Wow this year is going fast. The year 2014 is quickly coming to a close which means it is time for us to start thinking about the Dating Sites Reviews Awards. Just last Monday we released the first step in the Awards which is the Single's Choice Award poll. This poll is our most prestigious award and it is decided by you, our readers. The poll is made up of 2 questions. The first question asks what you think is the best paid dating service and the second question asks what you think the top free dating service is for 2014. For each question we list the most popular dating services in North America for the year (that fit within the category). When determining your choice please consider not only the website itself but any dating apps the service may have.

With online dating this year, mobile phones have played a huge part in the success of any dating service. For singles under the age of 35 at least 80% choose to access a dating service through its app. This year also marks a first for the Single Choice Award. One of the options to choose from in the top free service category is a dating app. This service is not offered through a website, you can only access it via your phone or tablet.

Please go ahead and cast your vote in the Single Choice Award:

At this time we at Dating Sites Reviews also start considering which dating service deserves to be recognized in our Top Pick Award categories. The recipients of these awards are determined by the Editor’s. We take into account a number of different factors, these include everything from the features offered to customer service.

For 2014 the categories for the Editor's Top Picks Awards include:

• Top Pick - Overall
• Top Pick - Innovative
• Top Pick - Match System
• Top Pick - Christian
• Top Pick - Senior
• Top Pick - Wealthy
• Top Pick - Sexy
• Top Pick - Dating App
• Top Pick - Free

With mobile being so popular we have decided to add a new category this year. We will be looking at dating apps and picking which one we think offers the best user experience.

This is the eighth year for the DSR Awards. Starting in January, each week we will release our choices for the Top Pick Awards ending with the winner of the Single's Choice Award on Valentine's Day in February.

Related items: Poll - 2014 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award.

We live in a crazy world. And at the moment, nothing is greater proof of that and the fact that there is a Christian Mingle movie.

Yes, that Christian Mingle. The dating website that promises devout singles it will "find God's match for you." Someone in Hollywood apparently thought that sounded like a rip-roaring good time of a rom-com, and here we are, wondering what led us to this strange and confusing place.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that the lead role is played by Lacey Chabert, most notable for her turn as the ditzy Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls? It just gets better and better.

Allegedly there is also a plot. It follows Chabert’s character, a 30-something marketing executive named Gwyneth Hayden, whose life is perfect except for one thing: it's missing a man. In a moment of desperation, she joins the Christian Mingle dating site in hopes of changing her fortunes – even though she is not a Christian. Here’s a synopsis of the rest of the film:

One of the most famous posts ever featured on OKCupid’s beloved OkTrends blog was a massive examination of the ways race and ethnicity affect the online dating experience. It was one of the very first OkTrends posts ever made, way back in 2009, but the issues are still relevant today. Writer Christian Rudder has decided to revisit them in an updated post for 2014.

Back in 2009, race and attraction on OkCupid looked like this:

• Non-black men discriminated against black women
• But black men showed little racial preference either way
• All women preferred to date men of their own race
• But otherwise, they consistently discriminated against Asian and black men

So the big question is: has anything changed?

In the last five years, OkCupid users haven’t had any epiphanies of open-mindedness. In fact, Rudder notes, racial bias may have intensified a bit. See the second chart here for a demonstration.

What has noticeably changed are people's answers to match questions like "Is interracial marriage a bad idea?" and "Do you strongly prefer to date someone of your own race?" The percentage of users answering YES to those questions has been slowly trending downwards, although their actual behavior has stayed the same.

This prompts a few other questions, like:

• Are people on OkCupid just racist?
• Is it possible that a small number of users is throwing off the averages?
• Does preferring to date partners of a specific race mean you’re racist?
• Is data from an online dating site even relevant in the real world?

Rudder has all the answers.

• No, OkCupid users are no more or less racist than anyone else. Online dating data shows consistent results where race is concerned, regardless of the dating site in question. The same basic biases can be found everywhere.

• Again, these biases exist throughout the research on race and dating, not just on OkCupid. It therefore highly unlikely that a small portion of OkCupid users are affecting the data in a significant way.
• You don't have control over what foods you like and which you don't, and the same goes for your personal preferences in your dating life. Most everyone has a "type" of some kind, and it probably isn't something you actively chose. However, Rudder writes, "the trend—that fact that race is a sexual factor for so many individuals, and in such a consistent way—says something about race’s role in our society.”
• There are plenty of situations that aren't romantic that still bear a resemblance to dating. Any time you're trying to make an impression on a stranger, you're essentially going on a first date. “Beauty is a cultural idea as much as a physical one,” Rudder explains, “and the standard is of course set by the dominant culture.” So sure…it's just dating data, but it reveals our definition of beauty and that's something that affects everyone, everywhere.

If you’ve spent any time online dating, you’ve run into some bad profiles, and likely some bad dates, too. How many of us have said at some point “online dating sucks” or “I can’t meet any good guys online!”

According to dating coach Evan Marc Katz at a Tedx Talk he did in May, there’s a reason for this negative perception, but it’s not what we think. He points out that men and women think of online dating very differently, because they have different experiences. Namely, men are typically the ones reaching out to women to try and capture attention and women are the ones sifting through a ton of unwanted messages. So neither one is getting what they want, and both are blaming each other.

Men tend to be reactionary when it comes to online dating. Katz claims they feel like failures at it because they don’t seem to get responses right away (and they tend to look for instant gratification), so they feel the pressure to come up with a more winning formula. This formula is casting a wide net – if they reach out to as many women as possible as quickly as possible, they have a better shot at getting responses and hopefully getting to that date.

