Dating Services

Match.com spent around £6m on advertising in the United Kingdom according to Nielsen. Hanft Raboy and Partners previously held the Ad account for Match.com in the UK but this year the new marketing director, Karl Gregory decided on using Mother instead.

The only details we have on the new marketing campaign so far is, it starts in the new year, and it will attempt to engage people at an emotional level.

For the full story visit Marketing Magazine and to find out more about this UK dating site, read our Match.com UK review.

Next Friday (10/16/09), Saturday (10/17/09) and Sunday (10/18/09) ALL Chemistry users will be able to communicate for free. This FREE Weekend will also be supported by TV commercials and increased online advertising so there should be plenty of extra activity on Chemistry.com

Free communication means all members will be able to send mail messages to any of their matches and receive mail from singles who are matched to them as well, all at no cost. As always, new members also receive a free in-depth personality test designed to match you with compatible singles.

The last Flirtathon happening last month in September (see Story) so this is Chemistry's 6th free communication weekend. For more information on this dating site with an in-depth matchmaking system, read some Chemistry reviews.

This time OkTrends took a look at almost 1 million people and their messaging habits on OkCupid. What they found may shock some people:

A message sender's race is a huge factor on the average reply percentage.

Here are a few interesting points they raised:

• Black women are the most talkative. They are more likely to reply to your message, about a quarter more than other races.
• White men get more replies from almost all groups when then send a message to someone on a dating site.
• White women prefer white men but Hispanic and Asian women do more so.
• Men don't tend to write black women back as often as the average response rate.
• White men are rude to all races. The average response rate of a white male is 40.5% across all groups but the average response for non-white men is almost 8% higher at 48.1%.

Visit the OkTrends for the complete details on this story including easy to read graphic charts. To find out about OkCupid, read our review.

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:

Canadian singles will be celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend and that can only mean one thing... 😉

eHarmony Canada is having a Free Communication Weekend! This means all members will be able to not only review matches for free but they can communicate with them as well. Trying out eHarmony.ca to be matched and talk to members has never been easier.

The last free weekend for eHarmony Canada members was held the Labour Day long weekend in September (see Story).

If you would like more information on this matchmaking service, check out our eHarmony review. User reviews and ratings of eHarmony are also available on this page.

Élan Relationships has been around for 18 years now and claims to be Chicago's premiere personal introduction service. At least one woman disagrees. Sheena Finnegan signed up last May for $3,500 with the hopes of meeting her soul mate. Élan Relationships allegedly promised her:

... to find her “genuine, high caliber, professional” matches by setting her up with six “qualified introductions” in a six-month period ...

According to Finnegan all she got was heartache, frustration and disappointment.

By the end of June Sheena had only been on two dates with men she felt did not suit her. She also had been scheduled for 3 other dates which were all cancelled, and not by her. Since Sheena had a number of cancelled dates, she did get her membership extended by one month. After some more dates and two more cancellations Finnegan had had enough. She found that none of the men were what was promised to her. She contacted Élan Relationships and asked for a refund and was refused. According to Sheena Finnegan:

the company’s contract was “misleading…false…fraudulent” and did not make any favorable matches for her.

In her lawsuit Sheena is asking for an unspecified amount of money in damages and an injunction to prevent Élan from continuing to practice the alleged deceitful business techniques.

Élan Relationships is a member of the Better Business Bureau and they have been a BBB Accredited business since November 2006. They currently hold a BBB Rating of B. According to the BBB, the company Élan Relationships has had only a few complaints filed against them, with most of them either being Resolved or Administratively Closed due to a fair offer being made.

For a list of other personal matchmakers, try our Matchmaking Services category.