Dating Services

It has been about 3 months since eHarmony has had a free communication event. Well the wait is over! In the United States and Canada eHarmony will be having a free communication event from September 2nd to the end if day on September 5th. September 5 also happens to be Labor day in the US making it the last long weekend of summer (FYI Canada also celebrates Labour Day at the same time).

So what is a free communication event? As the name suggests all members of eHarmony will be able to communicate for free during the promotion. New and existing free members will be able to create a dating profile, receive matches, and use the guided communication process to communicate with those matches at no cost. The only thing not include is viewing of members profile pictures and Secure Call communication.

This will be eHarmony's 35th free communication event with the last one occurring last spring in May (see Story).

To find out more about this matchmaking service you can take a look at our review of eHarmony.

Plenty of Fish is looking to hire a Database Administrator (DBA) so if you are interested in the job and have the qualifications you should comment on their blog. Markus also released a few statistics about his dating site and what the DBA will be up against. Last year alone Plenty of Fish sent out 5.5 billion messages. This works out to about 15 million a day. He also noted that Plenty of Fish's Behavioral Matching Engine deals with almost 20 billion pieces of data from their 30 million plus registered users that is stored in their database.

What this all boils down to is POF needs some heavy duty hardware to run its website and a DBA that knows how to optimize databases and SQL statements.

For more information on this free dating service you can read our PlentyofFish.com review.

I was surprised this morning when I read that Perfectmatch.com has been acquired by FriendFinder Networks (FFN). I am sure there have been others but this is the first dating site that I know of that FriendFinder Networks (or Various) has purchased. The only thing in the press release mentioned about the terms of the deal is that:

... founder Duane Dahl will join FriendFinder Networks as General Manager of the Company's general audience dating websites group ...

Having Duane Dahl join the FriendFinder ranks is a good move on FFN's part. In the past Perfectmatch.com is one of the few dating sites that has been able to get their dating service featured in movies from Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and NBC Universal. The dating site also has been a part of the "Dr. Phil Show" and "Dancing with the Stars".

For more on the story read the press release. To find out about the dating service FriendFinder acquired you can check out our Perfectmatch.com review.

Here are some dating statistics from the POF Blog. I believe these numbers are for 2011 and just concern the United States.

• There are 54 million singles
• Of those 10 percent (5.5 million) are currently using a dating service
• 2.6 million pay for the service leaving 2.9 million that do not.
• Overall 8.8 million have tried online dating

According to the US Census in 2009 there were 95.9 million unmarried people in the US. So I guess about 40 percent of those must be in some sort of common law relationship and just have not married. I believe that the 10 percent figure of people who use dating sites probably has not changed much over the last 5 years. The trick now for dating sites is to get the other 49 million to try online dating.

Last month It's Just Lunch celebrated their 20 year anniversary. Since 1991 they have not only been matching singles in the United States but in a number of countries around the world. It's Just Lunch is not an online dating site, they are a service run by matchmakers who help busy business people to meet other singles. Everything has the personal touch from meeting with clients face-to-face for the important first interview, to setting up the dates between matched clients.

To find out more about this matchmaking service please check out our It's Just Lunch review.

What effects does Facebook have on our romantic lives?

Online Dating University set out to find the answer, and produced a colorful infographic that shows us exactly what happens to our relationships when we live in public. Check it out here, via All Facebook.

Some interesting facts include:

• Approximately 60% of all Facebook users report a relationship status on their profile.
• The United States, South Africa, Iceland, the UK, and Canada are the five countries with the highest percentage of users reporting a relationship status.
• The average percentage of single Facebook users, by country, is 39%.
• Jordan is home to the largest percentage of Facebook users who list themselves as single on the site.
• The highest percentage of Facebook users who state that they're in a relationship of any kind (from "it's complicated" to "married") reside in Finland.
• Ghana has the greatest percentage of single male Facebook users, but women make up a greater percentage of Facebook's user base at large.
• As of December 2010, women outnumbered men on the site at a rate of 1.28 to 1.

2010, as it turns out, might not have been a great year for relationships. 37% of Facebook users changed their relationship status to "single" during the year, and 3% found themselves in relationships that were "complicated." 24% listed themselves as "in a relationship," while 5% became "engaged" and 31% were "married."

According to the infographic, documenting your love life on Facebook can have the following effects:

1. Overanalyzing. When you spend too much time on Facebook, you run the risk of becoming intensely aware of the activity on your love interest's profile. Over analyzing everything you see him or her post is likely to lead to feelings of insecurity.
2. Oversharing. What happens if you change your relationship status on Facebook but your partner doesn't? Publically recording every detail of your relationship can lead to unwanted confrontations and awkward moments, as well as public heartbreak if the relationship ends. Plus, future partners might not appreciate being privy to every detail of your past love affairs.
3. Unhealthy concern with the remarks of others. It's easy to become excessively concerned with the comments left by other people, and equally as easy to misinterpret harmless comments as competition. Unwarranted jealousy is a side effect of social networking for many Facebook users.
4. Constant reminders of lost love. Break ups are challenging at the best of times, but the access Facebook provides to your ex, and the constant reminders of his or her new life without you, makes the end of a relationship even more difficult.

How do you deal with these problems? Continue to Part II for Online Dating University's suggestions.

To find out more on how to use this social network as an online dating tool please read our review of Facebook.com.