General News

BeautifulPeople.com, a dating site dedicated to connecting users with “beautiful men and women in your local area and from all around the world,” was the victim of a computer virus last month, claims managing director Greg Hodge.

“Beauty lies in the eyes of the voter,” declares the site’s homepage, which allows current members to accept or reject prospective members using a ruthless voting system. Applicants must submit photographs for review, as well as information like height, weight, zodiac sign, and whether they own a home, and then wait anxiously while accepted members determine whether or not they are beautiful enough to join

According to Hodge, the team at BeautifulPeople.com “got suspicious when tens of thousands of new members were accepted over a six-week period, many of whom were no oil painting." Curious, they looked further into the anomaly and discovered that a virus, now known as “Shrek,” was the source of the problem.

30,000 people who were accepted by the Shrek virus, but who were not considered attractive enough to be admitted to the exclusive site via normal voting measures, are now being culled from BeautifulPeople.com, a provocative move that has roused anger and outrage in many.

Hodge defends the decision, saying that “We have to stick to our founding principles of only accepting beautiful people – that's what our members have paid for," though he adds that they are doing their best to show sympathy to dismissed members. "I sent them all a very carefully worded email, trying to be as sensitive as possible," he said. "But naturally many of them are finding it a bit of a sting to have been rated beautiful by their peers only to lose the accolade overnight."

Some experts, like Graham Cluley, who works for a cyber security firm called Sophos, believe that the Shrek virus is a hoax. He sites issues like the fact that no outside security help was needed to remove the virus and that the virus never interfered with members’ privacy and security as potential signs that the virus is nothing more than a PR stunt. He also points out that BeautifulPeople.com has a history of running publicity stunts, like last year’s “festive fatties” campaign that supposedly stripped more than 5,000 users of their memberships for gaining weight during the Christmas holidays. That PR stunt earned the website an award for excellence as well as media coverage in multiple outlets.

So what do you think? Was Shrek a genuine computer virus, or simply a trick for publicity?

With June being Gay Pride month here in North America, Match.com put together some fun facts about their own Gay community that use their dating service.

Did you know that on Match.com the top 3 cities to find gay men are 1) Washington, 2) New York and 3) Los Angeles. For lesbians your best bet is 1) Oakland, 2) Long Beach and 3) St. Petersburg. On the pet front, lesbians when compared to straight women are more likely to own an exotic pet. When comparing gay men to straight men, the former are 25 percent more likely to own a cat.

For more on this story you can head over to the official Match.com blog called Up To Date. To find out more about this dating service you can read our review of Match.com.

I am a little slow at writing this piece of news but FriendFInder Networks reported their 2011 quarter 1 financial results on June 6th. FFN had $83.5 million in revenue which gave them $19.7 million in income. This is up 52 percent over the same period last year. FFN did end up reporting a loss though which was mainly due to interest payments. Their net loss was $3.7 million for Q1. This net loss was 55 percent less when compared to quarter one in 2010.

During the first quarter in 2011 FriendFinder Networks paid down $14.1 million of their debt which brought the total debt to $543.5 million. This debt was incurred when they purchased Penthouse.

For more information on the 2011 Q1 financial report please read the news release. For more information on their dating sites you can read our review of FriendFinder.com.

Badoo earned the top spot last week as Facebook's fastest growing application. Their question application currently has 3,095,520 daily active users with 33,156,471 monthly active users and weekly growth of 5,794,887 users.

There were a few other dating sites on the list as well. Zoosk earned the 3rd spot with 4,198,358 new users last week along with Cupid at the 14th spot with 921,046 new users of their Facebook dating application last week.

For the full list of Facebook applications you can visit All Facebook. For more information on the social dating site that earned the top spot you can check out our review of Badoo.com.

Syphilis is not generally the first thing that comes to mind when I think of things that make me laugh, but a new faux-dating site, part of a government campaign in Alberta, is doing its best to help Canadian citizens giggle their way to good health.

Alberta Health Services, in conjunction with Alberta Health and Wellness, recently unveiled a $2-million campaign to raise awareness about the rising syphilis rate in the province. Alberta's rates of sexually transmitted infections are the highest in Canada, and syphilis in particular has spiked in recent years. The campaign includes radio and television advertisements, as well as a parody of the online dating site Plenty Of Fish - PlentyOfSyph.com.

With witty catch phrases like "Spread the love!" and "be a part of something infectious today," PlentyOfSyph.com is garnering plenty of attention. The faux-dating site features imaginary profiles like that of beardedclam_69, who says "Let's not waste time. I like doing things in person;-) msg me now and I'll show you my 4 sexy tattoos, 2 hot piercings, and 50 small bumpy rashes on my body - and if your lucky I'll let you graze your tongue over each and every 1!!!" Another fictional user, Sapphic4syph, says she's looking for someone with whom to walk "rash-covered hand in hand through the forest."

But PlentyOfSyph.com is not all about stomach-turning profiles and graphic photos - the site also offers information on where to get tested in Alberta, and includes links to general information on STIs.

While some, like Angela Mulholland of CTV news, are calling their approach a "refreshingly funny take on a serious health problem," others, like the CEO of PlentyOfFish.com, Marcus Frind, are less amused. "You'd think the government of Alberta would have better things to do than spend millions of dollars creating a parody of Plentyoffish.com and than flood the Print/ TV/Radio with it," he wrote on the Plenty Of Fish blog. "Yes syphilis is a serious issue, effecting ~200 people a year in Alberta. What I don't get is why parody a mainstream dating site? It's completely the wrong demographic in many, many ways. The average age of Plentyoffish is 39 years old not 19."

Alberta officials are sticking by their campaign. "Alberta Health Services has not been contacted by, nor received correspondence from, Plenty of Fish," Shannon Evans, spokeswoman for AHS, wrote to the Calgary Herald.

So far, the eye-catching campaign seems to be working: the site has had 14,000 visitors since going live a week ago.

For more information on the dating site spoofed by Alberta Health Services please read our review of Plenty Of Fish.

This Father's Day weekend is also the weekend that Chemistry has planned for their next free communication promotion. Starting Friday June 17 Chemistry will allow all members to communicate with each other at no cost. This promotion is only for 72 hours and ends at midnight on Sunday June 19.

Chemistry.com and the matching process between members of the dating site is designed for singles who are looking for long term relationships. If this is something that interests you, then this Father's Day weekend would be an ideal time for you to try out this service as this promotion will let you experience what Chemistry has to offer for free. Plus, who knows, maybe you will communicate with your perfect match this weekend as it will be extra busy as other's will be checking out the dating site as well due to the extra publicity.

The last Chemistry free weekend was in May (see Story). To find out more information about this popular only matchmaking site, please read our Chemistry.com review.