Online Dating

You have tried the free membership at Catholicmatch.com and you liked what they offer but, you want a better deal when you subscribe as a paying member. Try entering this coupon code on the membership upgrade page at Catholic Match.

Coupon Code: CMDATE

With this promotion you will receive an additional 15% off of any membership plan. This offer expires on June 30, 2010.

For more information on this Religious dating service you can visit our review for CatholicMatch.com.

The online personals site, Match.com has recently partnered with eBay Australia. So from now on, when you click on the dating menu item at eBay's Australian website you will be directed to Match.com's Australian dating service. eBay AU has about 8 million members and Match.com wanted to tap into this pool of internet users.

To visit eBay Dating, see this page and for more information on the dating site and how it works, read our Match.com review.

This coming Friday, December 4th is the start of Chemistry.com's FREE Weekend. All members can flirt, communicate and connect for free. This promotion lasts only 3 days and ends Sunday, December 6th, just before midnight.

Chemistry is a matchmaking service created by the minds behind Match.com. While Match.com serves the general online dating community, Chemistry.com is geared towards singles who wish to be matched based more on personality traits and attributes. Filling in a Chemistry profile usually takes from 30 minutes to an hour. Once completed your profile will be used with Chemistry's complex matching algorithm and compared against millions of other profiles. This matching algorithm is based on Dr. Helen Fisher's (a leading relationship expert) research and will only returning members that our considered compatible with your personality, and meet your criteria of a perfect partner.

This is Chemistry's 7th free communication weekend, with the last Flirtathon happening in October (see Story). For more information about this dating service, read our review of Chemistry.

Match.com has recently partnered with Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef. The Jamie Oliver website receives over 1.4 million visitors, with an equal gender split and, with almost 70 percent being 35 years or older. This is the ideal target market for a dating site like Match.com. The Jamie Oliver dating page even has hot dinner dating tips with several ideas for making everything from the starter to the dessert, so you can impress your date. You can even win a dinner for two at Jamie's Italian restaurant (United Kingdom residents only).

The new service can be found here and targets the food lovers among the dating community. For more information on Match.com in the United Kingdom, you can read our review.

An east coast class action suit against Match.com has been moved to Dallas, where the company's head office is located. We have talked about this case before when it was just Sean McGinn suing Match.com, but I hadn't realize it had become a class action suit (see Story). One of the things the suit alleges is that the "vast majority of Match.com members are cancelled subscribers, or have never subscribed at all”. This leaves members feeling rejected after using the dating site, because only paid members can reply to their messages. The suit seeks to stop the company from engaging in these "deceptive practices".

As for the reason why the suit was moved, here is the direct quote:

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that the case should be be tried in Dallas rather than New York because of a “forum selection clause” in the user agreement that Match.com members agree to when they sign up for the service. That forum selection clause specified said if a dispute arose, such case would be tried in Dallas or Collin County, court records say.

Match.com has said in a previous statement that the suit is without merit and that they will defend their position.

For more on the story, read Dallas Business Journal.

Edward Butler, a senior analyst at IBISWorld, used Australian Bureau of Statistics data and industry surveys to review and crunch data on the global sex services industry. He determined that the $1.2 billion industry has seen a 6 percent ($74 million) decline since the global financial crisis started. Brothels, tobacco and alcohol are usually recession proof but that doesn't appear to be the case this time.

Some analysis like Butler think that the popularity of adult dating sites have taken business from the sex industry. Adult dating sites make it easier for consenting adults to be frank about what they want and need in terms of sex. It has never been cheaper for like-minded individuals to organise casual liaisons with the rise of adult and casual dating services.

About 1.5 million men and women now have accounts in Australia with sites such popular dating sites as RSVP, Match.com and eHarmony. Most of these singles are not looking for casual sex and are intent on finding a partner for a long term relationship. Adult FriendFinder, one of the more popular casual sex dating sites reports on having just over 892 thousand profile listings from Australia.

For more on the story, read The Sydney Morning Herald.