The word on everybody's lips right now is: Tinder.

No, they're not trying to start campfires...they're talking about the new dating app that's been taking the world by storm.

Created by Hatch Labs - an LA-based startup backed by IAC, the same digital media giant that also owns Match and OKCupid - Tinder has exploded onto the scene since its launch in October. Here's why:

• It's free.
• It's casual.
• It's connected to Facebook.
• It doesn't focus on the traditional profile model.
• It's location-enabled.
• It's targeting the tech-savvy younger generations.

You may not have heard of it yet, but Tinder has already sparked 50 million matches and 4.5 billion user ratings. Not bad for an app that's barely more than six months old...

The Tinder team is determined to keep that momentum going. They're already hard at work to create tools to enhance the Tinder experience, like the brand new "Matchmaker" feature. The update allows users to make introductions between any of their Facebook friends, whether or not they're already on Tinder.

It's easy: Just select two friends, add a message, and press send. Once a user has matched two Facebook friends, they can chat within Tinder without sharing their contact information. If the friends aren't already using the app, Tinder sends them a message on Facebook and asks them to sign up for an account to see the post.

An additional feature of Matchmaker allows the person who made the introduction to see if the match is active. That way they can get a sense of their success rate, and gently encourage a match to communicate more if the conversation goes silent.

"Right now introductions are a very difficult process," says Sean Rad, Tinder's CEO. "They're slow, they're socially awkward. This is a socially acceptable environment for you to make introductions in an easy way."

Rad hopes that the introductions will go beyond dating. Need a connection for a new car, or the perfect employee for your startup? Rad's goal is to make Tinder's Matchmaker feature your go-to for relationships and networking of all kinds. So far, its success has been even more than he imagined.

Tinder launched a month-long test of Matchmaker with 100 users. Rad expected about 10% of the test population to make connections, while the other 90% benefited from the introductions made. Instead, nearly all of the beta users made multiple introductions.

Sounds like Tinder is about to have another success story on its hands.

eHarmony's free communication event is happening in the United States from June 28 to June 30 on eHarmony.com and in Canada from June 27 to July 1 on eHarmony.ca. This is a long weekend for Canada as July 1st is Canada Day. I am surprised that the US event is not happening next week when Independence Day is celebrated.

Update: 2013-07-03 - We just learned that eHarmony.com is also having a free communication weekend July 4 - 8 in celebration of Independence Day.

The main thing free communication weekends allow are for non-paying members to send and receive emails. So, all you need to do is visit eHarmony and create your account and fill out your profile (this can take about 30 minutes). Once completed you will then start to be sent matches based on the type of person you said you are looking for along with someone who has compatible personality traits with you. After reviewing their profiles and once you find one or more matches you like, you can then start the guided communication process. This process is 3 stages that allow you to better get to know each other. Once they are complete you can then move on to post guided communication which is eHarmony Mail (email). One thing to note is free communication does not include photos, secure call or skip straight to email.

There last free communication weekend happened in May on Memorial Day (see Story). To find out more about this service you can take a look at our in-depth review of the dating site eHarmony.

Let's face it: when you think of finding love online, you don't think of POF.com. Though the site started out with good intentions, it's now known as a seedy den of no-strings-attached hookups and dubiously real profiles.

But that's all about to change. Markus Frind, CEO and Founder of PlentyOfFish.com, is taking radical action to revamp the site and restore its reputation.

"When I created POF," he said in an email to users, "I wanted it to be all about finding relationships with the right person. For the first 7 years this worked really well, I got the site to 10 million users without any employees and POF was generating a ton of relationships." Then the smartphone became the most popular technological gadget in the world, and online dating changed.

"Today about 70% of POF use is via a mobile phone," Frind explained, "and unfortunately about 2% of men started to use POF as more of a hookup site mostly due the casual nature of cell phone use." Displeased with the turn his site has taken, Frind is determined to give POF a makeover.

To bring the site back to his original vision, Frind is making three major changes:

1. Any first contact between users that is sexual in nature will not be sent. Users who try to skirt the new rule will automatically be deleted from the site's database with no warning. Frind says that this rule has already been in effect, and has noticeably improved the site.
2. Contact can only happen between users with an age difference of 14 years or under. "There is no reason for a 50 year old man to contact an 18 year old women," said Frind. "The majority of messages sent outside those age ranges are all about hookups." The same automatic deletion policy also applies to this new rule.
3. The "Intimate Encounters and Married" users of the site will no longer exist. Of the 3.3 million people who use POF daily, Frind notes, only 6,041 are single women looking for intimate encounters - and of those 6,041 women, most are men pretending to be women.

Frind promises that the vast majority of POF users will not be affected by the changes taking place. Those who are using the site as he intended - to find real, lasting relationships - will barely be impacted, other than by a welcome decrease in spammy, sex-seeking messages.

The old POF was the most popular free dating site in the country. Can the new POF live up to the success of its predecessor? Post your own Plenty of Fish review and let us know.

One thing is certain when it comes to meeting potential dates: we've never had more options than we do right now. Between online dating, mobile dating apps, and video dating, it's easy to communicate with someone new.

And while online dating remains the most popular way to meet, more and more people are gravitating towards their phones for help in dating, so new apps are coming out all the time, each with a different spin.

