Dating Services

Are you someone who signed up to ChristianCafe and are still not sure if they are the right online dating site for you? To help you decide, check out their member testimonials. They are listed by year and month, and go as far back as 2002. Each testimonial contains a message from the happy couple along with a few photos (usually from the wedding).

If you haven't become a member yet of this dating site, read our review of ChristianCafe for more information and to find out how to receive a 10 day free trial that gives you complete access to the service (communication included). No credit card is required for the free trial.

The New York Times seems to be covering a number of dating topics recently. In this article they looked at the marketing of the science behind online dating. A professor of psychology, Jeffrey Lohr is quoted several times in the article. He released a research paper recently which looked into some of the claims from the more popular dating sites (see Story). In summary of his research, Professor Lohr stated:

It seems to me that everybody is marketing their product far beyond the available evidence. There is none to very little effectiveness in the matching process.

The one person he did have praise for is Dr. Helen Fisher of the anthropology department at Rutgers. She helped Chemistry.com create their profile questions and matching system. Dr. Fisher based her work for Chemistry on her own published and peer reviewed research about how love and matchmaking works. Unlike Chemistry, most dating sites have very little science that has been published to back up the claims of their service and matchmaking system.

A news website from Ontario, Canada published an article about a couple of peoples experiences on a some of the more popular dating sites. The ChristianCafe received positive praise from an online dater named Peter. He met his wife Helga, through the Christian dating service back in February of 2008. They have been happily married now for 3 months.

In early 2008 Peter lived in Ontario and Helga lived in Alberta. Peter was keeping his searches for a partner limited to the province of Ontario, though Helga was searching in neighboring provinces. Helga first contacted Peter via instant message. After a few emails and phone conversations they both realized the other person was special. In the beginning, everyday Peter would log into ChristianCafe to read Helga's messages. After about a month, Peter flew to Edmonton to meet Helga in person for the first time, at a local cafe. Things went well with Peter and Helga for the couple of days that he visited and it became a regular occurrence for Peter to fly to Edmonton. In April of 2009, Peter married Helga and they decided to stay in Edmonton.

For more on the story, read Northern Life and to find out what makes this dating site a great place for singles, read our review of ChristianCafe.com.

Some new FunnyOrDie.com videos have surfaced recently which poke fun of the currently separated parents on the Jon & Kate Plus 8 TV show from The Learning Channel (TLC). The videos depicts Jon and Kate in two spoof Match.com TV commercials talking about themselves and what type of matches they are looking for.

The first video released is for Jon Gosselin. I had a laugh at his Match.com member name, JonMinus9:

Here is Kate Gosselin's video. Her Match.com user name is, KatePlus8Minus1Hawaiian:

FunnyOrDie also poked fun recently at eHarmony's commercials by having Lindsay Lohan do a spoof ad (see Story).

The Unofficial eHarmony Blog pointed out that there is now a Official eHarmony Blog. The blog is titled Open Communication, and is named after the final step in eHarmony's 5 step communication process. In the first post Pam Holmgren, the eHarmony Director for Corporate Communications, introduces herself as the official blogger. She further states that with this blog she hopes to create a safe and trusted environment where people can learn more about eHarmony. Since July 14, 2009 we have seen 5 posts with no real new information about eHarmony, at least from a dating industry point of view. I hope eHarmony does communicate more about how their matchmaking service works from the inside and doesn't end up making the blog purely a marketing tool.

If you are interested in the eHarmony Blog, then you may also want to know that you can view actual verified eHarmony visitor traffic statistics at Quantcast (see Story).

Click here to visit the official corporate blog and for more information on this dating site, read our eHarmony review.

Christine makes a good point in this article from the Palm Beach Post. Certain profile preferences on dating sites shouldn't be negotiable. This will differ from person to person but most singles would agree that their view on how much they want their potential partner drinking and/or smoking will not change, especially if the person says NEVER. Usually they have a very good reason.

In Christine's case she is a recovering alcoholic and she had told eHarmony that she didn't want a match who drinks. After only a few matches from eHarmony, she received an email from the dating site suggesting she widen her match preferences in regards to drinking, to someone who may have a drink at least once a week. Obviously this would not work for someone like Christine.

I think dating sites like eHarmony which are designed to match singles based on complex matching system need to take into account the deal breakers every person has when it comes to being partnered with someone. For me it is smoking, for someone one else it may be location or religion. eHarmony should realize asking someone to modify a matching preference which may be a core belief could lead to upset customers.