General News

What happens when you ask over 12,500 singles in 8 countries about their perspectives on monogamy, infidelity, and forgiveness?

Zoosk's latest survey happens.

Participants from the United States, UK, Italy, Germany, France, Denmark, Australia, and Sweden were polled by the social dating site to uncover the similarities and disparities in dating habits around the world. Findings include:

• Americans are least forgiving of politicians who cheat on their partners. 53% of singles in the US said that learning that a politician had cheated on their partner would influence their vote. Singles in other countries, however, are less interested in the private lives of their politicians. In the 7 other countries surveyed, the majority of singles reported that learning that a political candidate was a cheater would not influence their vote.
• Americans might not be as obsessed with celebrity culture as we think. Though creating a list of celebrities partners have a free pass to get involved with is a long-standing tradition in monogamous couples, a massive 80% of American singles said that they would not cheat on their partner if they had the opportunity to have a one-night stand with a celebrity. Italian singles, on the other hand, were most likely (34%) to step out on their partners if it meant spending a night with a celebrity crush.
• Tiger Woods' philandering has earned him the top spot on the "Worst Offenders" list across the globe. In France and Italy, Silvio Berlusconi was ranked the #1 worst cheater, with Tiger Woods coming in a close second, but in the 6 other countries polled Tiger Woods topped the list of notorious womanizers.
• Italians are most likely to venture into the world of nonmonogamy. 20% of Italian singles said that they prefer open relationships to monogamous relationships, compared to 15% of German singles, 11% of French singles, 9% of singles in Australia, 8% of singles in Denmark, 7% of American singles, and 6% of Swedish and British singles.
• Forgiveness is hard to find in any country. On average, 28% of singles in the countries polled said that they could forgive a partner for cheating, while 72% said that they could not. Danish singles appear to be the least forgiving (23%), and the most forgiving singles are found in Germany (35%).
• Though forgiving a cheating partner is a challenge, many singles believe that philanderers can be reformed. The majority of singles in 5 countries - the US, Sweden, France, Denmark, and Germany - said that they believe a cheater can return to monogamy after an affair. Singles in Italy, the UK, and Australia are firm believers that "once a cheater, always a cheater."

"The Zoosk survey found a level of agreement across cultures about the desire to be in a monogamous relationship or the difficulty of forgiving a partner for cheating," says Alex Mehr, co-founder and co-CEO of Zoosk. "It is particularly fascinating to us to see which issues singles around the world do not see eye to eye on."

For more information about this dating service, please read our review of Zoosk.com.

Last month It's Just Lunch celebrated their 20 year anniversary. Since 1991 they have not only been matching singles in the United States but in a number of countries around the world. It's Just Lunch is not an online dating site, they are a service run by matchmakers who help busy business people to meet other singles. Everything has the personal touch from meeting with clients face-to-face for the important first interview, to setting up the dates between matched clients.

To find out more about this matchmaking service please check out our It's Just Lunch review.

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.