Online Dating

It looks like the featured fans of eHarmony's Facebook page (see Story) may also be a part of eHarmony's new TV marketing campaign. These new ads are a different format than we have seen before from eHarmony. They will contain web cam interviews of actual couples who got married because they met on eHarmony. We have seen eHarmony couples in ads before, but those ads were very polished. These new ads with the low quality web cam footage make the "commercials convey a high degree of authenticity and immediacy". The lower quality of the web cam videos lends to the credibility that these are real couples with real stories about eHarmony. To see one of the commercials you can visit the eHarmony Facebook page here.

Lucas Donat, CEO of Donat Wald, is the guy who has come up with the concepts for this new marketing campaign. He has been responsible for eHarmony’s television commercials since 2002.

If you have an eHarmony success story and want to be considered for one of their new commercials, visit this page to submit your success story and to send the eHarmony team a short video of you and your partner.

For more information about the new ad campaign, read the eHarmony blog here. To find out about this internet dating service, check out our eHarmony review. To date we have 73 reviews of eHarmony from our readers.

It’s pretty cool that no matter where you’re at, you can access your online dating profiles with your phone. Waiting in line at the DMV or the doctor’s office suddenly became a lot more appealing, right? We’ve got a lot to thank the online dating site for when it came to developing these mobile applications.

But you need to know how to use them safely.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the “connect with people around you” capabilities. As a woman, I’m fiercely protective of my location at all times. The same should go for men as well. Whenever I boot up Match.com’s iPhone app and it asks me “to use my current location,” I always select “don’t allow.” My feelings are if someone is interested in contacting or connecting with me, they can use Match.com’s anonymous messaging system. No one I’ve never met ever needs to know where I am or even have the opportunity to connect with me without my explicit permission.

Over at geeksdreamgirl.com, I see scores of people whose online dating experience suffers because they're uncomfortable with the writing process. Maybe they don't know how to toot their own horn without sounding arrogant, or maybe writing just isn't their forte. Unfortunately, in a text-based Internet, writing is the skill that can make or break a date and for some people, due to location or other factors, the Internet is their best or only choice.

I saw an old episode of Full House the other day, where the father, using an old dating service, is forced to watch videotapes of prospective dates. It got me weighing the pros and cons of video profiles.

While it's not as good as meeting in person there's no pheromones, or even the overly cloying perfume that might turn you off a video has several advantages over a text-based profile:

• You can see the person in action, so-to-speak, rather than a doctored photo.
• You can hear the natural cadence of their voice, rather than a stilted essay.
• You might get to see them smile. Men often choose their serious picture because they think it's better, when really most people look better with their natural smile.
• The length of the profile could be more natural. After speaking for ten minutes to a camera (and watching it back), they'll finally learn that sharing their life story is excessive.

Of course, there are also major downsides. A dating profile is kind of like a job application you want to make the best impression possible. Many people, including yours truly, lock up at the sight of a video camera and act completely unnatural, which is much more disastrous than a typo.

This is also a case where technology can be your enemy: it's easy enough to make a video today that it's really tempting to make something at 2am and throw it up immediately. It's also tempting to try to do something cool to make yourself stand out, which is almost always a mistake.

There are video dating sites out there, and maybe for those who do better on camera than on paper, that's the best option. But the sites with the largest pools are still primarily text-based, and perhaps, for people like me, that's a blessing. Regardless of the medium, take your time crafting your profile, and make sure you're sending the right message.

Since I first tried online dating over seven years ago, the sites have gotten a lot more sophisticated. There’s so much functionality and service built-in on the more popular sites that you can’t help it but to be impressed by the concierge-type service you receive.

I really enjoy Match.com’s Daily 5 concept. Each day when you log in for the first time, they’ve got 5 brand-new matches ready and waiting for you in your Connections. While they won’t always tickle your fancy, it’s great that they make the searching easier by bringing potential matches to you.

It seems that I get anywhere from five to ten new “you’ve caught his attention” notifications from Match each day. This is where you click “I’m Interested” on a particular profile in your Daily 5. But I’m telling ya: that doesn’t do me any good. It’s great that you’re interested, but it doesn’t tell me anything about YOU. So here are a few tips to make you Daily 5 on Match.com work better for you (and the people you express an interest in!).

In late October Zoosk was celebrating 40 million members (see Story) and had already received $10.5 million in funding over the last year or so. On December 3rd they announced that they had secured an additional $30 Million in Series D Funding. This round of funding was led by the oldest venture capital firm in the United States, Bessemer Venture Partners. David Cowan, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners will be joining Zoosk's Board of Directors as part of the deal.

Zoosk was launched 2 years ago in December of 2007 by Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr (who are now the co-CEOs). They plan to use the additional dollars to continue to build and expand the dating service. Money will also be spent on both online and offline marketing campaigns to increase Zoosk's exposure. Plus, there are rumors of expanding Zoosk to new platforms on the mobile front, including an iPhone App.

For more on the story you can read the press release. To find out more about this social dating community, read our review of Zoosk.

I visited Date.com this morning and notice one major change right away. They now allow you to login to their dating site using one of 12 different 3rd party accounts you may have. This means it will be easier for new members to create a profile, as information may get pulled from these 3rd party accounts. Some of the accounts you can now associate with your Date.com account includes Google, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, AOL, OpenID and Windows Live ID.

What I was hoping to see, but I didn't, was more integration with some of the Social Networks. It would be nice to see the friends of some of these Date.com members on Social Networks, endorse their single friend.

I also came across Date.com's parent companies (Avalanche, LCC) website, I hadn't found it before this, since no direct link was available on their dating sites. You can find Avalanche's website here.

The only dating sites that I can think of right now that allows members to log into of their dating site with a 3rd party account, is Match.com and Zoosk. Though, Match.com only allows Windows Live ID accounts.

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