Online Dating

Right on the heels of Valentine's Day, eHarmony will be having a free communication weekend which will run from Friday February 17th to Monday February 20th. This promotion is available to all members in the United States and no credit card is required.

With the increased popularity of online dating during this romantic week and eHarmony's reputation of creating relationships that are long-term and which often lead to marriage, you can expect this service to be bustling with new members eager to meet their matches. All you need to do is spend some time and create your profile. Once completed, you will receive your first matches that you then can start to communicate with. Features not included during free communication events are photos, Secure Call or Skip to Email.

By our estimation, this will be eHarmony's 37th free communication event with the last one happening during the New Year celebration (see Story).

To find out more about this popular dating service designed to find you a long-term relationship, you can read our review of eHarmony.

Grandparents aren't typically known for being a tech-savvy bunch, but it turns out they might know a whole lot more about online dating that you'd think.

Meet 24-year-old Kayli Stollack and Gail, her 76-year-old grandmother. Kayli is the creator of "Granny Is My Wingman" (GrannyIsMyWingman.com), a popular blog that came about after Kayli decided to take a chance on online dating and recruited her grandmother as her wingman (Wingwoman? Wing-granny?). Together, granny and grand-daughter began a quest for love in cyberspace. Kayli joined OkCupid, while Gail signed up for J-Date. "My granny and me are both single ladies looking for laughs and love in the world of online dating," Kayli told ABC News.

The blog began, Kayli says, after her grandmother told her a particularly funny dating story. "We knew it was a funny idea," she said, "but I didn't think it would get so much traction. It was a joke at first, but it got a lot of attention really fast." Readers came for the novelty, but stayed for the good advice. Like:

• Don't plan a long date. For a first date, shoot for 45 minutes and never make it a dinner date. That way you're not stuck spending hours with someone you're not into if the date doesn't go as planned.
• Don't brag about sexual technique. Save that for later, and then "show, don't tell" is a better approach.
• Make sure your profile reflects who you really are. What makes you unique?
• Don't hog all the attention. A date is about getting to know the other person, not bragging about yourself. "If ya spent 24 hours with the guy," Gail said of one self-centered date, "23 would be about him."
• Manage your expectations. Don't mistake a spark of interest for wedding bells, two kids, and a golden retriever. Take things slowly.
• Be honest, in your profile and on your dates. Being untruthful will only match you with people you're not actually compatible with.
• Have fun! Online dating doesn't have to be so serious. When Gail lost a fake tooth in the middle of the date, she played it cool and her date's response was "Please don't be embarrassed. I don't mind a bit, I'm enjoying every moment of being with you." She stayed calm, laughed it off, and won him over.
• The buddy system isn't just for kindergarten. A wingman makes everything better.

Plenty Of Fish is reporting that they had over 300 million monthly visits to their Android and iPhone apps last month. I am not sure if they mean they had 300 million visits to their respective app pages on iTunes and Android Market or if members used the apps on their phones a total of 300 million times (probably the latter, but how can you visit an app, I thought you used an app).

Plenty Of Fish is also seeing mobile traffic increasing by 3 percent every week with 40 percent of all United States signups now coming from mobile phones and tablets. iPads saw an increase of usage by 88 percent alone from December 2011 to January 2012 (must be those Holiday presents). All this traffic equals to over 3 billion page views a month coming from mobile apps. Wow, that is a lot! I never expected such a large percentage of signups would come from mobile devices already.

I guess the iTunes PlentyOfFish app description needs an update though, as I write this post it currently states that Plenty Of Fish has over 145 million monthly visitors and 38 million users.

To find out about this dating service and their mobile apps you can read our Plenty Of Fish review.

SeekingArrangement.com announced last Friday the launch of their anonymous phone calling feature. The service is called ICALLU which allows members to talk over the phone to each other without revealing their phone number to the member they are calling. Registering for this calling feature is free to members. A member's profile is marked as "phone verified" when they have gone through the registration and verification process (using SMS). Pricing for this service is currently 99 cents a minute ($1.99 for international calls) for the member who initiates the phone call.

SeekingArrangement.com decided to go ahead and offer this anonymous phone service after their research showed that 55 percent of their members have indicated that they are concerned about privacy. 32 percent of members also have already had a negative experience from giving out their phone number to a stranger.

For more information on this story you can read the press release. For similar dating sites to SeekingArrangement.com you can take a look at our Sugar Daddy dating category.

I noticed you now can access MillionaireMatch through a mobile device. They have a new app available on both the iPhone and Android phones.

With the app you can do most things found on the website including updating your profile, searching for matches and communicating with other members by sending winks and emails. You can also view lists of your favorites, who has liked you and members who have viewed your profile.

For more information about this dating service to find wealthy men please read our MillionaireMatch.com review.

Here are the eHarmony coupon codes for two of their more popular promotions. Both of these coupon codes expire on December 31, 2012.

eHarmony Coupon #1

eHarmony Coupon #2

These coupon codes listed above are valid on eHarmony in the United States (eHarmony.com).

For Canadian singles, go here for our eHarmony Canada (eHarmony.ca) coupons.

Read our review of eHarmony for more information about this online matchmaking service.