General News

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.

It looks like the domain name Dating.com was sold yesterday at auction on DomainFest for $1.75 million US. The domain was sold by Oversee.net to an unknown buyer. Currently the Dating.com domain hosts a World Dating Partners while label dating site. I wonder what the new owner plans on doing with the domain? I am going to assume they have plans to launch a dating service since that type of website potentially could generate the most profits. With the money the buyers spent on the domain it looks like the new owner plans to invest a fair bit of money in the new service. It should be interesting to see what they come up with.

For more on the story read TechCrunch.

PerfectMatch.com has added a News feature to their member's homepage. It is similar to how Facebook news feed works. Anytime you get a new match or if your existing matches update their profiles or pictures a news item will be added to the feed with a thumbnail image and a link to the member's profile. Other member actions including if a member adds you to their bookmarks, sends you an email or sends you an ice breaker will get added to this feed as well. Ordering all of these news items by date and listing them on the home page makes it easier for members to find and interact with each other.

To find out more about this dating site, read our PerfectMatch.com review.

The popular Christian dating site, ChristianCafe.com, released an iPhone dating app (which also works on the iPad) this week. With this App, members can search and view profile information and photos of other singles. They can also send and receive messages and winks as well. Non-members who have never visited the website before can download the app and use it to create a basic profile and sign up for the 10 day free trial. To download the ChristianCafe.com app for your iphone visit iTunes.

Here is a short video of the ChristianCafe iPhone Application in action:

Members on the go who have a Google Android phone are in luck too. ChristianCafe expects to release an app soon for Android.

To find out more about this dating site, read our review of ChristianCafe.com.

There have been numerous studies as far back as 1858 which looked at if marriage is good for people's health. Most of them concluded that on average, married people appear to be healthier and live longer than unmarried people. Studies on marriage in Sweden and Netherlands found that married people are less likely to develop cancer, have heart attacks, die from a violent death and be in a car accident. Studies like these have even affected government policy. The "Healthy Marriage Initiative" was setup by the US government and received $150 million a year from 2006 to 2010. This program worked on projects like reducing divorce and these projects routinely mentioned the health benefits of married couples.

Recent studies have found a flip side to all this though. If you have a troubled relationship with your partner the health benefits disappear. This marital stress actually can lead to a person's health being worse off than before he or she was married. One study even suggested that stress in a marriage can be as bad for the heart as smoking.

Find out more about how marriage affects your health by reading the New York Times. For dating sites where people look for long term relationships and/or marriage, check out our Popular Match System category.

There are many articles online which talk about dating safety and scammers. I found one recently which had a number of good points on how to protect your credit. We have talked about most of these tips before but it is always good to review them every now and then, not just to protect yourself online, but offline as well. I also included some additional safety tips of my own.

Leave the Income Field Blank

Most dating sites allow you to specify your annual income and your area of employment. Revealing this information may make you a potential target of some scammers.

Style of Writing

Constant spelling and grammar mistakes combined with broken English are a sure sign that the person you are emailing may not be the person he or she says they are. If they are from a city you are familiar with, ask them a question about it that someone only living there would know.