General News

In a Ted talk video by David McCandless which looked at the visualizations of charting data, one of the many graphs they showed was one of when people breakup according to Facebook status changes. The chart (as displayed below) is based on over 10,000 Facebook status updates. David McCandless and his team scanned for status updates with the terms "broken up" and "breakup" and then mapped it out by how often they occurred by date.



So when do most people breakup? The two biggest peaks occur just before spring break and two weeks before Christmas. Mondays also appear to be the most common day of the week that people breakup. There is also a rise in breakups just before the summer holidays. The season with the lowest amount of breakups is summer and the lowest day of breakups recorded by far was Christmas.

For more on this story, read MathiasMikkelsen.com.

On Wednesday, October 27 IAC reported their third quarter financials for 2010. For the company as a whole, revenue increased 25 percent to $421.7 million when compared to the same period last year. Compared to last quarter revenue is up $18.8 million or almost 5 percent.

The company's Match segment which includes the dating sites Match.com, Chemistry, People Media and Singlesnet saw revenue grow 31 percent from $81 million in Q3 2009 to $106.2 million in Q3 2010. IAC reports that about half of the revenue growth was thanks to organic growth in Match.com US and the People Media network of dating sites. The rest was from Singlesnet and the partnership with Meetic in Latin America.

As a result of IACs positive financial news, shares in the company rose nearly 6 percent to $27.94 in afternoon trading on October 27.

For the complete public financial IAC Q3 2010 report read this page. For more information on the dating sites owned by IAC, read our Match.com review and our Chemistry review.

Related Story: Match.com Second Quarter 2010 Financials

According to FriendFinder Networks Inc in a press release on Thursday, they have raised $551 million in debt financing. Any further details of this transaction were not disclosed.

For more on the story read the press release and to find out more about one of their dating sites, read our [staticpage: 010000100-FriendFinder FriendFinder review].

Yup your eyes do not deceive you - eHarmony Canada is having a 30 day free communication event.

Free guided communication events usually last either 4 or 10 days but this next one for Canada is a month long. For the entire month of November (over 7 times longer than a normal 4 day FCW event), eHarmony Canada members will be able to review their matches and communicate with them at no cost and with no credit card required. This will certainly be a busy time for members of eHarmony Canada. With free members being able to use the guided communication process it gives all members a chance to find out a lot more about their matches. Just remember Fasttracking the guided communication process, eHarmony mail, and viewing of members profile pictures is only available to paid members.

According to our records this upcoming free event will be eHarmony's 30th. The last eHarmony free guided communication weekend for Canada occurred on Thanksgiving Weekend (see Story).

For more details on why this is such a great dating site, please read our review of eHarmony.com.

Though online dating is now mainstream for singles, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Major sites like Match.com and eHarmony seem to have cornered the market and have large subscriber bases, but many online daters aren't satisfied with the process. As a result, niche dating sites are popping up to capitalize on the need for something new; a dating site that speaks to their particular needs.

I recently sat down with CEO Brad Boyd to talk about SetforMarriage.com, the dating website he founded that cuts to the chase: the people who join are only interested in marriage. We discussed why his approach to online dating is different from the major players, and why he thinks it will work.

How did you get the idea to start SetforMarriage.com? My best friend was on eHarmony for a year and was ready to marry. He kept meeting girls who were matched to him based on what they had in common, but it never seemed to work for him. I thought a site specifically for marriage-minded people would be better for him.

Do you think most people using online dating sites are just looking to hook up, or are they looking for partners? When people see eHarmony's commercials, they have an expectation that if they use site, they will find the perfect person. This is an unreasonable expectation. Also, when people join larger dating sites, they meet a lot of people who are casual daters or looking to hook up. Our site eliminates ambiguity by calling ourselves a dating site specifically for marriage-minded people. We have a smaller number of people, but we are successful.

What makes you different from other marriage sites? The screening and matching process. Some people want to be matched, some don't. My friend didn't want a computer algorithm to tell him who was perfect for him, like another marriage site does. We are completely profile-based. You can search through everyone in our database rather than going through a long questionnaire and hoping to be matched appropriately.

Is your client base mainly Christian? Mostly religious? I would say it's pretty evenly spread out. There are many on our site who aren't religious, but I would say most of those who are religious are Christian.

How many subscribers/ members do you have now? About 2,000 people are on the site right now. We've only been around since August 2009.

Are you married? Or do you online date? I'm busy going to school---my life consists of school, work, and managing the website. I don't have time to invest in relationship. I'm not marriage-minded now, but I do have a profile so I can monitor the site.

Here is an UK eHarmony voucher code for one of their popular promotions. This voucher code expires on November 31, 2010.

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 for more information about this online matchmaking service.