General News

Dating shows have been popular for television audiences, even before reality TV. Remember The Dating Game? Later came The Bachelor and its spin-off The Bachelorette, which draw in substantial audiences even after many years on the air.

The latest dating show to hit the airwaves is The Choice, Fox's sarcastic nod to its rival singing show The Voice, which has overtaken American Idol in popularity among young viewers.

The Choice follows the format of the hit singing show by casting celebrity judges to decide who's hot and who's not. The judges sit with their backs to the stage while singles parade out and try to convince the stars that they are the best choice for a date - sight unseen. If a contestant peaks a judge's interest, he can turn around to face her. If more than one judge is interested, the date has her own choice to make. There's even going to be a "speed dating" round where the contestants have limited time to make the case for why they'd be the best date, and a final challenge question.

This new dating show provides an interesting concept for reality TV, which reminds me of the short-lived show Dating in the Dark. The age-old question is: do you date someone based on her looks, or what's on the inside? When you take away the visual, then the possibilities open up. Like Dating in the Dark, The Choice prevents the judges from basing their picks on a contestant's appearance - by keeping them from actually seeing potential dates. Instead, they talk and see if they hit it off. But are a few minutes of verbal convincing enough to determine real chemistry?

I'm a fan of keeping an open mind and looking for opportunities when it comes to dating, but I'm not so convinced that dating reality shows of any kind give us a real picture of how people interact and what sparks chemistry. After all, there's a lot of pressure for matches to happen - for The Bachelor to meet the love of his life among twenty pre-selected beautiful women (none of whom may actually be right for him), or for the new judges on The Choice to meet someone they might want to take out on a second date.

They might be fun to watch, but don't look to dating shows on TV to give you lessons in finding real and lasting love. That only comes with practice, and often times a lot of dates.

Facebook dating sounds like an idea with a lot of potential, but so far no one has found the perfect way to capitalize on the social network's massive dating potential. Who wants their dating history plastered all over their Timeline? No one. A little privacy, please!

That's where theComplete.me comes in, a new dating service that promises "private Facebook dating" in which "nothing is shared with your friends and nothing is posted to your wall." Users have complete privacy control over who sees what and when, and can choose whether they prefer to lay all their cards on the table or remain anonymous. The mission of theComplete.me, says Founder and CEO Brian Bowman, is to "socialize online dating with real identities, comprehensive privacy controls and matching through shared interests and mutual friends."

Bowman has recruited key online dating industry executives to form a team that has caught the eyes of quite a few investors. theComplete.me recently announced a $1.2 million seed round which includes Intel Capital, PlentyOfFish, CrunchFund, and a string of prominent angel investors. The funding will be used to develop the service by supporting customer acquisition efforts, building key site features, launching a mobile version of the product, and expanding the startup's team.

Here's a glimpse at what's getting all those investors so excited...

• Users sign in using their Facebook identity.
• A profile is automatically created in 5-minutes from the data gathered from your social networks.
• Your profile data is organized as pinned frames - called "fraMEs" - that show categories such as "Liked" Facebook pages.
• fraMEs can be edited to go beyond pre-populated Facebook data.
• Potential matches are arranged as a row of thumbnails across the top of the screen.
• Matches are based on behavioral data like who you view, who people like you view, who you correspond with, and shared interests.
• After logging in, you can also connect you profile to LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Photobucket, Flickr, Foursquare, GoodReads, and Instagram for even more tailored matches.

And here's the real game-changer: users can provide the IDs to their profiles on other sites, like Match.com, eHarmony, and Zoosk. Clicking the "Dating Sites" link in the app will aggregate the results from all of the linked dating sites, giving you direct, free access to the users of those sites. Just message them through the app on Facebook, and you can avoid any fees charged by the original dating sites.

How's that for destroying the competition?

Are you addicted to Facebook, Twitter, and FourSquare, constantly looking to gain more followers and become a bigger presence? Are you commenting and connecting online more often than in person? If so, you might want to check out Matchmaking service Tawkify.

Tawkify is trying something different than the standard online dating sites. Instead of relying on profiles or photos, the service matches subscribers with similar Klout scores.

Klout is a web-based service that ranks you between 0-100 in your social media presence - the higher the number, the more influence you have over the Web.

According to their press release, Tawkify's creators found that people with similar Klout scores seem to have more in common and are more likely to be attracted to each other.

To use Tawkify, members fill out a brief questionnaire and submit a photo (no algorithms necessary). After a brief phone interview, applicants have to be accepted and then interviewed over the phone prior to any matching. Tawkify creators then personally match members - based on age, similar interests, and most importantly, similar Klout scores. Sixty people who were matched initially had one phone exchange with their respective matches to see if there was any romantic interest. Tawkify found that after the phone exchange, 90% of the sixty members were interested in talking again or meeting in person. Incidentally, none of the members were told that they would be matched according to Klout scores.

Tawkify is the brain child of Elle Magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and former Microsoft product planner Kenneth Shaw. Carroll speaks with almost every male applicant to screen them for their intentions - namely that they aren't only using Tawkify for sexual hook-ups.

The price tag isn't cheap: Tawkify costs $15 a match, $30 for three matches and $99 for six matches so only the serious need apply.

