Online Dating

A lot of travel stories are about bad in-flight meals, sub-par hostel accommodations, and confusing cultural mix ups. But this travel story is about a couple who joined MissTravel.com, met for the first time in Cabo San Lucas, and fell in love.

Their story was featured on ABC 20/20's "Vacation Confidential" segment, alongside an interview with the site's founder and CEO, Brandon Wade. ABC is the first to document one of "the newest and wackiest vacation trends" via a reality travel dating show that isn't too far off from its travel-and-romance hits "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette."

MissTravel.com claims to be the first online dating site to blend travel with romance, by bringing together generous singles looking for travel companions with attractive singles who cannot afford to travel alone. The idea is proving to be a popular one: more than 100,000 members have joined and over 50,000 trips have been planned in the 3 months the site has been live.

MissTravel.com has stirred up its share of controversy with critics who have compared it to a travel escort agency, but Brandon Wade is on the defensive. "Most people are uncomfortable with the idea of taking any kind of risk," he said during his interview with ABC, "so they choose to look at all the things that could go wrong with MissTravel.com, meanwhile ignoring all its potential for greatness."

Sibel and Steven, the couple featured in the segment, are bound to agree. Sibel is a 27-year-old from New York who signed up for MissTravel.com with minimal expectations. Shortly after joining, she received a message for Steven, a 31-year-old financial planner from San Diego who was looking for company on his upcoming trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Sibel says she found the idea of joining a man she'd never met on a trip abroad daunting, but decided to give it a go after days of talks on Skype and over the phone. They met for the first time at Villa Marcella, a beachside mansion Steven rented out for a whopping $2500 a night. It was a weekend full of indulgences - dips in the Jacuzzi, fine dining, a private yacht, snorkeling, horseback riding, massages - and when it came to a close, Sibel and Steven kissed each other goodbye and returned to their homes.

A few weeks later, Steve traveled to New York to visit Sibel, and a few weeks after that, she traveled to San Diego to spend a weekend with him. The first success story of MissTravel.com is still being written: Sibel and Steve found what they were looking for on MissTravel.com, and the couple is still dating.

China is the new frontier for online dating. It is the fastest growing market place with millions of new singles joining dating services every month. In under 2 years (by 2014) it is expected that China’s online dating market will double its 2011 value to 2.02 billion Yuan. This works out to more than $317 million US dollars.

In 2010 a survey by China’s government found that of China’s 1.3 billion citizens, about 14 percent of them, or 180 million are single. For comparison in 2008 it was reported that the USA with its 300 million plus population had 93 million single people. Percentage wise this works out to about 30 percent which is twice the amount of singles as reported in China. With the China survey no break down by gender was mentioned but educated and self-sufficient single women are on the rise. A new phrase has been coined which appears in the China’s official dictionary. The phrase is Sheng Nu which means Unwanted Girls in English and is defined as all single woman over the age of 27.

The current top 3 dating sites in China are (based on their membership claims):

• Zhenai.com – 63 million users
• Baihe.com – 40 million users
• Jiayuan.com – 39 million users

For a list of dating sites that cater to Asian singles in North America and Europe you can check out our Ethnic dating category.

From Friday July 20 2012, to Sunday July 22, 2012 members of Chemistry will be able to communicate for free.

If you are interested in online dating and are looking for a dating service to evaluate, then Chemistry’s 3 day free weekend is an ideal time to try out this dating site. Chemistry was brought to you by the creators of Match.com. The main difference between the 2 dating sites is that Chemistry relies on their in-depth personality test and complex matching algorithm to supply their members with quality matches. The matches provided are the ones Chemistry has determined are best suited for your personality and have the best chance of creating for you a long-term relationship.

To take advantage of the Chemistry 3 day free weekend all you need to do is create a user account and answer the profile questions. Once completed you will then receive your matches. Then, starting Friday July 20 and for 72 hours you will be able to communicate by flirting (chemistry starters) and sending emails for free. No credit card is required and this promotion is available for new and existing members.

Chemistry had their last free communication weekend in May. To find out more about this matchmaking service designed to find members long-term relationships please read our review of Chemistry.

The pressure's on for singles in Shanghai. The Chinese capital's fertility rate has dropped to just 0.79 children per woman, and now the city is desperate to encourage more young people to meet, marry, and raise a family.

The center of the city's dating scene is Shanghai Expo Park, where thousands of eligible young men and women gather in hopes of meeting their matches. 38,000 singles and parents attended a June 1st matchmaking event in the park, hoping to revive a marriage rate that is expected to fall 17% this year.

Shanghai is China's richest city, largest port, and a leading financial center in the country. It is also the center of waves of social changes that are sweeping the nation. An urban shift is shrinking the pool of factory workers who sustain economic growth in the country, while the ranks of the elderly - who increase healthcare and pension costs - are on the rise. City-dwelling citizens with higher education levels and a greater focus on their careers are marrying later and having fewer children, causing the Shanghai birth rate to drop to half the national level.

These shifts have caused major changes for Chinese women, who have become a larger, and increasingly educated, percentage of the population. "In the past, women were match-made by their parents," says Juemin Zhou, director of the Shanghai Matchmaking Trade Association. "Then, it didn't matter how old you were, or if your partner was blind in one eye, you still had to get married. Now, if you don't find someone suitable, you just don't settle."

Gong Haiyan, co-chief executive officer of Jiayuan.com, China's largest online dating agency, reports that women's expectations of potential partners - like owning a house - have now skyrocketed. "The first thing they look for," said Hansen Huang, a male attendee at the matchmaking fair, "is if you have a decent job, what is your salary like, if you have an apartment. Women are looking for a partner who can provide so they can live relatively comfortably."

In spite of these shifts, many Chinese citizens remain traditional. A young bride is still considered ideal, and women who wait too long to settle down many be considered "leftovers." "Women can be very picky when they're young," said Huang. "But if you don't sell when it commands the highest value, you may miss the golden opportunity."

The pressure to wed may be high, but Shanghai is doing its best to respond: about 2,000 couples were successfully matched at last year's event, a figure that bodes well for this year's fair.

We found some interesting statistics for OkCupid from the CEO Sam Yagan who did a presentation recently at the Digiday Data Marketing Summit.

Did you know that as of 2012 OkCupid has 10 million plus registered users who send more than 500 million messages each year. Last year they also had 68.3 million visits with which 13.3 million are unique. On average these visitors view 14.18 pages for an average time of 27 minutes and 59 seconds.

With the profiles and tests OkCupid keeps track of a lot of data. This data gives them information on their members demographics, psychographic, lifestyle and consumption habits which is ideal for advertisers who want to zero in on their target market. Like with Facebook, OkCupid is a free service that uses advertisers to pay the bills.

Lastly OkCupid says they have 3 key elements that define their success and they all revolve around their members. They are:

• Distribution of messages
• Recipient’s interest in message
• Keeping reply rates high

For more on this post you can check out the full slide show. To find out what makes this dating site one of the more recommended on the internet, please read our OkCupid review.

It looks like the dating site Plenty of Fish is currently down. It appears to have gone offline sometime late July 6th PST. No official information is available at the moment for the dating site outage. When you try to access POF.com or Plentyoffish.com visitors will receive some sort of “Service is unavailable” message (depends on your browser).

A few people have also reported to us that they have received a database error message. These messages seem to indicate a server problem and not a DNS issue. These problems could range from a hardware or software failure to some sort of denial of service or hacker attack (seems unlikely at this point).

If you have any new information on why Plenty of fish is down, please post a comment. This article will be updated when we receive any more news on why Plenty of fish is down and when it goes back online.