The women however, are getting either mass emails, emails that are sexually forward, or long essays about why a man would make a good match. None of these tactics work, because women can tell when it’s a mass email, and they typically don’t respond to sexually aggressive or forward emails because it makes them feel unsafe, and they don’t read the long essays because there isn’t enough time! So guys experience more failure, they cast an even wider net, and keep on repeating the same mistakes.

As Katz says, if both genders understood what was going on behind the scenes, they would have a much better time online dating, and they would have more success. He goes on to give some tips to help:

Use the 2/2/2 rule. Katz suggests the following formula (over the course of a week) can accommodate both men’s and women’s objectives: start with 2 emails back and forth on the dating site, then move to 2 emails off the dating site via your personal accounts, then 2 phone calls (not a text), then go on the date. The point is to find a good balance for both of you, which makes the men more successful and the women feel more comfortable interacting. When you step back and try to treat online dating more like meeting for the first time in real life, you’ll be much more successful.

Think of how real-life connections happen. The reason people get frustrated with online dating is because it doesn’t feel as good as meeting in person and having attraction grow organically. But Katz maintains this can happen online, too. It's all about trying to connect instead of moving quickly through a bunch of candidates or dismissing most of your emails. Most guys get impatient, and most women feel uncomfortable unless there is some kind of connection before a first date.

Both sides just have to put in a little effort.

To find out more on how to find someone online you can check our reviews on some of Evan Marc Katz dating guides.

These days, it's almost hard to believe that online dating wasn't always part of our lives. It feels seamlessly integrated into our daily routines - to the point that it's even infiltrated our phones - but in reality the industry didn't get its start until the late 90s and the road to 2014 was far from smooth.

In the early days of online dating, it was quietly laughed at by the polite and openly scorned by the impolite. It was viewed as an impersonal way to find love, and using an online dating site came with a heaping spoonful of stigma. But over time, a new generation of tech savvy singles arose and with them came a revolution.

Now daters of all kinds, young and old alike, have discovered the benefits of using online dating services and the industry has exploded around the world. As always, with success come new challenges. Online dating still faces criticism, and someone is always ready and willing to tell a horror story of a first date gone awry. Complaints are registered about fake profiles and less-than-truthful users who conceal their identities. Scammers have used online dating sites to cheat people out of thousands.

Online dating is now facing the challenge of maintaining the safety and protecting the privacy of its users – a task that becomes increasingly difficult as more and more of them join dating sites. Different countries are approaching the problem in different ways. In the US, laws have been passed that require background checks for new users. In Singapore, the government acted as a matchmaker through the Social Development Network. In the UK, the Online Dating Association was founded by industry members to take collective responsibility for regulations.

All of these have been important steps towards creating a regulatory framework that will address the issues facing online dating as it continues to expand. Primary among those issues is the rise of mobile dating. Many major dating sites now have a mobile component, and there are plenty of services that are only mobile applications.

The key word here is "innovation." As an increasing number of competitors enter the market, online dating services are forced to get more creative. Creativity is a great thing, but it too comes with challenges. As dating services explore uncharted territory, they will encounter new questions about security and privacy. If dating services want to be here for the long haul, they'll have to match technological innovation with regulatory innovation.

If you want to put your best foot forward and drum up the most interest from potential partners, you won't be surprised to learn that it all comes down to your profile photo.

Okay, not all of it. Some people do actually read the words you painstakingly chose. But let's be real: the profile pic is the first thing someone sees, and it has a lot to do with how well you sell yourself online.

Before you start contemplating plastic surgery, remember that the perfect profile picture isn't about conventional beauty. There are plenty of other factors that go into a photo that catches eyes, and none of them have to do with how well you apply eyeliner or how much time you spend in the gym.

Zoosk conducted a study of 4,000 online daters and discovered some of the more unexpected elements that attract attention online:

• Yes, your pet is cute, but your furry friend is not helping you find a date. Photos with animals lower the average number of messages received by 53% for both men and women.
• Posing with human friends also lowers your average – by 42%.
• Women get a 60% boost in messages received if their profile picture is taken indoors.
• On the other hand, men get 19% more messages if their photo is taken outdoors.
• A full body shot is must, regardless of your gender. It'll give you a 203% bump in your incoming messages average.
• Ladies: your selfies earn you 4% more messages. Gentlemen: sorry, your selfies lower your incoming average by 8%.

What you're seeing here are some similarities, but also a couple of key differences. Take that last one: why is it we think it's normal for women to take selfies, but think it's vain for men to do the same thing? Shocker – we have double standards were beauty and gender norms are concerned.

Those double standards continue into the text of the profile. Zoosk's research came to the unsettling conclusion that honesty is the best policy for men, but that women should keep their mouths shut about the big issues until later on. Looking at the data, Zoosk found that:

• The words "separate" and "divorce" up men's incoming messages by 52%. Mentioning children means another 7% boost.
• For women, on the other hand, mentioning the same words causes the incoming messages average to drop by 7%.

So what does that mean? Does that mean women should hide their pasts while men should celebrate them? Does it mean that online dating is fundamentally broken?

What it really means, more than anything, is that online dating sites serve as a microcosm of society as a whole. Regardless of gender, double standards are firmly in place – and we'll never beat them online until we beat them offline.

For more on the dating site that commissioned the study you can read our review of Zoosk.