General News

Everyone knows that online dating is popular, but just how popular is it? The Wall Street Journal decided to investigate the phenomenon, to figure out exactly how web-based American love lives have become.

"One result of the increasing importance of the Internet in meeting partners," says an article published on the 'How Couples Meet and Stay Together' survey, "is that adults with Internet access at home are substantially more likely to have partners, even after controlling for other factors."

In 2009 and 2010, a research team asked a group of over 4,000 participants (including couples who'd met as long ago as 1940!) how they met their partners. They found that almost all traditional ways of meeting people - like school, church, and mutual acquaintances - are in decline:

• The number of heterosexual couples who met through friends dropped from nearly 40% in the mid-1980s to less than 30% in 2010.
• From 1960-1990, neighborhood and church meetings accounted for 10% and 7% of romantic partnerships, but both numbers dropped after 2000.

At the same time as those figures were declining, the proportion of couples who'd met online was on the rise. From the mid-1990s to 2010, the number rose from 0 to just over 20%. Bars and restaurants, always popular choices for romantic meetings, maintained steady popularity, becoming even more influential after 2000.

The online dating revolution has been an even greater boon for same-sex daters. The numbers of homosexual daters who met online rose to more than 60% by 2010. Other dating markets who have fewer chances of meeting potential partners in real life, like older singles, have also found online dating to be hugely beneficial.

But the facts and figures may not be as simple as they seem. "Answers to the 'where did you meet?' question could be multiple," notes the WSJ article. "It could be that online daters were taking note of their real-world encounter."

With the exception of couples who met before the Internet era, people without an Internet connection were significantly less likely to be in a relationship than those with access to the Web: 36% vs. 72%. The authors are quick to point out, though, that the numbers cannot be taken at face value. Survey participants who did not have Internet access at the outset of the survey received Internet access, meaning that those who "lacked" it actually only lacked it when the survey began.

The authors also caution that there is no way to be certain that technology is the causal factor in their findings. There is no evidence that online dating has affected the proportion of people finding partners over time - displacement of old methods of partnering up seems to be what the researchers observed.

It looks like True Beginnings (aka True.com) is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. They filed in Texas Federal court last week along with the owner Herb Vest. According to the filings True.com owes between $50 and $100 million to their creditors in amounts up to $10 million.

True.com claim to fame was their stance against married people and criminals joining their dating site. According to True they screen all members against a United States criminal database before they are allowed to communicate on the service. They also state on their homepage “TRUE reserves the right to report violators to appropriate law enforcement …”. Violators would be married people who report themselves as single and people who say they have no criminal record when in fact they do. Violators could be accused of fraud since they potentially violated the True.com Privacy and Use Policies.

For more on this story you can check out the Dallas Business Journal.

Facebook's IPO is one of the biggest news stories of 2012 so far...are you up to speed? Here's an overview of the most important details of the IPO, from promising start to disappointing finish.

After abundant speculation and much anticipation, Facebook finally filed paperwork for an initial public offering on February 1, 2012, the same week the massive social network celebrated its 8th birthday. The S-1 revealed that Facebook had an estimated value of $100 billion and was hoping to raise $5 billion dollars, which would have made the company about four times as valuable as Google when Google went public in 2004.

Facebook filed with Morgan Stanley as lead underwriter, while Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and others took secondary positions. Shares were planned to hit the market in May 2012, but rumors soon began to fly that the IPO wasn't living up to the hype. Investors were skeptical about Facebook's prospects, as the site's ad revenues hadn't kept pace with its user growth. An investor poll conducted by Bloomberg found that 79% of investors, analysts, and traders thought that Facebook's $96 billion valuation was too high.

Facebook amended the S-1 filing several times, each time painting a bleaker picture of Facebook's future. One of the largest problems facing Facebook was the site's mobile versions. Facebook has yet to find a way to capitalize on its smartphone-based users, so the more users who check Facebook from their phones, the worse Facebook's average revenue per user (or ARPU) gets. Users are increasingly accessing Facebook from their mobile devices, meaning that Facebook's revenue is sinking.

