Online Dating

Here is another dating profile story. This one involves claims that 2 rival dating sites (Dating Network Limited and Xfactor Online Dating Limited) in the United Kingdom have stolen 9,000 profiles from the dating site Guardian Soulmates (which is run by the Guardian Newspaper). The Guardian has sued these dating sites in the High Court of Justice in London and says:

... that the actions violate its rights under EU law, which give the builders and owners of databases special protections over and above copyright law.

The Guardian has two main issues with the stolen profiles. First, they want to protect their member's privacy, and second, they do not people to think that they have a commercial relationship with the 2 accused dating sites.

For more on this story, read The Register.

Lavalife has recently updated the design of their dating site. Gone is the old HTML framed based site (I was shocked they kept it around for so long) and in, is a new more modern look using current technologies like AJAX. This means that web pages do not have to load as much and most tools are now updated right on the screen. For example you can open the Lavalife Instant messenger on the bottom communication toolbar without reloading the page and it will stay open as you surf around the site. The email message indicators for each distinct community (Dating, Relationship and Intimate) are also now located on the bottom toolbar next to the IM window which makes it easier to see when and where your new messages are.

The profile detail view has been redesigned with a new tab interface that keeps all the information organized on one page. The profile thumbnail photos are also larger, not only in this view but in the search results as well. The only thing I didn't really care for was the text profile information in the search results. Instead of being organized in specific locations, the information is displayed one after the other in a paragraph. This makes it difficult to scan the search results quickly and compare the information of each profile since the profile information may not appear exactly in the same spot for each search result.

The one other thing I notice was that Lavalife Speed Dates is currently offline as the Lavalife developers continue to update that part of the website.

For more about this dating service, read our review of Lavalife.

Last week JDate officially announced the launch of JDate Mobile in Beta. JDate Mobile is compatible with any web enabled phone, including all of the smart phones like the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry. When you sign up for JDate Mobile you will get instant text alerts when:

• You receive email or some other form of communication.
• Someone views your profile.
• If you get added to someone's Hot List.

These text alerts are free to all members. Current subscribers of JDate will also be able to send and receivie email messages right from your phone.

For more information on this dating site, check out our review of JDate.com.

We heard that OkCupid has sent some emails out to their better looking members letting them know that they have been placed higher in the search results because of their attractiveness. They will also be matched with other members of similarly rated attractiveness.

Say it isn't so OkCupid!

For a dating site which prides itself on its unique way of matching singles through the use of quizzes, this approach makes OkCupid seem more like a hook-up site instead of a dating site which values real relationships. Obviously attraction plays a role in relationships but to automatically push a profile higher because of how well a photo is rated seems one-dimensional.

To find out more about this dating site, read our OkCupid review.

Recently Yahoo! Personals members were told that Match.com will become the exclusive dating service of Yahoo. Members could either migrate to Match.com or continue to use Yahoo Personals until July 21st, 2010 (when the site will close for good).

Spark.com has extended an offer to ex-Yahoo! Personals Members. They can receive a 1 month free membership to Spark.com. With this membership you will be able to use the entire site for free, including communication. One thing Spark.com has over most other popular dating services is they allow free members to communicate with paid members. This means if you are a full member of Spark.com you know that all members can communicate with you. To take advantage of this offer all you need to do is log onto Spark.com and create a free profile. You then need to email the Match.com Welcome Notice along with your Spark.com username to freecommunication@spark.net and within 24 hours you will receive your free membership.

This is a good deal since Yahoo members now can have a membership not only on Match.com but Spark.com as well. Plus you can also take advantage of a similar free offer at ChristianCafe.com. This means ex-Yahoo Personals members have the option to receive 3 memberships at 3 of the more popular dating services for the price of one.

To find out more about this dating site, read our Spark.com review.

We just got word and have confirmed that Plenty of Fish is currently down at the moment. It looks like it has been offline for at least the last hour (6:30pm EST). If you visit the dating site now you will receive one of the following server error messages:

• Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)
• Server is too busy

It looks like the server is accessible (hence the available error message) but the web service (IIS) is down.

We will update this post when we get more information.

Update #1: As of around 12:00am EST (May31) we have had reports that POF is back up. Though it still appears to be down for us.

Update #2: As of 7:00am Plenty of Fish is back up again. Not sure what happened but everything seems working normally. According to our estimates POF was down for approximately 10 to 12 hours.

For more details on this free dating site, check out our review of Plenty of Fish.