Other dating services are tapping in to people's social media presence, including a site called Hitch.me, which pulls information from your LinkedIn profiles to match you with others in your industry or professional circles. The goal is to match people based on "real" information (since most people use LinkedIn for professional reasons), rather than relying on people to be honest in their traditional online dating profiles. Using LinkedIn adds some credibility to who they market themselves to be.

AreYouInterested.com is also utilizing social media to match singles - specifically Facebook users. Instead of manually scrolling through friends of friends to see if there's anyone you might fancy, AreYouInterested does the work for you and lets you know who is single and available in your circles and what their interests are.

I'm sure other sites will be popping up over the next few months to help singles take advantage of their social media presence. We're connecting online in all sorts of ways, so it only makes sense that romance can happen thanks to our Twitter followers as well as joining Match.com or bumping into a stranger at the coffee shop.

This Memorial Day weekend eHarmony is having a free communication event. It will run from Friday May 25th, 2012 until the end of Monday May 28th, 2012 (US website only).

This free communication event (FCW) falls right on a holiday so you can expect eHarmony to be extra busy. It is easy to become a member of eHarmony, all you just need to fill in the sign up form and then create a profile. Once you have finished filling out the in-depth profile you will then start to receive your matches. Any match you receive during this promotion, you will be able to communicate with at no charge and with no credit card required. Features not included during free communication events are photos, Secure Call or Skip to Email.

The last FCW happened in March (see Story). This promotion will be eHarmony's 39th free communication event (by our count).

To find further information about this matchmaking service designed for singles looking for a long-term relationship, please read our eHarmony.com review.

The days of Anna Nicole Smith wannabes marrying ancient billionaires for their fortunes may be over.

New data collected by the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that a dramatic shift has occurred in how women choose their partners. The study examined marriages over four decades, analyzing patterns among women born in 1958, 1970, and between 1976 and 1981.

Gone are the days of enterprising women climbing the social ladder by marrying successful, Don Draper-like businessmen. These days, fewer and fewer women are marrying men who come from wealthier backgrounds than their own. Instead, the study found a small rise in the proportion of women marrying men of a lower socio-economic class, and a larger rise in women picking partners of a similar social status.

Of the participants born in 1958, 38% married a man from a higher class and over one-third married a spouse from a comparable background. Only 23% partnered up with someone from a poorer class.

As early as 1970, it's clear that the times they were a-changin'. The number of women entering "aspirational marriages" dropped by 5% (winding up at 33%), and the number marrying into the same class neared the halfway mark at 45%. The trend continued through the following years of the experiment, winding up at 16% of women born between 1976 and 1981 marrying someone with higher status and 28% marrying a partner in possession of more humble means.

Anastasia de Waal, deputy director of Civitas: The Institute for the Study of Civil Society, expressed excitement over the study's findings. "It is a very positive thing in terms of women's equality," she said. "Once marrying was about obtaining financial independence from you parents and replacing it with financial stability from your husband." Now, however, women "have more financial independence and now longer waiting for husbands to give them money to buy what they need."

The data also suggests that women are becoming better educated, and that one of the many ways in which their education is paying off is choosing better marriage partners. With money no longer being a driving force in choosing a spouse, women can prioritize more important qualities like companionship.

But the implications of this trend may not all be good, says the IPPR's director, Nick Pearce. "This shift has implications for inequality, as well-educated, higher earners marry each other and then pass on the fruits of their combined success to their children." If this trend continues, he fears, social mobility may decrease.

"Playing games" is generally looked down upon when it comes to dating, but thanks to the latest addition to the features at Match.com, members can play games that may actually help their relationships.

The Match blog recently announced the launch of the new feature. "Online dating has been an effective way to meet, but it's not always the best way to get to know someone," says the blog. "So we created fun and easy-to-play games that allow our members to figure out whether they have chemistry with each other before going out on a date." Each game will last one to five minutes, and is designed to "create shared experiences and encourage interaction between players through instant messaging."

Match will debut seven new games in summer 2012:

• Best & Worst: Share your personal best and worst about everything from concerts to movies to road trips, then see how you and your partner match up.
• Food Critic: Who hasn't wanted to become a food critic at one point or another? In this game, you act as a local food critic and pick your favorite places to eat. Compare your choices to your partner's picks, then decide on one you might like to check out together.
• Romance Rip Off: Work together with your partner to create a cheesy romance by taking turns adding the next line to the story. Hopefully your real-life romance will be a little lighter on the cheese and a little heavier on the actual romance.
• Name That Dance: All those times you watched viral dancing videos on YouTube are finally about to pay off! Watch the Match dance team perform their best moves and try guess their names.
• Gut Reaction: This one's a classic. Gut Reaction is a simple game of word association designed to give you insight into the mind of your partner. See a word, react quickly to it, then compare your reactions to your partner's.
• Drawn Together: It's Pictionary for the digital age. Draw three quick sketches on the screen and see who can identify them first. Better brush up on your stick figure skills.
• If I Could: If you could pick one movie to watch tonight, one thing to have for dinner, and one flavor of ice cream to eat for the rest of your life, what would you chose? Compare your responses to discover where your tastes align and where they diverge.

And if you can't get enough of Match's games, check the site for a local game night hosted in your city.

For more details about this dating site, please check out our review of Match.com.