Match

Some people have this vision of the type of people on your average online dating site. Assuming the very worst version of this vision, here's what the legions of online daters are:

• Losers
• Freaks
• Geeks/Nerds
• Psychopaths/Murderers/Con Artists
• Depressed People
• The Mentally Ill
• Ugly People
• Fat People
• People with No Social Skills
• People with No Friends
• People with No Life
• Etc, etc, etc.

While ANY subset of the population will include the people above, it is unfair to assume that online dating contains a majority of the "undesirables" of society. Let me give you a little example of who is really doing online dating:

Match.com's SVP and North American General Manager, Mandy Ginsberg, has been named as one of Brandweek's 2009 "Marketers of the Year". These awards honors 12 individuals yearly who display creativity in marketing. A select panel of Brandweek editors choose the winners by scoring candidates by merit and marketplace efforts.

Ginsberg was honored for her work on Match.com's "It's Okay to Look" campaign, as well as the "Rejected by eHarmony" campaign for Match.com sister site, Chemistry.com.

After the Chemistry campaign, Chemistry.com's awareness figures quadrupled among singles. Similarly, Match.com's campaign with real Match members in TV commercials, combined with the 6 month guarantee helped the dating site grow by 15 percent this year.

On a related note, one interesting statistic that Ginsberg mentioned in a Brandweek article was, every day at Match.com 1,000 members leave the dating site because they have found someone special.

For further information about the dating site, read our reviews of Match.com.

Touch and date - that's the way with the iPhone! Online dating has made the process of getting out and meeting new people easier than ever before. But dare we say the iPhone has made dating even easier? There are enough iPhone dating apps to fill a bucket and have it runneth over, but to help you save time, we've gone through the best of the best and made this short list for you to review. Some of the apps are free, some are affiliated with major online dating sites. Whatever your preference, use the following list to your advantage. Spend less time searching and more time meeting!

Match.com iPhone App
Designed to work hand-in-hand with your Match.com online dating account, this app is not only FREE, but it's very intuitive to use. While you cannot view all of the information you would generally view if you logged in on your computer, you can see pictures, read profiles, wink, save favorites and send messages. The interface is well-designed and they've recently added a new feature where you can search for other members of Match.com who are nearby and send them a message! Other cool features are the ability to take photos with your iPhone and instantly upload them to your Match.com profile and edit your profile information on the fly.

During a conference call about the IAC/InterActive Q1 2009 Earnings report, the owner of Match.com and CEO of IAC, Barry Diller, mentioned they had been talking to Yahoo about the possibility of purchasing their dating site, Yahoo! Personals (see Story).

With this latest news article from Bloomberg it looks like Mr. Diller is not planning to make any new purchases anytime soon.

Diller said in an interview yesterday that he has no plans to make any major acquisitions ... Diller said he would rather invest in IAC’s businesses than acquire large media companies, which he sees as overvalued.

Diller also mentioned at the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Communacopia conference in New York, that IAC has too much cash at the moment but he doesn't see a better return than investing in their own businesses. At the beginning of July 2009, IAC had $1.61 billion in cash and $95.8 million in long-term debt. The New York based company had also repurchased $300 million in stock since August 2008. Since the beginning of this year IAC stock has risen 31 percent to close above $20.

In my opinion these statements by Diller while not mentioning Yahoo Personals directly, makes it clear he has no plans to buy the dating site. By purchasing Yahoo Personals he would be investing in the dating industry, but not directly into one of his existing businesses which is what Barry Diller says he plans to do.

For more information on the dating sites mentioned, read our Match.com review and our Yahoo Personals review.

Match.com's Whitney Casey was on The Early Show Saturday Edition sharing some insiders secrets of what relationship experts find makes for a good online dating profile that will help you get notice and to avoid moves which will turn potential matches off.

First impressions count in online dating so your profile picture needs to be good. It should show your face clearly and smiling. Natural photos are best (instead of a head shoot from your local photographer). Black and white photos and photos cropped from others are not recommended.

Casey suggests to answer the who, what, when, where and why in your profile questions along with anything you feel strongly about like smoking or for example, you only date guys who are taller than you. Above all Casey says to be honest in your profile. Think of it as a type of resume.

For a video of this segment on The Early Show, visit CBS News and to find out more about this dating site, read our Match.com review.

The Forbes website wrote an article called "The Top Online Meat Markets" which talks a bit about some current online dating statistics and lists the top ten dating sites according to unique visitors in the month of June from a tracking company called Nielsen (more famously known for tracking TV viewers). I wasn't really impressed with the title since they are referring to dating sites as meat markets. The term meat market is not meant as a compliment and it tells me the author is not very interested in the story and doesn't think much of the concept of online dating. He further expresses his point of view in this sentence:

Call it calculating, unromantic and maybe even a bit unnatural ...

For a media company whose authors are suppose to leave their opinions at the door unless the topic calls for it, I wonder how this piece got past the editor's desk.