Dating Services

Pasadena Weekly recently received a tour of the Pasadena-based dating website, eHarmony, and in particular eHarmony Labs were they develop the matching algorithm used by the dating site. eHarmony Labs is the research arm of the dating site. Here they:

are committed to investigating and understanding what makes relationships successful through rigorous scientific methodology.

Their mission is to conduct and support research on relationship processes using academic researchers and by gathering their findings through an established scientific process. Since eHarmony Labs has come into existence a number of studies from eHarmony's research has been submitted for peer review and has been published in such prestigious publications as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see APA Online).

As online dating has become more mainstream, dating sites have been under increased pressure to divulge how their match systems work. eHarmony has taken a bold step with eHarmony Labs. From here you can see what the Lab is currently up to, who works there and, what the current relationship studies are about. You can also take part in several online studies and even take part in research in person (if you are eligible). Some of these studies even allow you to make a bit of money. While they only tell you in broad strokes how the eHarmony matching system works (by matching personality traits, values, attitudes and interests), from eHarmony Labs you can tell the company is serious about figuring out what makes a successful relationship and by applying this research to matching singles together.

So, take the tour with Pasadena Weekly and find out more on how some of these relationship studies take place and about the researchers behind them. For more information about eHarmony, read our review.

Forbes did a story called Thrifty Singles Embrace Online Dating in which they looked at Match.com International and how it is performing in Britain. According to the article, UK memberships rose 26 percent in January when compared to the previous year. Overall traffic to the dating site grew 17 percent.

Forbes also updated us on some stats about singles in the UK. There are currently 8 million singles and they went on 24 million first dates. 69 percent of the dates were arranged through online dating sites and social networks.

For more information on this award winning dating service, read our Match.com International review.

The free dating site by Match.com called Down To Earth was launched in January and since then, they have had more than 100,000 members join. On average, Down To Earth has about 1,500 members join every day. According to DownToEarth Spokesman Tori Johnson:It’s very user-friendly, it’s completely free, and you can post images of yourself, Johnson said. It’s like a normal profile. Solotaroff said online dating is increasing among Americans. There are 93 million eligible singles in the U.S. and about 3 million are using paid dating sites, he said. Free online dating also is growing – at a rate of about 70 percent per year.

Down To Earths market is the College-aged crowd (18-25) which they currently have about 21,000 members. By the end of 2009, the goal for total number of memberships at Down To Earth is 250,000. The dating sites main feature which makes it fairly unique is the RealRatings system. It is designed to keep married people out and dating profiles honest by allowing other members to score a person's profile accuracy after a date. The score is a 1 to 5 star rating.

For more information on the dating site, read our Down To Earth review.

With all the press lately for Chemistry, they have decided to up their 7 day free trial offer to 14 days. New members now have a full 2 weeks to try out Chemistry with all of the features a paid member receives. This new promotion gives members enough time to see if this matchmaking site offers the service they are looking for. Remember, Chemistry has an in depth profile and matching system designed in part by Dr. Helen Fisher, a leading Biological Anthropologist. This is a dating service primarily designed for singles looking for long-term connections.

For the 14 day free trial visit Chemistry.com now and to find out more information about this dating site, read our Chemistry review which includes user reviews as well.

<p>The New York Times has an article about the recession and how it has affected online dating. Nothing much new is mentioned in the article that hasn't been mentioned before in others except with a couple of exceptions.</p>

<p>We knew that PerfectMatch.com has seen a large spike in members in Q4 of 2008 but we only knew it was around 47 percent which was about half way through quarter 4 (see Story). According to the New York Times article, Perfect Match saw a 51 percent increase in members in quarter 4, when compared to the same quarter of 2007. Perfect Match growth continued into January 2009, but not quite as high at 30 percent. PerfectMatch.com CEO, Duane Dahl also noted that they experienced a similar trend in the rise of memberships for their dating site during the last economic downturn in 2001, after the internet economic bubble burst.</p>

<p>To read the complete story visit the New York Times. Registration may be required to read the article. For more information on PerfectMatch.com, read our online dating review.</p>

Here are two interesting points from an article called "Dates with destiny", which is hosted on easyJet Inflight.

• Match.com launched their United Kingdom dating site in 2001, interesting enough Marc Simoncini, the founder of Meetic (which is set to purchase Match.com's European Operations) was also launched in 2001.
• In 2004 as online dating became more popular, Match.com became the first dating site to run TV commercials.

For more information on Match.com's British dating site, read our review.