Dating Services

Match.com has recently partnered with Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef. The Jamie Oliver website receives over 1.4 million visitors, with an equal gender split and, with almost 70 percent being 35 years or older. This is the ideal target market for a dating site like Match.com. The Jamie Oliver dating page even has hot dinner dating tips with several ideas for making everything from the starter to the dessert, so you can impress your date. You can even win a dinner for two at Jamie's Italian restaurant (United Kingdom residents only).

The new service can be found here and targets the food lovers among the dating community. For more information on Match.com in the United Kingdom, you can read our review.

An east coast class action suit against Match.com has been moved to Dallas, where the company's head office is located. We have talked about this case before when it was just Sean McGinn suing Match.com, but I hadn't realize it had become a class action suit (see Story). One of the things the suit alleges is that the "vast majority of Match.com members are cancelled subscribers, or have never subscribed at all”. This leaves members feeling rejected after using the dating site, because only paid members can reply to their messages. The suit seeks to stop the company from engaging in these "deceptive practices".

As for the reason why the suit was moved, here is the direct quote:

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that the case should be be tried in Dallas rather than New York because of a “forum selection clause” in the user agreement that Match.com members agree to when they sign up for the service. That forum selection clause specified said if a dispute arose, such case would be tried in Dallas or Collin County, court records say.

Match.com has said in a previous statement that the suit is without merit and that they will defend their position.

For more on the story, read Dallas Business Journal.

The eHarmony Facebook Fan Page has received several updates over the last few weeks. We first talked about this Facebook page in early November (see Story) and since then, the Celebrate Love Tab has seen a major overhaul. In the initial weeks, the Fan page was all about the Wall and people submitting success stories. This was in response to good marketing by eHarmony and spurred on as well by a weekly contest being held for Amazon gift cards.

With thousands of fresh success stories on their hands, eHarmony got their Social Media Specialists (there is a job opening for this at eHarmony) working to condense this information onto the Celebrate Love Tab. There is now a news section, a Fan Gallery and a "Meet Our Feature Couples" box on this tab. Clicking on the "Meet Our Feature Couples" box enlarges it and allows you to view a number of enhanced success stories of couples. There is a detailed description, tons of photos and even videos.

Other dating sites need to take a look at what eHarmony is doing here, it is a well executed marketing campaign that has engaged Facebook users. In the news section of Celebration of Love, eHarmony announced that they are launching a new ad campaign that will be on TV soon. I bet they will mention the Facebook Page.

You can find the eHarmony Facebook Fan Page here. To find out other details about this dating site, including costs and what is involved in creating a profile, read our review of eHarmony.

Edward Butler, a senior analyst at IBISWorld, used Australian Bureau of Statistics data and industry surveys to review and crunch data on the global sex services industry. He determined that the $1.2 billion industry has seen a 6 percent ($74 million) decline since the global financial crisis started. Brothels, tobacco and alcohol are usually recession proof but that doesn't appear to be the case this time.

Some analysis like Butler think that the popularity of adult dating sites have taken business from the sex industry. Adult dating sites make it easier for consenting adults to be frank about what they want and need in terms of sex. It has never been cheaper for like-minded individuals to organise casual liaisons with the rise of adult and casual dating services.

About 1.5 million men and women now have accounts in Australia with sites such popular dating sites as RSVP, Match.com and eHarmony. Most of these singles are not looking for casual sex and are intent on finding a partner for a long term relationship. Adult FriendFinder, one of the more popular casual sex dating sites reports on having just over 892 thousand profile listings from Australia.

For more on the story, read The Sydney Morning Herald.

Have you ever been rejected by eHarmony? According to a recent article you are not alone, about 20 percent of people who sign up for eHarmony are ultimately rejected. (see Story) Have you ever wondered why? Here are a seven confirmed reasons why:

1. The main reason people are rejected by eHarmony are if they are still married or separated (but not divorced). Earlier this year if you entered one of this options as your Marital Status you where told this right away by eHarmony that they don't allow married people to use the service, but now I see they let you continue on with entering your profile.
2. This is related to point 1, if you answer that you have been married for more than 2 times (this may now be 4).
3. If you entered" I am a Man seeking a Man" or a "Woman seeking a Woman" would also get you the boot. This happened before eHarmony opened their same sex dating site called Compatible Partners. Now, you will get redirected to Compatible Partners.
4. Your answers don't jive. This actually happened to me. Randomly selecting your profile answers may speed up answering the questionnaire but it will most likely get you a rejection notice. A simple test for this one is to enter you are a Man seeking a Woman on the eHarmony homepage and then on the first section and question of the questionnaire confirming your gender as female.
5. Age. According to eHarmony's Terms and Conditions of Service " You must be at least 13 years old to use the Site (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction, if it is older), and at least 18 years old to register for the Services.".
6. That you have been convicted of a felony. While eHarmony does not conduct criminal background screenings, they do reserve the right to conduct such checks by using available public records. This one won't get you rejected right away but if someone complains about you, and they do a little digging and find a criminal record, you may get served a notice of rejection.
7. As reported by a number of other blog sites (I never did find the source), eHarmony will reject you if you score low on a number of different traits or dimensions. These can include your emotional status, character, conflict resolution and several others.

Sam Yagan indicated that an iPhone application was in the works for OkCupid earlier this month (see Story), and now it is out (much sooner than I was expecting). This is a full featured dating application that offers:

• Sending and receiving of your OkCupid mail messages.
• Instant Messaging with members.
• Updating your profile and photos.
• Spend time answering those famous OkCupid match questions.
• Search for users.
• Search for matches based on your current location.
• Find out who has been checking you out.