or depression. While there are no definite links between clinical depression and social media use, there was a study from the University of Salford in the U.K. that indicates social media may cause anxiety and lower self-esteem.

While this study was not extensive - about 300 people participated - about half of them reported that using social media has made their lives worse. In particular, they noticed feelings of jealousy and low self-esteem when they started comparing their own lives to those of their Facebook friends.

For example, if your ex-boyfriend posts a new photo with a mysterious woman, or friends a member of the opposite sex, you might find yourself not only curious but jealous. And this might lead you to more stalker-like behavior, trying to figure out who this woman is and why she's in a photo with your ex.

Sometimes posts can seem insensitive to single men and women: posts announcing a couple's marriage, new engagement, a trip to Europe together (complete with pictures of the happy couple), or an announcement of the baby they are expecting. While these events are all wonderful, it can make single Facebook friends start dwelling on all the things they don't have.

While we can't prevent people from posting a million pictures of their new babies on Facebook or gushing about their new loves, we can take a step back and limit the time we spend on social media sites. We could also block certain people from our feeds, if they have a proclivity to gush. Regardless, it's important to keep perspective. Some people gush on Facebook in order to convince themselves of their own happiness. Others just want to share. Either way, don't take it personally - it's not about you. The more you can distance yourself from other people's status updates, the more secure and relaxed you'll be in your own life.

To find out more on how to use this social network as a dating tool and if it is worth doing so, please read our Facebook review.

PayPal has been told by a Judge that they cannot dismiss a lawsuit filed by SeekingArrangement.com. The lawsuit is about PayPal suspending SeekingArrangement.com accounts because of the sexual nature of the dating site. Meanwhile they still allow similar sites like Ashley Madison to have a PayPal account so their members can pay for the dating service.

SeekingArrangement.com started to use PayPal as a payment gateway for their members back in 2007. By 2011 PayPal has suspended their account permanently citing the fact that they allow dating options such as “Intimate Encounter” and “Discreet Affair”.

To find out more about the sugar daddy dating site that is taking on PayPal you can read our SeekingArrangement review.

Our review for the dating site Plenty of Fish has just received a major update and is now available online. Our last significant update to this review was completed under a year and a half ago. Beyond shortening there name from Plenty of Fish to POF this dating site has gone through a number of changes since May 2011.

So what has POF updated with their service since the last time we did a review? Here is a quick list of some of the more important changes:

• Profile questions modified and added
• Photo rating removed
• Relationship chemistry predictor went from 28 to 73 questions
• Profile themes now requires a paid membership
• The ability to see who viewed your profile find out the date and time it was viewed now requires a paid membership
• The amount of credits you get has changed for the 3 price points
• Additional relationship statuses have been added
• Some limits to what users can contact you via private messaging has been removed. You can no longer specify that the sender’s profile must have an image and that the message must be a certain size
• New "Hottest Girls" feature that lists women who consistently reply to messages
• New "Most Attracted" feature that lists men who have a high likelihood of being attracted to you
• There are now 5 different Personality Tests

To find out more about this popular free dating site and the changes please read our updated POF.com review now.

2 years ago eHarmony launched a dating site called Jazzed. When it launched Jazzed was free for a time before it eventually went pay (I am not sure when). Back in 2010 we found Jazzed to be a lot like Match.com. The Jazzed dating profile contained about the same amount of information and members could search for their own matches. Unfortunately the Jazzed dating site will be closing next Tuesday September 18th, 2012.

Why are they closing? They never did get the site off the ground and I think very little money was spent in marketing. The site was on our radar to do a full fledge review but we just never got around to it since our visitors never asked about it. I also never saw many ads for the service so we kind of forgot about it (which is saying something since that is all we do around here is talk about online dating. 😉

Overall from a technical point of view Jazzed was a good dating site. It had a solid interface and offered the right tools for finding your match. They even had mobile apps on the iPhone and Android. Maybe if they had marketed the site more this would be a different story, but they didn’t. As a lot of dating site owners know marketing is the hardest part of running a dating site (I imagine this is true for most online services).

To find out more details about the closure you can read the Jazzed FAQ which includes information on refunds if you have an active subscription.

If you are looking for information on another dating site to try please take a look at the reviews on these popular services:

• eHarmony
• Match.com
• OkCupid
• Plenty of Fish