Dating Services

Recipient
ChristianCafe.com

This years Editor's Top Pick - Christian Award goes to ChrsitianCafe.com. We first reviewed this site in late November 2007 and we liked what we saw. At that time, the review was still considered too new to be included for consideration in the 2007 awards. This year is a different story and the Christian Cafe dating service (which members have shorten to CC) has only improved their service.

This Christian-owned-and-operated dating site is popular in the United States, Canada and has gathered a strong following in the United Kingdom and Australia. I really like how Christian Cafe is run. One of the things I really approve of is when you sign up as a free member you get 10 days of full access to the dating site (except chat rooms). This means you can send/receive emails and send instant messages to members online. All this is done without giving them your credit card. You can't get a much better free membership when trying out a dating service. Most dating sites allow searching and viewing of profiles for free but no real communication. The other thing you will notice is, there is very little advertising on this site. Most dating sites have online ads posted through out their site. The funny things is, these ads are usually asking members to join some other dating service (I always wonder why they advertise their competitors?).

This online dating site is filled with active Christian singles who are easy to find. Just type in your postal/zip code and select the distance potential matches must live within. Every profile lists when the member was last on and you can even search by this attribute. Unlike other dating sites ChristianCafe.com does not pad their membership numbers. If a member hasn't logged in within 90 days the profile is flagged inactive and will not appear in search results. It is also easy to see how many new members join every week. The number appears at the top of the page by the menu bar, which you can click to view and interact with the new member list.

There are bigger general oriented dating sites out there but, none have the quality and quantity of active Christian members as ChristianCafe.com does.

Read our review of ChristianCafe.com for more information about this dating service or visit ChristianCafe.com directly.

This Years Runner Ups for this award include (in no particular order): eHarmony and ChristianMingle.com.

It looks like PerfectMatch.com will be making an appearance in the new Adam Sandler movie called Paul Blart: Mall Cop which stars Kevin James. Previous films in which Perfect Match was the dating site used in the movie by relationship troubled characters include "Must Love Dogs" and "Failure to Launch". This approach to marketing has been very successful for Perfect Match which few other dating sites have tried. PerfectMatch.com also gets mentioned fairly regularly on TV by such popular shows as Dr. Phil and the Bonnie Hunt Show.

The new movie is due out in mid-January. Visit the official Paul Blart: Mall Cop website for more information on this movie and a preview. Read our PerfectMatch.com Review for more details on this online dating site.

ChristianCafe.com have currently reduce their memberships prices by up to 25% this month for the Christmas season. This means you will receive:

• $10 off a 3 month membership.
• $20 off a 6 month membership.
• $20 off a 12 month membership.

Now is the time to sign up to find Christian singles near you. If you have a friend who you think may be interested in this online dating service, gift memberships are also available. Read our ChristianCafe.com Review for more information on this dating site.

Recipient
Lavalife

It was no contest this year for the Editor's Top Pick - Canadian Award. The dating site, Lavalife, continues to be the choice for singles in Canada and it's easy to find out why. Join for free and do a search for singles in your area. You will find many online and many more who visit the dating site regularly. The thing with Lavalife is finding out when a member was last on is easy. You can tailor searches by online activity, plus this information is displayed right in the profile summary of search results. You never have to wonder if the person you are sending a message to on Lavalife is an old member who doesn't use the site anymore. A lot of dating sites tend to hide this information since it can show how many inactive profiles they do have.

The other big deal with Lavalife is they allow free members to reply to paid members messages. This means as a paid member you do not have to worry about sending a message to a free member as with other popular dating services like eHarmony. If you don't get a reply to a message, you know this is because most likely they are not interested. Not because they do not want to pay for the dating service.

Lavalife is divided into 3 distinct dating communities based on relationship types. So it doesn't matter what type of dating service Canadians wish to join. There are communities for singles with casual dating in mind, or singles who wish to have a serious relationship or for those who want an intimate encounter. These are 3 services for the price of one.

Read our review of Lavalife for more information about this dating service or visit Lavalife directly.

This Years Runner Up for this award include (in no particular order): Date.ca and Canadian Personals.

The economy is in reverse but online dating site Match.com is speeding ahead. They had their largest membership growth for November in 7 years. Match.com started 13 years ago in 1995. According to a press release Match.com attribute the growth to:

The combination of a new matching service, the Daily5, and the daily drumbeat of bad economics sent consumers to Match.com looking for love.

Match.com members initiated over 400,000 more connections this November (when compared to Nov 07) thanks to in part the new Daily 5 feature (see Story). November also produced the third busiest week of the year. Usually the weeks in January and February leading up to Valentine's Day see the heaviest use of dating sites.

For more information on this popular dating site, read our Match.com review.

Instead of launching Chemistry in the United Kingdom (which is available only in the US and Canada) Match.com has decided to include a personality test called Match Insights as part of the UK Match.com dating site. After reviewing the 2 tests I found them almost exactly the same (at least with the way I answered the questions). For existing Match.com members you can find the personality test in the My Profile section. According to the press release about this news:

... the self analysis is available free to all match.com online dating members in the UK. This will be followed by a premium service available early next year which will deliver every ’match insights’ user their best matches each day based on their personality type.

It looks like this will become an additional paid service that will most likely continue to be a part of Match.com instead of becoming a whole new dating site.