Online Dating

We all want to portray ourselves in the best light possible when it comes to online dating. After all, the more attractive you seem online, the greater your chance of receiving responses and garnering more dates.

The problem is, many people fudge the truth in order to get more responses. So how do you know what information is real and what's not when you're looking at potential matches?

OkCupid recently did a study of its membership base to determine what online daters are most likely to lie about, along with the likely reasons why. Here's what they found:

• Online daters tend to lie about height. Generally, men are two inches shorter than the height they claim to be. The surprising statistic OkCupid also noted was that women tend to lie about their height just as frequently, although shorter women tend to get more attention. The study noted women under 5'4" get 60 more responses per week than their 6-foot counterparts.

• A second popular lie is about income. Generally, men and women both exaggerate their income levels by about 20%. However, men have more incentive to lie. Their response rates increase significantly when they claim to make more than $100K as opposed to a more modest salary. Also, after 23 years of age, if a man is making less than $40K, likely he won't be getting much response at all.

• The more attractive the picture, the more likely it is to be out-of-date. Typically, people seem to be posting recent pictures on OkCupid, the median date being about 92 days old. However, more than a third of the most attractive photos on the site are over a year old. Also, older singles tend to post older pictures. Men and women over 30 tend to post pictures that are a year old or more.

For more on this dating site, you can read our OKCupid review.

FriendFinder Networks Inc. made an offer on Thursday to buy Playboy Enterprises, Inc for $210 million. The founder of Playboy Magazine, Mr. Hefner, owns about 70 percent of Class A commons stock and 28 percent of Class B giving him complete voting control. The CEO of FriendFinder Networks, Marc Bell, stated that:

We look forward to Mr. Hefner and other key members of management being an integral part of the combined companies.

The problem with the offer is that last week Mr. Hefner made his own bid to take Playboy private at $185 million (or $5.50 a share). Playboy (PLA) is currently trading at around $5.65 on the New York Stock Exchange.

For more on the story read Stock Markets Review.

Remember the last time you spied someone across a crowded room or bar and wanted to give them your number? Out of business cards and determined to not write in on a napkin (or worse, their hand), maybe you skipped the opportunity all together in favor of "maybe I'll see them again." Well, instead of falling in love, there's a new company that lets you flip first!

A new company called FlipMe gives singles a way to share their number without sharing all of the information they'd share on a business card. When you see someone you like, you simply flip them - that is, you give them a card with your unique FlipperID. If the receiving party is interested, they'll log in, enter your ID and receive more information about you.

How is this different from a business card? Well, it puts YOU in control of the information you share. It also doesn't leave your contact information lying around on a bar on the floor somewhere or leave you subject to creepy emails from someone who (literally) found your information. While the concept is still very new, founder hope it will take off and offer folks looking to connect yet another tool in their dating toolbox to build successful introductions.

Interestingly enough, the concept stems from how the founder met her husband. They kept making eye contact across a bar and he gave the waitress a note to hand to her. They've been married now for five years and have started a family. Founder Rachel DeAlto and her husband hope the concept will take off and tap into the online component presently reserved for online dating.

You can learn more about FlipMe at FlipMeDating.com.

The Grindr iPhone App which allows gay men to locate one another has had phenomenal success. Grindr was launched in March of 2009 and is widely used at clubs and parties to allow like minded men to hook-up with each other. The app uses the GPS located in the phone to determine how close people are to each other. More than 700,000 men from 162 countries are using this App with the United States and the United Kingdom being the most popular countries. Everyday Grindr is downloaded over 2,000 times. A Blackberry Grindr version was also just launched in June, which is sure to increase Grindr's popularity.

A straight version of Grindr is in the works now with plans to release it by the end of this year. Soon heterosexuals will be able to figure out who in this room would appeal to them. Joel Simkhai, the creator of Grindr, says they get a lot more request from straight women than men men for this type of Grindr based app.

For more on the story read The Observer.

Early last month we learned that Easydate planned to list on AIM. Well, the company which launched in 2005 and brought us the UK dating site Cupid.com (see [story: Cupid.com-Reviews Cupid Review]), listed 3 days ago on London's junior stock market and raised about £9.8 million. It cost Easydate about £1 million to list and they expect yearly maintenance fees to be around £100,000.

William Dobbie (CEO) held a 49% stake in Easydate while Maxym Polyakov (COO) held 41% when it was privately owned. Now Mr Dobbie and Mr Polyakov will own 32.45% and 27.17% respectively. Shares opened at 60p which gave Easydate a market capitalisation of about £45 million. Currently the stock sits at 68.50p.

In 2009 Easydate earned just over £9.6 million giving them a before tax revenue of £2 million. Sales next year are expected to be double to £19 million. Each month Easydate is adding 200,000 new members. They employ a staff of 140 people with most working on the technical side of the business and online marketing in the Ukraine.

For more on this story, read the Telegraph.

The Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has launched an investigation into an online dating site. While this is a Canadian probe it does not mean it is a Canadian owned and operated dating site, it could be a dating site that offers services in Canada. This is the first time the Privacy Commissioner has investigated a dating service, but they have investigated social networking sites before. Facebook was investigated last year (see Story) and was found to be in violation of Canadian privacy laws.

The unnamed dating site is being investigated on how it handles members profile information once the membership has been deactivated. This was the same reason Facebook was under investigation. A complaint filed 6 months ago prompted the investigation of the dating site. The privacy issue was not resolved through mediation with the company and the Privacy's Commissioners office, so an official investigation was started. More news about this case will be released soon.