Chris Harrison, the popular host of the TV show The Bachelor thinks video dating provides a great alternative to going on dozens of coffee dates just to see what someone is like. He recently released a video dating app called At Fist Sight that centers around video profiles. He claims that his app allows daters a deeper look at each other, one that can't be captured through static pictures, emails, or even a traditional online dating profile.

He discovered the power of video while working for the hit reality show, seeing firsthand how casting decisions are made based on the sense you get from each contestant through their video profiles. He reasoned that if he provided this kind of power to other daters out there, they would be able to make more informed choices.

At First Sight is similar to online dating in that it matches people according to an algorithm, based on mutual interests and compatible personalities. And if you're interested specifically in the still-single reality stars from the TV show, Harrison told the L.A. Times there might be Bachelor or Bachelorette contestants becoming members in the near future. He also doesn't rule out casting for future shows based on who signs up for the service.

But At First Sight isn't the only video-friendly dating app. Date.FM bills itself to be the first dating app to include video chat. If you're interested in someone, you can also start chatting (virtually) face-to-face immediately. With Flikdate, you can video chat for up to 90 seconds with people around the world, moving on to the next with a flick of your screen.

At First Sight is available on both Android and iOS devices. While the app doesn't yet have the capability of video chatting, you could still access members via Skype or Google hangout. There are also instant messaging and social features as part of the app.

Right now, At First Sight is free and in the beta stage so if you want to check it out, I encourage you to do so. They are still in the process of building a user base, so it may eventually come with a price tag.

Do you believe in love at first sight? Maybe you don't, but according to researchers at Stanford University, it is possible to form a connection in the four minutes given for a speed dating round. It just depends on what you say, and how you say it.

No pressure right? Stanford researchers studied some 1,000 speed dating sessions to determine what helped couples to instantly click, and what assured that they didn't.

According to researchers Dan McFarland and Dan Jurafski in an interview with Stanford News, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the meaning of signals we send to other people, and the role those signals play in helping to form connections.

McFarland states: "We wanted to see if there is anything about the interaction that matters or is it really just what I look like, what I do, what my motivation is. Is it all things that are psychological or in my head or is there actually something in how we hit it off?...We wanted to get at what the essence of the connection is, what makes people feel like they bonded."

Not surprisingly, women were seen to be more selective than men.

Participants in the study wore audio recording devices during their dates. Each was asked to fill out a "scorecard" to assess each date and whether or not they would want to go out again. Participants were also asked to fill out pre and post-date surveys.

The dates were transcribed and the words and speech patterns were analyzed to see if they corresponded with a feeling of connection among the men and women.

Their analysis found that words do matter, as well as how they are delivered. Women reported feeling connected with a man who used language to indicate that what she said was interesting. A simple acknowledgement like, "oh that's cool" could go a long way in making the woman feel connected.

Daters also seemed to click when one expressed enthusiasm or excitement for what the other person was saying. There was a greater connection if the other person interrupted with an enthusiastic agreement.

"This is a situation in life where women have the power, women get to decide. So talking about the empowered party is a sensible strategy toward feeling connected," McFarland said.

One thing both sides agreed on: asking a lot of questions indicated a lack of connection. This pattern was used mostly to avoid a lag in the conversation.

The study, "Making the Connection: Social Bonding in Courtship Situations," was published this month in the American Journal of Sociology.

The world changed forever on the day Martha Stewart came out in favor of online dating.

I know, I know...it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm really not. Just think about it: what did Martha Stewart stand for before she stood for online dating? Healthy recipes. DIY. Ideas for entertaining. Crafts. Gardening. Kmart. Home décor. Doilies. Assorted other 'good things.'

In other words, Stewart built a multi-million dollar empire on being the most boring, average woman on the planet (other than the insider trading thing, but let's not go there). When a woman like that says online dating is the way to go, no one is ever going to look at online dating the same way again.

It all started with an interview with Matt Lauer. Stewart told the "Today" host that she loves dating, but hasn't yet found "Mr. Right." Her first attempt to take her search online didn't end as planned - she made it halfway through setting up a Match.com profile before abandoning the pursuit in a fit of laughter.

Fortunately, Match.com came to the rescue and posted a profile for Stewart. She's looking for someone "active and fit and healthy and good looking," who doesn't hate children or animals, smoke, or drink to excess. She's also on the lookout for "a nice smile, a nice appetite for good things... a nice person who's also funny and witty and smart and hopefully rich enough."

It might sound like a long list of requirements, but the 20,000 pageviews the profile received in the first few days prove that quite a few men are willing to take on the challenge of dating Martha Stewart. She narrowed a pool of 1,000 suitors down to two men who joined her on "Today" for an interview (and you think your first dates are awkward!).

When Martha Stewart is happy to discuss her online dating exploits with the nation, it's clear that the stigma surrounding it is finally gone. Online dating is so much more than socially awkward loners in their parents' basements...it's an opportunity for everyone, regardless of age, to expand their horizons and open their love lives to partners they may never have met otherwise.

If Martha's into it, it must officially be normal, cool, and mainstream (except the doilies...that will never be cool).

In other words, stereotypes are out. Online dating is in. And now everyone knows it.

What do you think...is Martha Stewart's Match.com profile 'a good thing' for online dating?

For more information on the dating site Match.com you can read our review.