General News

While women are searching for love online, they are also searching for new cosmetic products, according to recent research by Google UK analysts Bickey Russell and Elizabeth Song.

"The indexed search volumes for top search terms in cosmetics (including terms such as 'mac cosmetics,' 'avon,' 'make up tips') have largely followed corresponding figures for queries related to women seeking men (e.g. 'single men in London,' 'find boyfriend'), Russell and Song report. Dating and cosmetic products have a historically close relationship, a trend that is almost certainly the result of the fierce competition that can be found in the dating pool. As more and more women turn to the Internet to find love, the need to stand out from the crowd becomes increasingly great, boosting the sale of cosmetic products.

Russell and Song also discovered that, though the financial crisis has had a traumatic effect on countless industries, love and beauty appear to be recession-proof commodities. Shortly after the September 11th attacks, "Leonard Lauder of Estee Lauder coined the term "lipstick index" to describe how women continued to purchase high-impact beauty products during times of economic uncertainty." This theory has held true throughout the current recession, with Mintel market research data "showing that beauty product sales in the UK grew 30% between 2004 and 2009 from £7.4 billion to £9.6 billion, in contrast to a dismal 9% for clothes and shoes during this period."

Online dating has also entered a period of growth thanks to the recession. According to Nielsen research, "unique visitors to dating websites grew by 20% in 2008 when the economy was at its most uncertain, compared with 9% growth the year before."

In uncertain financial times, these two industries have continued to thrive while others have collapsed around them. While the market for luxury goods like designer handbags has suffered, "cosmetics continue to fly off shelves because British women are still intent on looking their best as well as attracting future partners." As the desire for a more attractive appearance grows, and the purchase of beauty products grows with it, women in the UK feel more and more confident about themselves, and become increasingly willing to enter the online dating market. As a result, the beauty and dating industries have formed a reciprocal relationship: as growth in the beauty sector increases, more women join online dating sites, and as interest in online dating rises, more women turn to the beauty industry to enhance their chances of finding love.

Here is an UK eHarmony voucher code for one of their popular promotions. This voucher code expires on Febuary 14, 2011.

eHarmony UK Voucher

The coupon code listed above is valid on eHarmony in the United Kingdom (eHarmony.co.uk).

For US singles, go here for our eHarmony USA (eHarmony.com) coupons.

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

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

This story seems to have slipped under the radar.

On September 14, 2010 Lavalife announced a partnership with Yahoo. Lavalife is now the exclusive dating site for Yahoo! Canada. When users click on "Personals" listed under "Yahoo! Sites" on the Canadian Yahoo homepage they will receive a unique co-branded online dating experience in both English and French. Visitors will not only be able to create a profile on Lavalife, visit the different relationship communities, and communicate with members but, they will have easy access to Yahoo and their services through an extra toolbar that has been added to the Lavalife dating site.

Yahoo also has a similar partnership with Match.com in the United States (see Story).

To find out more about this popular Canadian dating site, please check out our review of Lavalife.

The day after Boxing Day, eHarmony will be offering a free communication event for 7 days in both the United States and Canada. The event runs from December 27, 2010 to January 2, 2011. All members well be able to communicate for free with the guided communication process and no credit card will be required. eHarmony Mail, viewing of members profile pictures and Fasttracking the communication process are not included in this promotion.

eHarmony is a great online tool for finding a partner. A recent Harris study shows that in the United States on average 542 members of eHarmony get married every day. This adds up to over 98 thousand couples in one year which is almost 5 percent of all US marriages. (see Story)

This free communication event will be eHarmony's 32nd. The last one occurred at the beginning of this month (see Story).

For more information on this popular matchmaking dating site, you can read our review of eHarmony.com.

While Justin Bieber is trending on Twitter, what's trending in the world of online dating?

According to the Google Barometer Blog, mobile dating is the newest trend sweeping the U.K. Bickey Russell and Elizabeth Song, Senior Industry Analyst and Analyst Intern, respectively, for Google UK, studied the rising popularity of mobile dating and found that "the volume of Google searches on mobile devices related to dating grew by 215% YoY ['Year Over Year'] since 2008" in the UK alone. And, in an even more remarkable turn, "the volume of dating queries on mobile phones shot up ten fold in just three years' time."

As smartphone usage has become increasingly prevalent, the usage of mobile devices - and the constant Internet connectivity they provide - to access dating websites to search for potential matches and answer messages from interested members has become more and more popular. The market is so large, in fact, that Juniper, a market research firm, has estimated that "the overall mobile dating sector will grow to $1.4 billion worldwide by 2013." That's right - $1.4 billion in just three years. Google research has also found that searches from laptops and desktop computers for "mobile dating" and "text dating" have grown over 72% YoY in the UK.

So what can on-the-go online dating do for you? New interactive features are being invented constantly, allowing you to take advantage of countless new online dating opportunities like proximity dating, which uses GPS or Bluetooth technology to alert users when other singles are nearby. Mobile and location dating also introduce a real-life context into the online dating scene, "making the process less detached from users' everyday lives, social networks, and gathering places."

If you're interested in trying mobile dating, you don't have to venture far outside your comfort zone - many major dating sites, like Match, eHarmony, and JDate, have mobile apps available for download. If you're ready for something new, however, check out these popular apps:

1. Meet Moi: Meet Moi is a location-based mobile dating app that updates your location in real-time and alerts you when a match is nearby. Their basic service is free.

2. SpeedDate.com: Members can search through millions of profiles and start conversations via email with prospective matches. SpeedDate provides an advanced set of filters that allows users to search based on specific criteria, as well as a tagging feature that ensures that favorite profiles are saved.

3. Grindr: Grindr is the largest location-based dating app for gay, bi, and curious men. Grindr is free, and has about 600,000 users per month (about 250,000 users per day, who log on approximately eight times within a 24 hour period!).

4. Zoosk: Zoosk won the award for Best Mobile Dating Site at the Internet Dating Conference this year, and is consistently a #1 dating app in the iTunes Store. The app has all of the functionality of the website, with a GPS location tagging feature.

For more information on the service which won the award Best Mobile Dating Site, please read our Zoosk review. For other dating sites which also offer their services over a phone, check out our Mobile Phone Dating category.

Think Facebook is just a way to network and reconnect with old friends? If so, you're mistaken. According to a new study by Seventeen Magazine, among the younger crowd, Facebook is an important tool for measuring relationships and the most popular way to keep tabs on love.

The study shows that Facebook plays an important role in how young people make a connection, which is a good indicator of how dating will evolve. For instance, when meeting a new person, 79% of people surveyed will "friend" the new acquaintance within a week, and 60% will stalk their crush's profile once a day. And contrary to popular belief, 72% of those surveyed said that talking to someone online brings you closer to them IRL (in real life).

But Facebook is not all about budding love and friendship, as we suspected. About 10% of people surveyed claim they have been dumped over Facebook, and another 10% admitted to dumping their significant others by changing their Facebook relationship status. That's harsh.

Some other interesting findings:

• People judge a date's potential based on Facebook, especially girls. 43% of girls would decide not to date someone based on their Facebook profile, compared to 33% of guys.
• In general, people like to talk about their relationship status, which may work against you if you decide to break up down the line: Only 17% of guys don't share their status, and fewer girls--12%--don't share theirs.

The study was conducted among 10,000 people aged 16 to 21.