General News

Popular online dating site eHarmony.com is catching the eye of more than just those looking for love - venture capital firms are falling in love with the online dating site. With revenues expected to exceed the $250 million mark in 2010, it's one of the fastest growing online dating properties on the web.

Match.com and eHarmony represent the largest audiences for online dating. Match hold just over 35% of the market and eHarmony hovers at about 20%. Audiences for both continue to grow, with Match staying ahead for it's eHarmony-like sister site, Chemistry.com's features.

Business is solid for eHarmony, however. They've raised over $110 million from Sequoia Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures and Fayez Sarofim & Co and are not looking for any more funding. There's no real talk of an IPO, but growth remains steady and that keeps venture capitalists in love with this innovative online dating property.

What will likely be the turn of events as eHarmony continues its forward surge? Acquisition by another online media giant. Potential suitors like AOL are considered likely as they have the balance sheet to support a successful purchase effort. Others like Yahoo! Don't figure into the mix, especially following their outsourcing of their Personals service to Match.com. Google is also unlikely as its growth efforts have taken them more towards developing their own platforms as of late than acquiring others.

It's the business of love, and we all contribute to its profitability. The upside for these business owners and VC firms? Once the people reading this article find love, there's always someone right behind you who is still looking. They've found a way to monetize the search for love, creating a business model that's sure to thrive so long as people can still say the words, "I do."

JetPlace, the owners of the Australian dating and swinger site Red Hot Pie, was ordered by the federal court to remove 1,371 fake profiles that they had on their website. Jetplace must also disclose to its Red Hot Pie members that they had misrepresented the number of users on the dating site. Members who registered between December 2004 and November 26, 2008 will also receive notices via email of this information. These same users can also apply for a refund if they can show that they were mislead by these fake profiles.

These fake profiles created by Jetplace contravened the Australian Trade Practices Act of 1974 since the dating site engaged in misleading conduct. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said they would have gone after Red Hot Pie in civil court where penalties are more severe but the conduct of the dating site happened before the new Australian Consumer Law. In their defence, Red Hot Pie said these profiles were created over a 4 year period and only a small number were active at any one time. They were used by the dating site's User Security Suite.

For more information on this story, read The Sydney Morning Herald.

Instead of a Free Communication Weekend (FCW), eHarmony has decided to have a 10 day long Free Communication Event! As far as I know this is the first time eHarmony has had a 10 day event. Most Free Communication promotions are less than half the length of time at 4 days. Free communication for this event starts this Friday July 23, 2010 and runs straight through to Sunday August 1, 2010. As with the Free Communication Weekends, members during this time period will be able to create a profile, take the eHarmony Questionnaire, receive matches and then communicate with them all at no cost and with no credit card required. Features available only to paid members during this promotion are viewing profile pictures, eHarmony Mail and Fasttracking the guided communication process.

If you are thinking about trying out eHarmony, this weekend would be a good time to start. The next 10 days will certainly be busy as old and new members take advantage of this event. For new members this is a great way to learn how to use eHarmony and it will give you a good idea on how eHarmony's matching system works. This will probably be one of the busiest weeks on eHarmony this summer thanks to it being prime vacation time, and this event.

This Free Communication Event/Weekend will be eHarmony's 27th. The last FCW was held on the Independence Day Holiday Weekend only 3 weeks ago (see Story).

For more information on this popular online matchmaking service, you can check out our review of eHarmony.

Today is the last day of the old Yahoo! Personals dating site. Back in May Match.com and Yahoo announced that they had partnered and that Match.com would be the exclusive online dating site for Yahoo in North America. Starting May 19th the old Yahoo! Personals dating service would not be accepting any new members. On this date as well, current Yahoo! Personal members had the option of either having their account transferred to the new Match.com on Yahoo! dating site or to continue to use the current Yahoo! Personals site until July 21, 2010.

So for all of you old Yahoo! Personals members (if there are any of you left) today is your last day. If you have any time left on your subscription I would transfer it to Match.com while you still can. If you don't, "you will be issued a prorated refund for the amount of your unused Yahoo! Personals subscription, if any". If you have not found love online yet then transferring your account is the best option. Match.com is a much larger dating service than Yahoo was and there will be a whole pile of new potential matches for you to browse and communicate with.

Also, while Yahoo! Personals will be closed today, members will still have the option to move their old Yahoo! Personals profile information and email matches to Match.com until January 19th, 2011.

To find out more about Match.com on Yahoo!, please read our review of Match.com.

Chemistry.com is planning a Free Weekend starting Friday July 23rd, 2010 and ending Sunday, July 25th, 2010. During this weekend no Credit Card is required to use almost all the functions of this popular matchmaking dating site. This includes creating a profile, taking the personality test, receiving highly targeted matches and communicating with them as well.

Chemistry works because of the match system behind their fun and interactive personality test. You not only answer unique and thought provoking multiple choice questions, you will be asked to analysis situations and images. All this information is then used to determine your personality type, and is then compared and matched with other Chemistry members. On this dating site you will only be contacted by members who are determined to be a good match for you and not by people just searching through a long list of members. This makes Chemistry the ideal choice for singles who are only interested in a long-term relationship.

This Flirtathon is the 8th time Chemistry has offered a free weekend for members. The last Chemistry.com free weekend for communication happened at the end of April (see Story). To find out more information on this dating service which does the matching for you, read our Chemistry.com review.

ABC News never really answered the question they posed in the title of this article called "Should Online Dating Sites Do Background Checks?". What they did tell us was some facts and left the answer for the reader to determine.

• Singles can encounter convicted felons and sex offenders both online and off.
• Not every background check is created equal and none are close to being 100% foolproof.
• Felony databases are slow to be updated.
• Dating Experts suggest having the option for background checks would be helpful.
• True.con does background checks on every member. They compare member's information with what is found in convicted felon and sex offenders state databases. True rejects about 2 to 3 percent of members which compares with the national statistic of 3 percent of the population are convicted felons.
• New Jersey has an Internet dating safety law which requires that dating sites provide members with safety notices and they must inform visitors if they don't conduct background checks on members.

The main problem I have with background checks is most "criminals" are not going to be posting their own information on a dating site, especially one that does background checks. They will just either make up the information or just use someone else's identity. This is more of a problem on free dating sites since there is no extra information (like a credit card) to help identify the person. Until we can easily determine who is typing at the computer or sites start requiring multiple pieces of identification for member accounts (which no one will want to supply), background checks will only be a small part of the puzzle for online safety.