Sometimes, you want a little less judgment and a lot more acceptance when it comes to your rituals or habits – especially with the person you want to date. Dating websites like eHarmony might be great at matching people based on personality traits and long-term potential, but what if you like to relax in the evening with cocktails or some cannibas and are afraid your date just won’t get it?

This is where dating app My420Mate.com comes in. Instead of tiptoeing around the subject or hiding your habit, you can date other lovers of weed.

The new app – branding itself as a “lifestyle platform” - launched in spring, and the company is now working on its first major marketing campaign, which will include billboards in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and Sacramento. My420Mate will also be debuting a new version in December.

Los Angeles marijuana entrepreneur Miguel Lozano teamed up with partner Jay Lindberg to launch the new app, noting a desire from users of traditional dating sites. Apparently in L.A., just as many daters were calling themselves “420-friendly” in their profiles as saying they liked long walks on the beach, according to local paper L.A. Weekly.

There are only 11,000 users to date, but there are also only a few states where it’s legal – including California, Colorado and Washington - and that’s where the app seems to be taking off.

Lozano is trying to steer clear of stereotyping users of his new app, although he does also see a marketing opportunity to group them together under their mutual appreciation of cannabis. “I was trying to change the stereotype of the average cannabis user," Lozano told L.A. Weekly. "Everyone uses the word stoner, but it's a lifestyle. There's a lot more to it than that. We have teachers, chefs, and computer techs who enjoy the benefits of marijuana."

Niche dating sites and apps aren’t new – many developers and companies have invested in sites that cater to a specific market – be it seniors, vegetarians, Republicans, or even cowboys/cowgirls. When people are looking for compatibility or even those who share a religious faith it’s easier to go to a specialty site than filtering people out from a large site like Tinder or OkCupid.

But will My420Mate take off as a dating app? It’s too soon to tell, and might be a little premature of its founders to bet on it being as popular as Tinder. Because of its illegal status in most states, people might want to avoid putting their profile on the site altogether.

At the end of 2012, dating site Hinge had recently launched and was overshadowed by the popularity of dating app Tinder. Unsure of how to proceed with less than $32,000 in the bank and only a few thousand users according to Business Insider, Hinge decided to bet big on the mobile platform.

"We made some business assumptions that turned out to be wrong," Hinge CEO and founder Justin McLeod told the news website. "We were like, 'This thing is running out of money, and we need to do something drastic."

In what seems to be a spur-of-the-moment business decision, McLeod and a couple of developers holed up for a few weeks and launched a mobile version of Hinge on February 7th of 2013. But the launch wasn't as smooth as expected - Apple at first rejected the app, which caused many sleepless night for McLeod and his company. They had planned a huge launch party in Washington DC where the app first launched, and until the morning of the launch party, there was no app available.

The launch party turned out to be a success, and more people signed up right after it than had signed up for the beta in all of 2012. It seemed Hinge struck a chord with users where Tinder left them feeling insecure - especially women. Hinge does not just match users based on location like Tinder does (which means a lot of random profiles get into the mix) - you only get matched through your circle of Facebook friends of friends, so everyone you meet on Hinge has some kind of link to your circle. This security has been particularly attractive to female dating app consumers.

McLeod is not about to sit still. He is grabbing a good portion of the dating app market share, and expects to compete heavily with Tinder for its core user base. But he's taking things one step at a time.

Instead of launching his app nationally, he has launched city by city, building up a solid user base based on demand before he moves into a new market. Also, potential Hinge users must be invited by current Hinge users - adding a level of exclusivity and security to the app.

Hinge is now one of New York's hottest startups. Although Tinder is much larger (it makes more matches per day than Hinge has in its entire history), McLeod's company is starting to steal some Tinder users. It has expanded to 20 cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. It uses a waitlist to assess demand in other cities, then launches when a few thousand people have signed up.

"There is no shortage of companies that have tried to build what we've built," McLeod says to Business Insider. "But we're using the organic, city-by-city method, which I think is the biggest thing ... We're a utility to help users meet great people in the flesh as effectively as possible ...We want to be a house party that has a really good host."

Online dating sites like OkCupid and Plenty of Fish have had a free model for a long time, which has managed to expand their membership databases and make them tough contenders with paid sites such as Match.com and eHarmony. But now that free dating apps like Tinder have entered the picture and taken the dating world by storm, the paid dating sites have seen not only a decline in membership, but also in revenues.

Is online dating on its way out?

According to a recent article in The Economist, paid online dating sites have reason to worry. In the article, The Economist points out Cupid, who runs subscription-based dating websites such as Cupid.com, UniformDating.com, and LoveBeginsAt.com, announced a $4.9 million loss in the first 6 months of 2014, up 20% from last year. The number of members has dropped, too. At the end of 2012, Cupid’s sites had 113,000 paying members, but by June 2014, they had just 48,000.

