General News

The custom of arranged marriage is very popular in India but in countries like the United States and Canada it is not popular. In North America when a match could not be found locally, families from India and other Asian countries sometimes resorted to using newspaper classified sections to find a potential suitor for one of their children. This practice has now changed thanks to online dating. Dating sites like Shaadi.com have matched more than a million South Asian couples and now parents are logging on to find potential matches for their children. Many parents find "religion, mother tongue, residency status, education, caste or class, astrological sign and diet" important attributes in a mate for their child. Shaadi.com does keep track of this information within member profiles which makes it easy for parents to find matches. Roughly 20 percent of profiles on Shaadi were created by parents looking for a partner for one or more of their children. The average age of a profile is in the range of 26 to 35.

In Canada Shaadi.com has become so popular that they have opened up their first North American center in Mississauga Ontario in March of this year (close to Toronto). The greater Toronto area is home to more than 700,000 South Asian Canadians making it ideal for a matchmaking center. Shaadi also has started to promote their new center not only online, but off as well through billboards and other physical media to better reach their target audience.

To find out more details about this dating site, check out our review of Shaadi.com.

While the iPhone changed the way we consume content, the iPad is about to change the way we date. According to a TIME Magazine article released this month, Skout.com will soon be releasing the first online dating app designed specifically for the iPad.

Some of the biggest benefits that developers see with the new iPad are the iPhone interactivity combined with the larger screen size. The larger screen size is what's prompted Skout.com developers to design a location-based app that will allow users to search the area around them for fellow Skout users while chatting and browsing profiles.

Skout isn't the only site stepping up to the iPad. Gelato, a new online dating site launched in 2009, is redesigning its entire site based on the iPad. Gelato includes live streams of members' social media accounts in their profiles if members choose to add them and CEO and founder Steve Odom sums the iPad up with, "It's big, it's beautiful, and it's perfect for dating sites."

As online dating sites are highly interactive, it's no wonder that we're already hearing the stampede as they rush to tailor apps and websites exclusively for the iPad. The large touch screen allows a high level of hands-on during the profile building and viewing process and the article predicts we may even see eye-tracking software that accompanies these apps in the future. Does that mean the potential for love at first sight with the iPad? While an eye-catching device, it definitely appears the cliché may become a reality down the line.

Bottom line? It's about interactivity. If online dating site developers can access the tech-savvy iPad crowd then the sky's the limit. Online dating lives in a bit of a crunch due to the iPhone's size, but the iPad puts big, bold pictures in front of the user and the touch screen adds to a more personalized experience.

Want to read more about what's on the horizon with the iPad and online dating? You can read the original TIME Magazine article here.

In October of 2009 eHarmony launched a Facebook page. By November they had 2,152 fans and over 600 success stories. Now the have 5,097 fans and tons more success stories.

Early this month eHarmony introduced us to the eHarmony Facebook Mentor program. Currently there are 6 mentors who help out the eHarmony Fans by chatting with them to answer questions about eHarmony and to share own online dating experiences. These mentors are volunteers who have donated their own time. eHarmony is also looking for more Mentors so if you think you have what it takes you can contact eHarmony on the Mentor Tab to get more information.

For more information on the Mentors, visit the Mentor Tab on the eHarmony Facebook page and for more details about the dating site, read our eHarmony review.

I found this TechCrunch article on a new dating site for Apple Fanboys and Fangirls extremely funny. The dating site is called Cupidtino. Here is author Michael Arrington thoughts on this new service:

Apple fans can be annoying when they’re on their own. The thought of them breeding and creating little Apple fans, a whole family of hard core hipster Apple lovers, is just not a good thing. On the other hand, making sure that Apple fans only date other Apple fans is a good way of stopping them from spreading their Apple fan genes to the general population, I guess. So maybe this site isn’t all bad.

I also had a laugh when I read this comment from one of TechCrunch visitors:

Actually, we need to dilute the apple fanboy/girl gene pool by breeding INTO it, as shocking as that may sound. By sacrificing small bits of ourselves, over time, we can eliminate the purity of apple fandom by reintegrating them back into normal society.

I always found most Apple fans take themselves a little too seriously, Good Stuff!!!

The Skout dating application for the iPhone has reached version 2.0 and not only did it get some new features it also got a design makeover. New features include virtual gifts, a game called "Look at Me" which allows you to bid for attention of other members and a Wink-Bomb. The bomb allows members using Skout to reach hundreds of singles in your proximity all at once with location based dating and the GPS in your phone. With the app you can then find out who has been looking at your profile and think you're hot. With this information in hand you can then contact these people to meet up somewhere close by.

If you are interested in trying out Skout for your iPhone here are a few more interesting stats about the dating service.

• Skout was the first iPhone Dating Application
• Skout members send on average 100 messages in 1 month.
• Currently over 750,000 people have used Skout's location based dating option.
• A Skout iPad dating application is currently being developed.

Here is a sneak peek video of the dating app in action:

For a few more details read the press release. Here is our list of other dating sites which offer their services on mobile phones.

I was notified by a user and have just confirmed that the dating site Plenty of Fish is down. I tried accessing the website from a number of countries (using proxy servers) and received a connection timeout error in all cases for both Plenty of Fish domains (www.plentyoffish.com and www.pof.com). It looks like the website has been down for at least an hour now (8:30 am EST).

A connection timeout error with a website usually indicates a problem with accessing the web server (it took too long to respond). This means something probably happened to the internet connection or with the web servers hardware. The last time POF was down for a while was June of 2009. This was due to a power failure (see Story) and resulted in about 8 hours of downtime.

On a related note the owner of Plenty of Fish, Markus Frind just got married last weekend. This may mean he is on his honeymoon and not close to home which could result in Plenty Of Fish taking a little while longer to get up and running again. I expect Plenty Of Fish to be online again sometime late morning or early afternoon.

We will update this post when we get more news. If you have any news please comment on this story.

Update #1: That didn't take too long. PlentyofFish.com is now back online as of roughly 9:58 am eastern standard time.