General News

If you've ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend make you a playlist, you know that music can affect your level of attraction. If you loved it, maybe you wanted to jump across the table and declare your undying passion for your boyfriend. And if you hated his musical taste? Well, it was enough to make you rethink the relationship.

At least that's what popular music streaming service Spotify is betting on. Because of the link between music and love, they have developed two new dating apps, Fellody and Tastebuds, to help merge the two. Rather than traditional dating apps that match based on algorithms, profiles, or location using a GPS, these apps let you cut straight to the artistic chase, matching people based on similar musical tastes. So if you're a fan of Taylor Swift you won't be paired with someone who hates her music (in case that kind of thing is a deal-breaker for you).

Tastebuds matches users with a potential partner based on how much they listen to particular artists on Spotify. The potential drawback is that it scans your entire music library, so you can't hide the fact that you listen to One Direction every morning before you get ready for work. But then again, neither can your match.

Fellody is a little more customized, letting users drag and drop their playlists before searching for matches. This way, you can report only the bands you enjoy that you want to report - so you can carve out your own musical identity to potential love interests. Fellody also provides more detail, showing the percentage of overlaps in each match's music interests. Members can see all the artists they have in common, and can find out what other kinds of music a match is listening to. So even if you don't find a love match you might find a new band you like.

"Spotify and Tastebuds both believe that music is the most effective way of connecting people," Alex Parish, co-founder of Tastebuds, said in a statement. "In fact, we've found that you're far more likely to get a response to a message you send on Tastebuds than any other dating site -- 43% of first messages get a reply."

While I'm not sold on the fact that music brings people together for the long-term, I do think it provides an interesting starting point to strike up a conversation. Sometimes it's difficult to ask the same old questions for each new date, and can make you feel like you're in a rut. When you can discuss a common interest like music, you're already in a better place when you meet for the first time. I'm hopeful that Spotify's apps will bring weary online daters a new way of meeting potential love interests - and success in starting a new relationship.

ChistianCafe.com is a popular dating site for Christian singles and has been for over 10 years now. Earlier this year they helped host a singles event called "Bash for the Unattached" with the C3 Newmarket Church located in Ontario, Canada. The event was designed for Christian singles to meet together in a fun and friendly environment. Hundreds of singles showed up for the bash and the speed dating event. Here is a video which highlights the event:

Note: Unfortunately the source to the video and/or image which once was displayed here has since been removed by the authors for an unknown reason.

For more on this dating site you can also read our Christiancafe.com review.

It looks like the dating site Plenty of Fish is currently down. It appears to have gone offline sometime late July 6th PST. No official information is available at the moment for the dating site outage. When you try to access POF.com or Plentyoffish.com visitors will receive some sort of “Service is unavailable” message (depends on your browser).

A few people have also reported to us that they have received a database error message. These messages seem to indicate a server problem and not a DNS issue. These problems could range from a hardware or software failure to some sort of denial of service or hacker attack (seems unlikely at this point).

If you have any new information on why Plenty of fish is down, please post a comment. This article will be updated when we receive any more news on why Plenty of fish is down and when it goes back online.

Starting Independence Day, eHarmony is having a free communication event for 4 days. It will run from Wednesday July 4th, 2012 until Sunday July 8th, 2012 (US website only).

To participate in a free communication event (FCW) all you need to do is sign up as a member on eHarmony.com and create a free profile. Filling out the profile will take you about 30 minutes. Your answers to the profile questions eHarmony asks you are then used by eHarmony's matchmaking system to give you a number of matches right away. With these matches (and all matches you receive during the promotion) you can then communicate with for free. Features not included during free communication events are photos and Secure Call. No credit card is required for this promotion.

eHarmony's last FCW happened in May (see Story). By our count this promotion will be eHarmony's 40th free communication event for the US site.

To find out more about this dating site and what it can offer people looking for a long-term relationship, you can check out our review of eHarmony.com.

One of the United Kingdom’s fastest growing dating services is Cupid plc. Two of their more popular dating sites includes Cupid.com and Flirt.

In February of this year they surpassed 100 million unique visitors. Last year during the same period they had only 15 million. The United States accounts for about a quarter of their traffic with the rest coming from Europe. Cupid reports average monthly global sales of around $9 million USD.

Cupid.com also just recently launched a HD iPad app. They already have native apps for both the iPhone and Android devices.

For more on the story you can read the press release and to find out about the dating site you can check out our Cupid.com review.

Online dating: it's great, except when it isn't.

The latest cautionary tale involves Skout, a social networking app designed to link up adults with other users nearby. Skout got its start as a Foursquare-like location check-in service, but didn't hit its stride until it transformed into a location-based flirting app. The company now attracts millions of new users a month and received $22 million in financing from Andreessen Horowitz, a leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, earlier this year.

After discovering that minors had gained access to the app, Skout created a service designed specifically for 13- to 17-year olds. Safeguards were put in place, but they may not have been safe enough.

3 men have now been accused of raping children they met through the location-based app. In each case, the men reportedly posed as teenagers in the Skout forum for underage users. In one case, a 15-year-old girl from Ohio said she was raped by a 37-year-old man. In the second, a 24-year-old man is accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in California. In the final case, a 21-year-old man in Wisconsin has been accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy.

Skout's founder, Christian Wiklund, responded in an interview, saying, "I'm disgusted by what's happened here. One case is too many. When you have three, it looks like a pattern. This is my worst fear." He has decided to suspend the service for minors, who made up a significant portion of Skout's member base, while he works with security experts to put better safeguards in place.

"We're seeing more of these cases," said Lt. Craig Carter of the Escondido Police Department in California. "Parents need to be aware that their kids could be on these Web sites." Many social networking services forbid minors from using them, or separate minors from adult users, but it's nearly impossible to control who ultimately uses the service.

Wiklund has contact law enforcement officials involved in all 3 cases and offered to aid in their investigations. The company has also suspended the app for teenagers and banned all devices registered with the app that belong to minors. Skout is also working with a task force of experts to improve security, age verification, and other company practices.

"I thought we were doing a lot, but obviously we have to do better," says Scott Weiss, an investment partner with Andreessen Horowitz. "This is a five-alarm fire. The entire company is re-evaluating everything it's doing."