General News

It looks like Zoosk is planning to move their headquarters to a larger office space in Central Market located in San Francisco. Their new location is 52,000 square feet and will become Zoosk's global headquarters. This location of San Francisco is becoming a hub of technology companies. Zoosk will be sharing the building with Zendesk and the neighbourhood with companies like Call Socket and Twitter.

This move will more than double Zoosk's space for their 102 employees. Zoosk also plans to expand to 160 employees by the end of 2012. It is estimated that the office space could hold up to 340 employees.

For more information on this story you can check out the press release. To find out what makes this company such a popular dating site you can read our review of Zoosk.

Good news, visual learners: I come bearing a new infographic.

Everyone knows that online dating is big business. According to a popular dating site, the booming industry now has 40 million users and rakes in $1.9 billion in annual revenue. But the question is: does online dating actually help the lovelorn singles it was created for? Or does it only help out the companies who are scooping up their hard-earned cash?

MBAPrograms compiled an infographic of research from a range of different sources to figure out who the real online dating winners are. Here's what they found...

We're almost all liars:

• 81% of people lie about their height, weight, or age in their profiles.
• Women, on average, claim to be 8.5 lbs lighter than they really are and use profile photos that are 1.5 years old.
• Men, on average, describe themselves as 2 lbs lighter and add a half inch to their height. They also use outdated photos, but show a preference for pictures that are only 6 months old.

Despite the lies, the online dating industry is making a mint:

• In 2007, 20 million people visited or used an online dating site and the industry made $900 million.
• In 2012, 40 million people visited or used an online dating site and annual revenue has reached almost $2 billion.

Online daters are a time-crunched bunch:

• The average couple who meets online waits 18.5 months to get married.
• The average couple who meets offline waits 42 months to tie the knot.

Although online dating is hugely popular, it may not be changing the marriage landscape as much as you think. The ways in which married people met their spouses have remained relatively unchanged in the past few years:

• At work or school: 36% in 2006/2007, 38% in 2009/2010
• Through a friend or family member 26% in 2006/2007, 27% in 2009/2010
• On an online dating site: 17% in both 2006/2007 and 2009/2010

If it's not having a massive impact on marriage, yet it's making major cash for the industry, why bother with online dating at all?

• You can get to know your date from the comfort of your own home.
• First date jitters are lessened when you've already "met" your date in cyberspace.
• Your search for love is wider than your local dating pool.
• You can show your interest (or lack thereof) without the fear of face-to-face rejection.
• You can easily weed out incompatible matches.

For more facts on online dating, check out the original infographic here.

Have you ever used your social networks to find a date? If you've browsed through your friend's friends on Facebook and tried to connect with someone you found attractive, then you might be interested in an app that takes things one step further.

Yoke, an app developed by Rob Fishman and Jeff Revesz and launched jat the end of March, allows you to find the single friends of your friends on Facebook. Instead of setting up a profile however, it allows you to choose five photos from your Facebook page and share the information you've posted about yourself with others who have signed up.

The great thing about this is its ease and convenience - a much more attractive option than spending a lot of time manually scanning and randomly messaging friends of friends or asking your Facebook friends to introduce you or set you up. It also separates out the non-singles because you're required to put your relationship status to participate (although you can use Yoke to find friends with similar interests and not just to date). Plus, it matches you with others based on compatible profile data - like if you live in the same city.

While Yoke matches you with others using corresponding likes or number of friends in common, it also takes a more personal approach. If you have an obscure band or musician that you like, if one of your single friends-of-friends likes it too (even if you don't have other activities or interests in common), you will be matched. Hey, you never know who you'll click with.

According to Yoke's website, matches are shown to you via a carousel where you click on an image, and that person's profile information and interests (that matched yours) appear underneath, along with the five photos they shared with Yoke. Beneath the match appear all of the friends you have in common. If you click on one of their names, you can send a message to ask about the person you've been matched with. You can let the person know you're interested in meeting them directly or you can save to your favorites and wait to hear back or make a decision later.

The problem? As usual when it comes to social media, you should be mindful of what you decide to post on your profile. Just like potential employers could look at your Facebook page to see if you're a good job candidate, potential dates can use this app to see what you've posted in your Facebook profile and make assumptions about who you are.

The upside? It's a new way to meet people, taking advantage of a great tool like Facebook. And you're essentially meeting through people you already know. What could be better than that?

For more information on how to use this social networking site as a dating tool you can read our Facebook review.

"Safety" is the word on everyone's lips when it comes to online dating. Countless news articles tell the tales of online daters scammed out of money, solicited for green cards, or sexually assaulted. It's enough to make you shudder at just the thought of joining an online dating site.

The complaint for a long time has been that no one is doing anything about it. The government, the dating sites...no one was making an effort to protect online daters from becoming victims except the daters themselves. Now, however, things are starting to change.

