General News

There are wedding crashers, party crashers and now date crashers.

You may be wondering, what is a date crasher? A date crasher according to MSNBC is someone who joins a specialty dating site who doesn't fit the within the personal criteria of the site. A specialty (or niche) dating site is a dating service which usually caters to specific type of single. Someone who is looking for a partner that must meet a criteria like, belonging to a certain religion, or have a particular cultural background. Now days there are niche dating sites for almost anyone, from dating sites for people with pets, to dating sites for farmers.

While a date crasher may feel there is nothing wrong in joining a dating site not specifically designed for him or her, a lot of members on these niche sites would disagree. They joined the dating site to meet like minded singles who share the same passions in life. Not someone who doesn't have a problem dating someone completely different from them.

So my advice to all you date crashers, stick to the general purpose dating sites like Match.com. You may have good intentions when you join a dating site about someone else's niche, but in the end you probably will not find the matches you are looking for.

The GameCrush Public Beta didn't last long (started March 23rd, 2010). According to their new homepage the service has temporarily shut down to upgrade the hardware used to support the service. GameCrush saw high demand when as many as 10,000 people visited the site in 5 minutes. This influx of traffic brought their servers to a crawl making the dating service unusable.

GameCrush offers online dating with a small twist. Like other dating sites you setup your dating profile and then you can search for singles. Once you find a few matches, you can communicate with them via email or live chatting with text or video if they are online. What GameCrush does differently is they also offer games for would be daters to play (called PlayDates). These games (like pool) also offer video chatting to make the experience more personal and to help break the ice during conversation. This is a great idea and may be finally what takes video dating into the main stream.

I was also surprised to learn that GameCrush will also offer the service for the Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE network and for games like Call of Duty, Halo 3 and Gears of War. They also promise it on other platforms like the Playstation 3 and World of Warcraft. I am not sure on how they plan to implement this service on the gaming consoles but I would think, you would need a seperate laptop or something.

Not much on pricing has been released yet about GameCrush. All we know is games with GameCrush PlayDates start at $6.60 for ten minutes of play.

For more on the story, read Canoe.

HurryDate is one of the few speed dating services we have reviewed and liked. JDate is a dating site which is our number one recommendation for men and women looking to meet other Jewish singles. Both sites are owned by Spark Networks and in a smart move they have partnered them together to offer Jewish Speed Dating events.

JDate's online magazine called JMag recently had an article about a JDate member attending a Speed Dating event in New York City. This article offers a good review from a real speed dater of what a speed dating event is all about and what one should think about before going on a speed dating adventure.

If you are already a JDate member, you can receive a 25% discount on any HurryDate Speed Dating event if they signup through the JDate website. Visit the "Community" tab and then "JDate Offline" for more details on Speed dating events in your area as well as other events like JDate sponsored trips and special events hosted by JDate members.

For more information on these dating services, read our [staticpage: review of JDate.com] and our [staticpage: review of HurryDate].

According to the Android Community Match.com has released an Android App on the Google Android Market. This App is not listed under Match.com's Mobile link yet on their main website but we did get word it was coming when the Blackberry Match.com Dating App was released in February (see Story). This free download allows Match.com members to update their profile, search for singles and to communicate with other members. It offers a compact slick interface which is much easier to use than surfing Match.com with your mobile phones internet browser.

I haven't tested the App yet so I am not sure if it offers any location based dating but I don't see why it can't since Android phones do have a built in GPS. When we get our hands on an Android phone you can expect a review soon, check back often.

Match.com currently offers Mobile Dating Applications for top 5 smart phones (iPhone, Plam Pixi, Palm Pre, Blackberry, and Android). To find out more information about this dating service, read our Match.com review.

Good Morning America had a piece on Social Networking a couple of days ago which they focused on location-aware services. These types of services update friends and strangers alike on where you are and what you are up too. Many people on these networks also freely update their walls or statuses telling people where they are or where they will be. Some examples of these location services include Twitter and Foursquare. Twitter recently added a feature which allows you to tie your location to any Tweet. Foresquare lets people know what restaurants, events and clubs you are at (among other information).

Social Networking sites are not alone in offering these types of location services. Some online dating sites offer a similar tool which will allow you to meet up with singles within your vicinity. The one major difference between dating sites and social networks in regards to location based services is dating sites offers much more privacy. A lot less information is shared about who you are and where you live.

This is not the case with social networks, especially if it is tied to a Facebook account. Most people share a surprisingly amount of information on Facebook. Sure they may not share their address but most Facebook users share enough information to make it possible for a tech savvy burglar to find your address.

Using these Social Networking location based services is like walking out of your apartment building and yelling for all to hear that you are going to be away for the next few hours. I don't think many people would, but a lot feel its fine to do it online. The excuse for most is that they are just telling their friends where they are. According to Facebook and average user have 130 friends. That is a lot of people who know where you are. The surprising thing is, according to Good Morning America "over 50 percent of identity theft was perpetrated by someone the victim knew". It is not a huge step in my opinion from someone stealing your identity to someone stealing your brand new TV.

For more on the story, read ABC News.

I was pointed to an image at Online Schools by a reader which lists 11 bullet points about the online dating industry which may surprise a few of you (for those of you who do not read this blog anyway 😉).

We are also mentioned a couple times as a source for a few of the bullet points on the chart at the bottom of the image.

As of August 1, 2015 unfortunately the statistics have now been removed so no image of these statistics exist anymore and we have taken down our link to them.