Dating Services

Greg Waldorf has been with e-Harmony since it launched in 2000. He was one of the founding investors. By 2006 he was named e-Harmony's CEO. In the 3 years that Greg has become CEO, e-Harmony went from being a U.S. based company to offering services in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom (with more countries on the horizon). The interview at Electronic Retailer Magazine asks Greg several questions about himself and e-Harmony, these include:

• What was e-Harmony's past and future marketing plans.
• What type of modifications has happened with the compatibility test over the years?
• What makes e-Harmony stand out from all the other dating services?
• Have social networking sites hurt business?
• How has the dating site evolved with the technology over the last 9 years?
• What is e-Harmony doing different to weather the global recession?

A few interesting facts were also mentioned (quoted from article):

• e-Harmony's first known success couple was married on May 17, 2001.
• The oldest woman to find a spouse on e-Harmony is 85 years old, married November 13, 2007.
• The youngest woman to find a spouse on e-Harmony is 22 years old, married May 26, 2007.

Check out the February cover story on ElectronicRetailerMag.com for the complete interview and read our e-Harmony review for more information on this popular dating site.

Usually Perfectmatch gets all the sweet media deals in movies and TV's when it comes to online dating sites (Dancing with the Stars, Must Love Dogs, etc..).

According to the unofficial eHarmony Blog, eHarmony will be the company who is the main sponsor of the The Newlywed Game TV show which is set to premiere April 6, 2009 on the Game Show Network. It is hosted by Carnie Wilson (her father was in the famous group, the Beach Boys). There are 40 episodes in the series and with the new retooled show, comes a twist. The winning couple of each episode will have a bonus round at the end of the show were they go up against a Goldwed couple. This is a couple that has appeared in a previous episode of the show that ran off and on through the 1960's up to the 1990s.

For more information on this popular dating site, read our review of eHarmony.

I noticed last month Perfectmatch offers a guarantee to its paid members. The guarantee is only available for the 2, 3, and 6 month memberships. There is no guarantee for a 1 month membership.

Here are the details taken from Perfectmatch's website, broken out by membership length:

Six Month Plan

During a six month subscription, you will receive a minimum of eight Perfect Matches. If Perfectmatch does not provide you with at least eight Perfect Matches, they will extend your membership for two months (at no cost to you), AND will continue to do so, until they have met this minimal commitment and you are satisfied!

Three Month Plan

During a three month subscription, our most popular plan, you will receive a minimum of six Perfect Matches. If Perfectmatch does not provide you with at least six Perfect Matches, they will extend your membership for two months (at no cost to you), AND will continue to do so, until we have met this minimal commitment and you are satisfied!

Two Month Plan

During a two-month subscription, you will receive a minimum of four Perfect Matches. If Perfectmatch does not provide you with at least four Perfect Matches, they will extend your membership for two months (at no cost to you), AND will continue to do so, until they have met this minimal commitment and you are satisfied!

8 perfect matches in 6 months doesn't seem like a lot of matches to me but they also mention extending the membership every 2 months until you are satisfied as well.

To find out more about this dating site and it's guarantee, read our in-depth Perfectmatch reivew.

Well it has been about a week since Plenty Of Fish (POF) offered its users a paid option that upgraded their profile to serious member status (see Story). There have been mixed reviews from the members of POF. Some complain about the 100% Free tag line on the site should be removed, while others have wondered if users with the badge would receive any more mail as claimed on the POF upgrade page. Most are just shocked that the site has started a paid membership upgrade. I haven't found any glowing recommendations of it yet.

Some members also have been angered that POF have been giving some upgrades away to get the ball rolling. The problem is, some of these giveaways have been to people who didn't know they received them. This has angered many long term POF members who felt left out. I think POF should of offered the upgrade free for a limited time to users that have been using the site regularly for a certain period of time. The upgrade would be offered for free but the user would still have to initiate it. I also would have made the free serious member upgrade for the 3 month term only. With a set of rules in place on who gets the free upgrade people would have less to complain about (but I am sure some still would).

Spark Networks had a disappointing quarter 4 in 2008. From the press release:

2008 was a mixed year for us. We achieved moderate annual revenue increases in Jewish Networks and Other Affinity Networks, improved Contribution margins to 74%, cut Operating Expenses by 19%, drove annual Adjusted EBITDA to record levels at a 28% margin and returned capital to stockholders by using cash flow to repurchase 21% of the shares outstanding at the start of 2008 ... we are disappointed with second half trends and in particular the fourth quarter, as revenue and subscribers decreased sequentially in each online segment. 2008 revenue, excluding General Markets, was flat while fourth quarter revenue, excluding General Markets, declined 3% sequentially. Jewish Networks was flat in 2008 but saw its third consecutive quarter of declines.

General Markets was Spark Networks flag ship dating site once, Americansingles.com. For over the last year American Singles has lost a large number of members. Spark Networks current flag ship site is JDate, the online Jewish Network.

eHarmony never wanted to open Compatible Partners but as specified in the terms of a settlement in November 2008, they must open a dating site for gay people by the end of this month. We have been told that the site will work like eHarmony's current site which involves a long profile questionnaire to help in the matching process. At eHarmony you do not search for other singles. All matches are given to you by the dating site. As far as we know there have been no plans to update eHarmony's matching algorithm to take into account the differences in a gay relationship for Compatible Partners.

It will be interesting to see how popular the new dating site will get. It has gotten a lot of media attention but delivering a product for this type of niche never was a goal for eHarmony. I don't see why a gay single would want to join?

When Compatible Partners goes live, we do plan on doing a review, so stay tune.

Update: Check our our new review of Compatible Partners.