General News

We would like to welcome Kelly as a new contributor here at DatingSitesReviews.com. Kelly is an online dating expert and a former speed-dating host. She will be adding her unique perspective to our daily blog and offering not only advice but tips on relationships as well.

To see the articles that we have already published from Kelly you can view them here.

To find out more about our new writer, you can visit her Bio page. For those of you who have any questions or topic suggestions for Kelly's next article you can contact her through email with this page.

Tom

This Thursday May 20th, 2010 TangoWire will be offering their popular Virtual Dating (vDate) for free on all of their dating sites. On the last free Virtual Dating Event (see Story) they experienced over 30 times more singles using the feature. Virtual Dating offers members a better way to get to know each other before meeting in real life.

Harvard and MIT researchers recently proved that online dating service members reacted more positively toward individuals after Virtual Dating experiences compared to simply reading profiles or exchanging emails and chatting. Virtual Dating also led to more face to face meetings and more second dates, due in part to the increased comfort level for both parties.

Virtual dating allows interaction between members with 3D avatars. Members can pick the location (restaurant, beach, museum, etc...) and then communicate directly with each other. Members can also listen to music and play games on their virtual date.

The last free vDate experience was at the beginning of April (see Story). To find out some more about this event, read the press release.

For more information on this dating site and to find out more about Virtual Dating, read our TangoWire review.

We just got word that eHarmony.co.uk is having a free communication weekend starting Friday May 28th, 2010 at 00.01am BST and ending Monday, May 31st, 2010 at 11.59pm BST. On a free communication weekend, new and existing free members get to review matches and communicate for free by using the guided communication process. There is no cost, obligation or credit card required when you sign up to eHarmony on these free weekends. Limitations of this promotion include not being able to FastTrack the communication process and viewing photos of your matches.

If you are interested in online dating and being matched with like minded singles by a proven matching system then there is no better time to try out eHarmony than this Bank Holiday weekend.

The last free communication weekend for eHarmony UK was the Valentine's Day weekend (see Story). For those of you interested in eHarmony here is the US, we expect to see a FCW for members in May as well. As soon as we get information, we will post it.

To find out more about this popular matchmaking dating site and why UK singles enjoy using it, read our review of eHarmony.

According to White Label Dating, their range of dating sites in South Africa (over 345) has seen huge growth in the past year. Membership numbers have increased by 800 percent while revenue for their dating sites has increased 10 times to over 1,153 percent.

White Label Dating is a UK based dating company which provides their partners with the services and software needed for them to create their own dating sites. They currently have over 4000 dating sites for singles from the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. While these dating sites appear independent, they do share member profiles between them allowing for more matches between members

Read the press release for more information on the story.

OkCupid's blog post about picture myths was very popular. To capitalize on this OkCupid has released an experimental widget that will generate a report for you based on votes from members of OkCupid. All you need to do is upload a couple of photos. Once completed you will then need to help out and analyze other people's photo submissions (or how else will someone analyze yours? Pay it Forward!). After a little while a detailed report will be made available showing which photo was considered the best for a dating site.

In your report you get to see how many people voted and a list of 16 personality types of how people voted in a bar graph for each photo. This allows you to find out, for example, if Artists, Christians, Divas or Jocks either loved your photo or preferred a different one you uploaded. It also lists in the bar graph the age range and gender of the people who voted to give you a better idea if your pictures appealed to a younger or older audience.

MyBestFace looks to be sort of a smarter version of a picture rating website like Hot or Not .

To try My Best Face, visit this page and to find out about this dating site, check out our review of OkCupid.

Handwriting expert, Mike Kahlowsky knows that everyone's handwriting is unique and from a sample he says he can tell a lot about your personality and who you are. Mike started WriteMatch.com back in 1999. It is a:

... Handwriting Analysis Profiling Company specializing in Personality, Compatibility and Corporate Based Assessments.

The website though is geared towards matching singles together, the "E-Harmony for handwriting". When someone signs up to the service it will show you how to analyze your own writing. Based on this assessment and questions you answer about your writing, WriteMatch.com will then match you with other members of the site.

While I think handwriting analysis can work (to a point) I also feel it probably can't tell you all that much more about yourself than you already know. I do not see it becoming a successful tool which can be used for matching. It also is not needed; asking the person questions about themselves will reveal much more information than reviewing your handwriting.

For more on this story, read CBS12.