General News

I vaguely remember the old Match.com Blog were previous CEO's posted information about a variety of topics. I did a search for it (I am sure I mentioned it on this site somewhere ...) but didn't come up with anything.

On Monday of this week (May 17) Match.com launched a new blog. The blog is about "all thing dating and romance" and feature posts from Greg Blatt (CEO), Mandy Ginsberg (GM), Dr. Helen Fisher, and Whitney Casey. Some of you will recognize Dr Helen Fisher's name since she is the Chief Scientific Advisor for Match.com sister site, Chemistry. Whitney Casey is Match.com's current Relationship Insider. She is a published author and an Emmy Award winning journalist.

The Match.com's Blog first post is about their latest independent survey from late last month. We have already taken a look at these dating statistics in a previous post so I will not go over them again (see Story).

Dating company Blogs have become an important marketing tool lately, eHarmony launched one recently (see Story), and OkCupid's OkTrends Blog has become popular as well with online daters and the media due to their informative posts.

Thanks to the Online Dating Post for this info. For more information on this dating site, read some Match.com reviews.

David over at the Online Dating Insider found a study of online dating called "Scripts for Online Dating: A Model and Theory of Online Romantic Relationship Initiation". This 298 page paper was authored by Bridget L. Long. She is a student at Bowling Green State University and the paper was one of her requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. I have only skimmed the paper at the moment but the study examined the online dating processes from both the standpoints of the services themselves, and members. Bridget used the dating sites Match.com, eHarmony and Plenty of Fish in her research.

To download the study, visit the OhioLink ETD page.

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.