The California attorney general's office has announced that three online dating giants have agreed to screen for sex offenders, and enact other safety precautions, after a woman was assaulted on a date. "Consumers should be able to use websites without the fear of being scammed or targeted," Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said in a statement, and it looks like Match.com, eHarmony, and Sparks Networks agree.

The three dating sites have signed a joint statement of business principles that they hope will guard their members against sexual predators, identity theft, and financial scams, and set a positive example for the rest of the industry.

The dating services agreed to provide the attorney general's office with reports of suspected criminal activity, to check subscribers against national sex registries, to supply members with online safety tips, and to provide an easy way for users to report abuses.

Although the statement is nonbinding and carries no enforcement penalties, it does hold dating sites accountable for their members' safety. "They can't be sued for not following this, but it puts them in the public eye," said Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office.

The statement was prompted by the sexual assault of a woman in LA by a man she met through a popular dating site in 2010. The man pleaded no contest to sexual battery by restraint and was sentenced to a year in jail. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender.

The woman went on to sue this dating site and sought a court order that would require the website to check applicants' backgrounds to prevent convicted sex offenders from joining, but she dropped the suit when the site provided proof that such screening already existed.

In the new statement, Match, eHarmony, and Sparks Networks reaffirm their commitment to the safety of their members, saying it's a priority and that they hope the statement will encourage other companies to adopt similar policies.

At best, long-distance relationships are hard to handle. At worst, they're downright miserable. Unfortunately, for online daters they're a simple fact of life. When you're meeting potential mates that could live anywhere in the world, you're bound to run into at least one who catches your eye but doesn't live nearby.

One solution for long-distance couples is to cover each other's Facebook walls is sappy, sickly sweet messages that make their friends want to vomit. But the better option is Pair, the newest app that attempts to close the gap for long-distance lovers.

Pair is a bit like a private version of Facebook's new Timeline profile. The app creates a private, shared timeline for couples on which they can easily share messages, photos, videos, and locations with each other. Users can also draw pictures together in real time using the Live Sketch function, create a joint to-do list with the Shared Tasks feature, or give each other a ThumbKiss (a vibration that occurs when both users place their thumbs on the same spot on the screen). Setting it up is as simple as pairing the app with your partner and posting, then enjoying the real-time connection that lets you know when your partner is looking at the same thing as you are, at the very same time.

Thanks to all that extra functionality, Pair calls itself "Super SMS." "Our goal is to make Pair the first thing that pops into your mind when you want to share something with your partner," says the Pair blog. "These days, it's not only text messages that you want to share, but also photos, video, your location, and even things like sketches. Instead of treating these other types of messages like second class citizens, we treat them the same as text messages." Put all that together and you get "a very fun and intimate timeline between you and your partner" that "helps you feel close even when you're apart."

And perhaps best of all is the contest that celebrates the app's debut: one lucky winner will walk away with a pair of brand new iPhones.

The app is available now from the Apple App Store, and an Android version is reportedly on the way. Cross-platform functionality will be available, because it would be a true tragedy if a relationship that could survive the distance couldn't survive incompatible operating systems.

Privacy online is a major issue facing the 21st century world, that much is clear. And it's not just social networks and search engines that are putting your privacy at risk - online dating sites are also showing little regard for the safety of your personal information. They rarely use secure encryption, they habitually sell your private data to advertising companies, and they're legally bound to release your personal information if presented with a subpoena or court order.

The question now is "What's being done to stop it?" Is anyone looking out for your rights as an online dater?

Well...yes and no. Attempts are being made to increase online privacy, but they fall far short of the steps that actually need to be taken.

There's the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which deals with government intrusions, but it was enacted in 1986, long before the Internet took on its current form and online dating became just as common as meeting someone in a bar.

Taking the issue to court doesn't seem to be making much headway either. In a case mentioned by Lori Andrews in her book I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did, it was argued that a data aggregator was not liable for accessing private information that was stored on a computer because the intent was to make a profit, not to commit a crime. It sounds crazy, but it's not an isolated incident. Courts have a long history of favoring tech companies and aggregators over users.

Other laws have been equally ineffective, Andrews notes to AlterNet. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act makes it illegal to break into a computer to access information, but it "cannot apply to data aggregators because the person suing must prove a direct hit of $5,000 as a result." The Stored Communications Act, which prohibits accessing stored electronic information, may sound like a solid defense, but "courts have interpreted the law in such a way that if a Web site (Facebook, OkCupid) gives consent for a user's information to be tracked by another site (data aggregation company), users whose information is being shared can't sue."

Most recently, the Obama administration released a proposal for an online privacy "bill of rights" that calls for tech companies and consumer groups to come together to construct regulations to protect consumers. Some agreed to the adoption of a Do Not Track option, but it seems unlikely that companies that are not known for their ability to regulate themselves on privacy issues would suddenly become effective protectors of online privacy.

Still, it's a step in the right direction, and it's good to know that a real dialogue is finally being opened.

Related Article: Is Your Private Life Really Private When You're Dating Online? (Part II)