General News

It has been about 3 months since eHarmony has had a free communication event. Well the wait is over! In the United States and Canada eHarmony will be having a free communication event from September 2nd to the end if day on September 5th. September 5 also happens to be Labor day in the US making it the last long weekend of summer (FYI Canada also celebrates Labour Day at the same time).

So what is a free communication event? As the name suggests all members of eHarmony will be able to communicate for free during the promotion. New and existing free members will be able to create a dating profile, receive matches, and use the guided communication process to communicate with those matches at no cost. The only thing not include is viewing of members profile pictures and Secure Call communication.

This will be eHarmony's 35th free communication event with the last one occurring last spring in May (see Story).

To find out more about this matchmaking service you can take a look at our review of eHarmony.

What does it take to write an equation for love?

According to Mashable and Match.com, it takes 16 years of data, a crack team of Ph.D.s to interpret it, and a handful of brilliant engineers to create the equation itself. Several years ago, when Match decided to overhaul the algorithm that guides its matchmaking process, they brought on current VP of strategy analytics Amarnath Thombre to revolutionize their system.

And revolutionize he did: the number of "yes" matches on the site has doubled since Thombre's changes took effect. Here's what you need to know about how the Match.com algorithm works:

1. The first thing the algorithm evaluates is what you say about yourself. This information - like height, weight, location, religious affiliation, and what you're looking for in a partner - is all gathered from your profile. Match's suggestions, at their most basic level, are made by pairing people whose self-descriptions match.
2. After examining how you describe yourself and what you're looking for, Match's algorithm compares that data to the information it receives from studying your actions on the site. Knowing that there is often a huge discrepancy between what we say are interested in and who we actually make an effort to pursue, the Match team developed a highly-intelligent algorithm that is capable of aggregating and interpreting all the information it receives about a member, whether it is explicitly stated or not. If, for example, you say you are only interested in meeting members who belong to the same political party as you, but you frequently send messages to members belonging to the opposite party, Match will know that you are willing to date outside of your stated preferences and will suggest potential matches for you based on that knowledge.
3. The next component of the Match algorithm is an evaluation of what other members who are like you do. The algorithm takes a look at the actions of members whose behavior mirrors your own, like a tendency to communicate with the same people, and uses their experiences to learn more about preferences you likely have, but did not explicitly state.
4. Finally, the Match algorithm makes use of the 16 years of data that have been collected over the site's lifetime. Using the correlations that have been found in that data, like "a woman who smokes daily is less likely to email a man who doesn't smoke," the algorithm predicts who you will be interested in before you have even rated your first match.

Match's new approach to online matchmaking has so far been a success, and the algorithm will only get more detailed and accurate as time goes on. In Thombre's words: "Instead of trying to create the perfect algorithm, we try to create the perfect algorithm for you."

For more information on this popular dating service, please read our review of Match.com.

Research published earlier this year in Communication Quarterly has identified five flirting personalities, reports USA Today.

More than 5,020 heterosexual adults participated in the study, by filling out questionnaires about their flirting technique and their romantic partners. "The flirting styles inventory is for the very first stage of romantic development," explains Jeffrey Hall, co-author and assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He also notes that, in most cases, an individual uses a combination of the 5 flirting styles, though one type is typically dominant.

The flirting styles identified are: physical, traditional, polite, sincere, and playful.

1. Physical: People with a physical flirting style have a tendency to develop relationships quickly. Both sexual chemistry and emotional connection is strong with their partners, though sexual interest may be the greater focus in the relationship.
2. Traditional: Traditional flirts adhere to conventional ideas of dating and relationships. Men and women who favor this style believe that men should pursue women, and women should not pursue men. They often tend to be introverted.
3. Polite: Daters who fall into these categories place emphasis on proper etiquette and nonsexual communication. They are less likely than daters with other styles to approach someone they're interested in, and they are often not flattered by flirting, but their relationships are meaningful.
4. Sincere: Deep relationships are the name of the game for sincere flirts. Their relationships feature both strong emotional connections and sexual chemistry, but are based primarily on the emotional bond. This is the flirting style that was cited most in the study.
5. Playful: Flirting is all about fun and building self-esteem for playful daters. They tend to be interested in flirting as a recreational activity, rather than as a tool to find a long-term relationship. This is the most uncommon flirting style.

The researchers make it clear that one style is not objectively better than the others in all situations, though one can be more effective than another, depending on the outcome you want to achieve. "For example," Hall says, "a playful flirt is more likely to have short-term relationships. People with a playful style of flirting are effective in having that type of relationship but may find it difficult to let people they're interested in know they want something more."

Daters who leaned towards the physical, sincere, and playful styles were likely to experience the most success for dating and long-term relationships. Individuals with a combination of the physical and sincere styles showed "rapid relational escalation of important relationships with more emotional connection and greater physical chemistry."

Take the flirting styles survey at http://connect.ku.edu/tests/flirt/

Plenty of Fish is looking to hire a Database Administrator (DBA) so if you are interested in the job and have the qualifications you should comment on their blog. Markus also released a few statistics about his dating site and what the DBA will be up against. Last year alone Plenty of Fish sent out 5.5 billion messages. This works out to about 15 million a day. He also noted that Plenty of Fish's Behavioral Matching Engine deals with almost 20 billion pieces of data from their 30 million plus registered users that is stored in their database.

What this all boils down to is POF needs some heavy duty hardware to run its website and a DBA that knows how to optimize databases and SQL statements.

For more information on this free dating service you can read our PlentyofFish.com review.

It looks like IAC won control of Meetic after a number of shareholders agree to IAC's buy out at 15 euros per share. IAC now owns 77.6 percent of the French online dating service.

For more on this story you can read Reuters.

eHarmony has a new CEO. It is the well qualified Jeremy Verba. Mr. Verba last job was as an Executive at Zynga (they make popular Facebook social games like Treasure Isle). He also has worked at other internet companies like AOL, E! Online and CNet.

eHarmony also revealed that in 2011 they hit several milestones. Their mobile dating app (for both Android and iOS platforms) has had over 1 million downloads and on average it gets downloaded about 10,000 times in a day. The eHarmony mobile dating app also accounts for about 30 percent of all user registrations on the site now.

For more on this story you can read the press release To find out about this dating site you can take a look at our eHarmony.com review.