After all the hysteria, the IPO's debut was anticlimactic. On its first day as a public company, Facebook's stock closed at $38.23 a share. That's down from the opening trading price of $42, but up from its IPO price.

Many theories attempt to account for the IPO's disappointing performance. One suggests that it's NASDAQ's fault, for failing to the stock until 11:30 am EST, 30 minutes later than planned. Another theory places the blame with GM, which pulled its advertising from Facebook shortly before the IPO because it wasn't working. Others say that Facebook was overvalued, or that investors are now weary of social media stock.

Whatever the reason, the rocky IPO cast doubts for many on Facebook's second-quarter revenue potential, and the doubts continue. After all the rumors and hype surrounding Facebook's IPO, what was billed as one of the biggest stories of the year became a non-story. There was little to tell, except that Facebook had underperformed.

In the weeks following the IPO, Facebook stock fell as low as low as $25.52. It is now around $28, but its future is still uncertain.

To find out if this social network can be a good way to meet new people for dating, please check out our review of Facebook.

In what I find as a bit of a surprising move according to TNW, Plenty of Fish has launched a site called Luv My Box (luvmybox.com).

The premise behind Luvmybox is that you pay a monthly subscription fee ($34.95) and they will ship you (or whoever you want) once a month a package called a LuvBox filled with adult oriented items that one would find in a sex shop. The packages are discreet and can include anything from sexy costumes, to games, to other tools of the trade. 😉

Badoo introduced last month a dating app for Windows phone users. The Badoo app requires Windows Phone 7.5 or higher and includes most of the features found on their other apps like location based dating, profile updates, matches and sending messages. To try out the new app just search the Windows Phone Marketplace for “Badoo”.

Badoo also has apps available on iOS, Android, and Blackberry phone platforms. If you do not wish to use an app you can also access Badoo through your smartphones browser. To find out more about this dating service and why it has 150 million plus users you can read our review of Badoo.com.

A lot of travel stories are about bad in-flight meals, sub-par hostel accommodations, and confusing cultural mix ups. But this travel story is about a couple who joined MissTravel.com, met for the first time in Cabo San Lucas, and fell in love.

Their story was featured on ABC 20/20's "Vacation Confidential" segment, alongside an interview with the site's founder and CEO, Brandon Wade. ABC is the first to document one of "the newest and wackiest vacation trends" via a reality travel dating show that isn't too far off from its travel-and-romance hits "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette."

MissTravel.com claims to be the first online dating site to blend travel with romance, by bringing together generous singles looking for travel companions with attractive singles who cannot afford to travel alone. The idea is proving to be a popular one: more than 100,000 members have joined and over 50,000 trips have been planned in the 3 months the site has been live.

MissTravel.com has stirred up its share of controversy with critics who have compared it to a travel escort agency, but Brandon Wade is on the defensive. "Most people are uncomfortable with the idea of taking any kind of risk," he said during his interview with ABC, "so they choose to look at all the things that could go wrong with MissTravel.com, meanwhile ignoring all its potential for greatness."

Sibel and Steven, the couple featured in the segment, are bound to agree. Sibel is a 27-year-old from New York who signed up for MissTravel.com with minimal expectations. Shortly after joining, she received a message for Steven, a 31-year-old financial planner from San Diego who was looking for company on his upcoming trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Sibel says she found the idea of joining a man she'd never met on a trip abroad daunting, but decided to give it a go after days of talks on Skype and over the phone. They met for the first time at Villa Marcella, a beachside mansion Steven rented out for a whopping $2500 a night. It was a weekend full of indulgences - dips in the Jacuzzi, fine dining, a private yacht, snorkeling, horseback riding, massages - and when it came to a close, Sibel and Steven kissed each other goodbye and returned to their homes.

A few weeks later, Steve traveled to New York to visit Sibel, and a few weeks after that, she traveled to San Diego to spend a weekend with him. The first success story of MissTravel.com is still being written: Sibel and Steve found what they were looking for on MissTravel.com, and the couple is still dating.