Online Dating

Craigslist has had major problems in the past with their adult services section (see Story). On September 4th they temporarily suspended all sex ads on Craigslist (see Story). On September 15th:

Craigslist told the House Judiciary Committee today that it had closed its sex ads section forever.

The reason for Craigslist backing down on having an adult services section is the mounting bad press from the media and pressure from a number of state attorney generals. Closing this section down is estimated to cost Craigslist $44 million per year. The company held nearly 70% of all sex ad revenue which totaled $63 million.

This leaves a giant hole in the sex ad industry in which I am sure Craigslist competitors will fight over to fill. I expect to see a lot more affair dating site and sugar daddy dating site advertising coming to a website near you.

To find out about this classifieds site, please read our review of Craigslist.

For those of you worried about using Twitter because of the strange messages and internet browser pop ups when you visited the social network early this morning, everything now seems to be back to normal. Twitter has reported that they have fixed the problem.

The hackers used an exploit found in Twitter's XXS (cross site scripting) that allowed them to insert their own scripts. As of 9:50 AM EST this morning Twitter has fully patched this exploit.

If you are still worried about potential problems by using Twitters web interface for viewing and sending Tweets, you can use a third party tool like Tweet Deck for extra security.

For more on this story you can read this New York Times blog.

The innovative terms Jessica Massa uses may be confusing and unfamiliar, but her view of love in the 21st century is simple: traditional dating is over and, while many of us are not yet ready to embrace formalized online dating, "almost all of us are romantically engaging with potential paramours online via the least stigmatized social media outlet out there - Facebook."

Facebook, Massa writes in "You're Online Dating and You Don't Even Know It!," is based on the idea of platonic friendship, but the social networking site is really "one big online party, rife with flirtations, mixed signals, behavioral assumptions and outright Jersey Shore-style creeping." In fact, Facebook has become such an integral part of everyday modern life that most of us can't help treating it like the world's largest free online dating site.

And why shouldn't we embrace it? Massa compares Facebook's functionality to the functionality typical of popular online dating sites, and concludes that many of Facebook's most recognizable and utilized features are actually dating site features in disguise.

The most obvious comparison is the message. Sending personalized messages that are witty, intelligent, and intriguing is the first step towards success on online dating sites, and it's no different on Facebook. If you're interested in initiating communication with someone, review their profile and create a unique message that telegraphs your interest by referencing specific details from their profile and asking questions about things that genuinely pique your curiosity.

You're probably also familiar with the idea of "the poke," though you're more likely to have seen other versions of it, such as the ubiquitous "Flirt," "Wink," or "Smile" features that appear on countless online dating sites. A poke is a low-key, low-risk way to bring yourself to someone's attention, but in the long run it achieves very little. Sending instant communication to someone by pressing a button says "I don't really have anything interesting to say to you" or "I don't actually care enough about you to take the time to write an individualized message." And if you're really unlucky, Massa writes, a poke says "'Let's face it, I'm a little creepy and I want to holler at you and am one of the last people to use the poke feature as a meaningful tool.'" Fight the temptation to poke if you're sincerely interested in taking the relationship to the next level.

How else does Facebook mimic the practices of online and traditional dating? Stick around for Part II of this series, where we'll continue our chat about Massa's post-dating world with a discussion of some of Facebook's other functionality, like the friend request, the wall post, and the new Facebook Place feature.

Read the original article here.

eHarmony launched a new dating site called Jazzed late last month. The site is currently free but we expect it to go paid once enough members have joined. In the past eHarmony usually keeps the site free for the first 3 months of operation.

So how is Jazzed.com different from eHarmony? Well, think of it as a less complicated version of eHarmony with searching. eHarmony is a very successful dating site but it is designed for someone looking for a serious relationship. The in-depth profile questions, communication process and matchmaking is not for everyone and eHarmony realizes this. Jazzed.com is more conventional, like the dating sites Match.com and PlentyofFish. The dating tools are simpler (when compared to eHarmony) and members are expected to search for their own matches.

You can expect a review of this new online dating site to be available soon.

To find out more about the parent dating site of Jazzed, please read our eHarmony.com review.

Plenty of fish launched a new dating website called eVow early this September. It is a service which allows singles to find long term relationships only. Instead of focusing on providing matches like other dating sites which specialize in long term relationships and marriage, eVow plans to allow searching of their profiles. This is the main selling feature of the site at the moment.

In less than 7 days of operation, more than 100,000 people signed up to eVow (thanks to being advertised on POF). The site is currently free but there is a plan to make it a paid dating site soon. New features are also planned for the site which took just under 30 days to create (from when programming started).

You can expect a review of this new relationship site to be available soon.

For more on the story read the POF Blog and to find out further details on the largest free dating site in the world, read our Plenty of Fish review.

I noticed that ChristianCafe.com was down around 11:30am this morning. It is now an hour later and the Christian dating site still appears to be having a problem.

When you visit the site you will get a number of errors depending on the browser you use. In most cases you will get a "Server not found" or a Timeout error message. These types of messages happen when no response is given by a web server to the request to view a web page from an internet browser.

When we get more news on this issue with ChrstianCafe.com I will update this post.

Update #1: As of 2:05pm EST ChristianCafe.com is back online and running fine. There is no word on what the problem was.

For more information on this Christian dating site, check out our ChristianCafe.com review.