While this is a disturbing trend for online dating sites like Cupid – which haven’t really taken off like other paid sites Match.com and eHarmony – it could weed out many contenders in the online dating market over the next couple of years. However in contrast to Cupid's earnings, eHarmony recently reported incredible subscriber growth and better earnings than they have seen in years, due to focusing on long-term relationships and technology that they market as extremely valuable for finding the “right” match.

But what about popular free dating apps and websites like Tinder and old-timer OkCupid? They have attracted users because of their easy set-up and accessibility. They have made online dating less intimidating, (although a little more sketchy according to some users). Are they responsible for the decline in companies like Cupid? 

Not necessarily. Even free apps and websites aren’t so free anymore.

There has been a shift for the free dating apps and online sites to offer “freemium” services – that is, additional features to the basic service but for a price. In the current online dating market, revenue growth needs to happen for investors to remain interested, and that means charging for services once the user base is built. Tinder recently announced that it will launch a premium paid service in early November, while the basic features of the app will still be free. OkCupid started with a freemium model a while ago, charging users who want to filter profiles according to user preferences, or to be able to review and see reviews of other members.

Still others like eHarmony are adding more personalized matchmaking services at a very high price – thousands per year – for those who want a relationship but would like someone else to do the heavy lifting. eHarmony has not reported numbers to see the success of this particular service.

So what does the future look like for online dating? One thing is for sure: free models likely won’t last forever.

It's one thing to speculate about what's going on with eHarmony these days, but it's quite another to hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

Ok, not a horse – Dr. Neil Clark Warren, CEO of eHarmony and instantly-recognizable white-haired man from the eHarmony commercials. On August 22nd, 2014, the 14th anniversary of eHarmony's founding, Warren sent an internal memo with an insider's look at the company he believes could become “one of the most important companies in the history of the world.”

Read the full thing www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2014/10/eharmony-internal-memo.html and check out some of the highlights below:

• After nearly losing the company in 2012, eHarmony is back on track with a five-year turnaround plan.
• It wasn't easy. Board members were asked to step down, employees were fired, vendor contracts were terminated, and an all-new executive management team was put in place.
• Even some of eHarmony's top leadership changed. Grant Langston and Dan Erickson were appointed to the Management Team, and Armen Avedissian was hired as the new COO.
• Just two years in, the company is showing signs of a major comeback. “Instead of losing 100,000 end of period subscribers each year,” writes Warren, “suffering EBITDA losses of 50% every single year, our EBITDA for 2014 will literally be dramatic and the cash in the bank increasing substantially each month.” eHarmony's end of period paying subscriber count has hit an all-time high.
• A major move is in the works. eHarmony's offices will be relocating to prestigious digs on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
• The current business plan includes building ten separate relationship businesses with ten separate revenue streams.
• eHarmony intends to scale up by increasing its international reach. The company now employs 190 staff members in North America, the UK, and Australia, but hopes to reach other countries in the future – first in English, then in their native languages.
• Selling the company is definitely not part of the plan. “We do not ever again wish to expose the ownership and management of our business to persons who know almost nothing about relationships,” says Warren, “and have even less commitment to the sacredness of the relationships we are attempting to assist.”

Warren is feeling confident about the future of eHarmony. Maybe even a little over-confident, actually. Case in point:

“Bottom line, as a company, we want to bring about a world in which literally everyone has peace, love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Then, we will know that we have reached our loftiest and most idealistic goals.”

Whew. “Idealistic” is right. But all the best to them, and if they get even halfway there, eHarmony will be a rousing success. For more on this dating site you can check out our eHarmony review.

I've written before about how much I love Halloween, especially the horror movies that inevitably fill my Netflix queue each fall.

I've heard a fair deal of horror film criticism over the years, from “It just gives crazy people ideas” to “There must be something wrong with anyone who actually likes watching this stuff.” I always take it in stride, but this year, finally, I have a rebuttal: horror films are dating advice in disguise.

Really? Yes, really.

For the second month in a row eHarmony has sent out a coupon code for our visitors. This one is even better since it gives you 60% off a 6 month membership. it is also available not only in the United States but Canada as well. The code is only valid for 4 days which starts today (Oct 30) and ends at the end of the day on November 2nd, 2014.

The coupon code is: EHSALE60

To use this code you need to create a free profile at eHarmony. This involves giving information about yourself like your age and gender. Once completed you will then need to take the personality questionnaire. This is where the matching magic happens so it is important you take your time and answer the questions the best you can. Depending on if you are filling the questionnaire out on the website or through the eHarmony dating app it should take you from 20 minutes to 40 minutes to complete.

After your profile is finished you will then receive your first batch of matches. At this point you can go ahead and take a look at your matches but communication with them will be limited. If you find any matches you like you can then go ahead and purchase a membership. Just make sure at checkout to enter the code above to receive your 60% off. At this price a eHarmony membership will cost about $25 a month.

To find out more about this online dating site please take a look at our detailed review of eHarmony.