General News

I am not sure if I missed this before when PlentyOfFish starting offering a new paid membership but I noticed today this statement from their upgrade page:

PlentyOfFish will automatically continue your subscription for the same period and amount as your current upgrade.

PlentyOfFish previous memberships never automatically renewed, so it looks like PlentyOfFish changed their position on this point.

For more on this dating site you can go ahead and read our Plenty Of Fish review.

Last month we commemorate the 10th anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, Match.com paid tribute to New York City by conducting an investigation of the Big Apple's dating scene. As home to the largest population of singles in the United States, the city had plenty of interesting information to offer.

Despite their prickly reputation, New Yorkers are softies at heart. 94% of city-dwelling singles said that they are looking to settle down with a long-term partner. Fortunately for romantic-at-heart New Yorkers, their chances of finding love seem to be good: 47% of people who moved to NYC within the last 5 years claimed to be dating more since their relocation. 56% of those singles stated that they felt like they had a much larger dating pool to explore after becoming New Yorkers.

As they say in real estate, it's all about location, location, location. The borough that you call home has an effect on your love life, according to the Match survey. 94% of singles said that they would be willing to date outside their borough, though Manhattan's prime location still makes it the center of the NYC dating scene. Staten Island, on the other hand, is the least popular borough, thanks to its more remote location. The maximum amount of time the average New Yorker is willing to travel for a date, says the poll, is 39 minutes and 59 seconds.

Location continues to be an important factor when it comes to planning a first date. The West Village was voted the best neighborhood for a date (44%), while Astoria, with only 5% of the vote, was voted the worst neighborhood for a romantic outing. Popular date ideas are:

• Seeing a Broadway show (32%)

• Having a picnic in Central Park (23%)

• Attending a sporting event (17%)

New York singles also show a fondness for museums (particularly the Met) and watching the sunset from landmarks like the Chelsea Piers, Highline, and Brooklyn Bridge. What won't work when it comes to wooing a New Yorker is a trip to Times Square, a meal at a chain restaurant, or a night of karaoke.

The survey also found that:

• When it's time to escape the city for a romantic weekend getaway, Long Island is New Yorkers' top choice, followed by Newport and Fire Island.

• New York a surprisingly good place to be broke: 57% of single women in NYC said they would be happy to split the bill on a date.

• Singles in NYC have fairly traditional taste in partners. Women consider firemen (30%) and Wall Street execs (26%) the sexiest potential dates, while men find actresses (34%) and women working in the fashion industry (29%) most appealing.

If you're in an Empire State Of Mind, check out Match.com's infographic here. For more information on the dating service you can read our review of Match.

The online dating site Christian Cafe has received a lot of media attention lately. Sam Moorcroft, the founder of ChristianCafe.com, was first on the radio for the Boundless Show as an online dating expert. This episode of the show took a look at behind the scenes of online dating. Sam and his wife Polly was part of a round table discussion in which a panel of online daters got to ask him a number of questions. You can find a pod cast of the show here on iTunes.

Next, Sam was on a Canadian Christian TV show called Full Circle. He appears around the 6:00 minute mark and discusses the history of Christian Cafe and how to best succeed in online dating. A former host, Denise, was also on the show with her husband whom she met on Christian Cafe. To view a video of the show you can visit Full Circle.

For more information on this online dating service please check out our review of ChristianCafe.com.

Match.com (Match.ca in Canada) is now powering online dating at Yahoo! Canada. Yahoo in the United States has been using Match.com since May of 2010 (see Story). Previously Lavalife had partnered with Yahoo! Canada to provide online dating to their visitors (see Story).

To find out more about this dating site you can check out our Match.com review.

The Jewish New Year just happened and I noticed that JDate has more to celebrate than Rosh Hashanah. They just released the results from a survey by ResearchNow (an independent research company) which shows that JDate is responsible for 52 percent of all Jewish marriages that started online. From the survey of 948 married Jewish internet users they also concluded that 63 percent of the online dates originated at JDate, this is many times more than the leading competing dating services. The survey also showed that 76 percent of Jewish internet users who used an online dating site to find love, became a member of JDate.

For more information and statistics you can read this post from the JDate blog. To find out if this dating service is something you would be interested in you can also check out our review of JDate.

FriendFinder Networks announced September 12th that they have acquired BDM Global Ventures which owns JigoCity. JigoCity is similar to the popular Groupon website which offers visitors local daily deals. JigoCity has about 150 employees and has offices in China, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and the US (Los Angeles). JigoCity has about 1 million members. Revenue in July for JigoCity was $600,000 and in August it was $1.1 million.

The acquisition cost FriendFinder 1.6 million in shares and about 6.4 million in warrants with exercise prices ranging from $5 to $18 per share.

For more on the story you can read the press release.