Online Dating

We've all had it happen to us:

You're out in public somewhere and you see an attractive person – someone who seems compelling, someone that catches your eye. In a split second, a part of your brain says, Ah, yes. This one has potential.

Before you even have time to think much about it, you point out the attractive person to your companion, be it sister, friend, roommate – and they wrinkle their nose and say, “Really?”

And just as quickly, you feel self-conscious, or you feel a tiny bit embarrassed by your apparently questionable taste. You shrug, and move on. An opportunity wasted.

Logging into Facebook last week, I was greeted with a Facebook Privacy Announcement:

We're making some changes to give you more control of your information and help you stay connected. We've simplified the Privacy page and added the ability to set privacy on everything you share, from status updates to photos. At the same time, we're helping everyone find and connect with each other by keeping some information—like your name and profile picture—publicly available.

I knew this update was coming and am excited about it since it gives you more control over who can and cannot see your Facebook information. This includes the following fields in your profile; About Me, Family, Photos, Email Addresses Religious and Political Views.

Combining these new privacy controls with Friend Lists allows you to specify who can see most of your information. I have already setup my account with the following Friend lists; Co-Workers, Friends, Buddies and Family. This way when I add photos, post on my wall, etc... only the people I want to share the information with, get to see it. I think the photo album privacy settings are especially important. A picture tells a thousand words and I have to wonder why some people post those drinking and partying pictures for all to see. These always makes a great first impression with a potential employer, NOT.

This change is also important for dating on Facebook. Most singles I know like to keep their day to day dating information pretty private. They probably only want to share this information and comments with a few close friends. With this new update they now can.

The real problem now is, Facebook just has to make the Friend lists and Privacy controls easier to use. The tools are there but it can take a while to figure out. This is not a problem with a Facebook Junkie who is on the site everyday, but it is not easy for the general person who may not be tech savvy, or is only on the site once every couple of weeks.

If you are interested in using Facebook for dating, check out our Facebook Dating category which lists the popular Dating Apps currently available.

As part of a $250,000 advertising campaign, Ashley Madison wanted to wrap ads on 6 street cars in Toronto, Canada. The ads read "Life is Short, Have an Affair AshleyMadison.com". The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) rejected the ads last Friday, due to the ads violating TTC advertising standards.

The Ashley Madison CEO, Noel Biderman, disagrees with the TTC committee because the ads conform with Canadian laws. He further states that the TTC shouldn't be making morality judgments, they are in business to run transit lines. This also comes at a time when the TTC is in the red financially and, will be hiking user fees in the near future to hopefully cover losses.

I don't think the National Media has caught on to the real Ashley Madison's advertising campaign. Ashley Madison makes their ads just racy enough that they know most established media companies will reject them. They then let it be known that their ads were rejected, and the rest of the media reports on it. This is FREE advertising for them. I counted no less than 3 Toronto newspaper articles on the topic of the Ashley Madison TTC Ads being rejected, plus several mentions on TV during the news hour and discussions on talk radio.

This is a publicity stunt by Ashley Madison and it has become a pattern for them. We saw it earlier this year when a Canadian TV Network (CTV) rejected an Ashley Madison commercial that would have aired during the Super Bowl (see Story). Another example of this pattern is when they offered Tiger Woods $5 Million for an endorsement deal (see Story).

I don't know to much about Mamba.ru but, it is reported to be Russia's most visited dating site. Mamba announced recently that their membership now exceeds 11 million profiles and that on average, there are usually 100,000 active users online at any one time. This dating site is most active at the end of the work day, with the early morning being its least active period (25,000 or so active users from 4am to 6am).

First came the Match.com App for the iPhone (see Story), and then the dating app for the Palm Pre (see Story). Now Match.com has released an application for the Palm Pixi. This phone is available now on the Sprint network.

This new Match application is designed for users in the United States and Canada. It allows Match.com members to search for matches, send winks, and email. You can also find other members by using the built in location based capabilities of the Palm Pixi. With the application you can also edit your profile and headline text.

The App is currently in Beta and can be downloaded from the Pixi's App Catalog. For more information you can visit this Match.com Palm Pixi page or read the press release.

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

Every couple of months People Media release the results of a dating survey they have done (see Story). Their latest DatingData Poll is about the recession and if it has impacted people's attitudes towards dating.

Over 27,000 singles responded to the People Media poll across their selection of dating sites (BlackPeopleMeet.com. SeniorPeopleMeet.com, BBPeopleMeet.com, etc..) and 51 percent indicated that the current recession has not impacted their attitude about dating.

24 percent of the American singles who took the poll said that they would not date anyone who was unemployed. When you take gender into consideration for this answer, only 11 percent of men stated this fact while 37 percent of women did.

A further 17 percent of singles said that they are less motivated to date in the suffering economy and 6 percent viewed dating as networking to find a job.

Finally, only 2 percent of American singles are more motivated to date in the current economic conditions.

While not directly related to the poll, the press release also mentions that since the start of the year (2009), and according to ComScore, the number of unique visitors to People Media dating sites has grown by 15%.

To find out more information on some of People Media's dating sites, check out our BlackPeopleMeet review, our SeniorPeopleMeet review and our BBPeopleMeet review.