General News

The BBC World Service commissioned a survey which polled about 11,000 internet users from 19 different countries. The results of the study concluded that 30 percent of people who use the internet feel that the online world is a good place to find a partner. Education played a factor in this survey as well. For those people who have completed high school, 28 percent believed that dating sites worked. When compared to adults who did not finish high school, a higher percentage, 36 to be exact, thought going online was a good place to find a date.

When looking at internet users from different countries, Pakistan came in at the highest at 60 percent, followed by India at 59 percent. British participants in the survey came in at 28 percent. This was followed closely by the French at 27 percent. Americans were fairly low at 21 percent.

The overall result from this survey is fairly close to a similar statistic from another story that roughly 30 to 40 million singles in the United States use online dating sites or social networks to look for love. This is about 1/3 of single Americans or 33 percent.

For more on this survey, read the eCommerce Journal.

According to a recent poll on CBS, 90 percent of Americans would remarry their spouse. In 1995 a similar poll result was slightly higher at 93 percent. When you look at gender, there is a 10 percent difference, 95 percent of men said they would remarry their spouse where as only 85 percent of women said the same.

Meanwhile, 47 percent of men believe in love at first sight with only 44 percent of women agreeing.

What is most important in a successful relationship? 49 percent of respondents to the poll said Respect. In second was Trust at 37 percent, followed by Sense of Humor at 10 percent. Sex came in at 2 percent (surprised?) and finally, no one agreed that Money was the most important (0 percent).

It is good to see most Americans are in a happy place with their marriage. With a divorce rate of nearly 50 percent for all marriages I had expected this number to be lower. I guess when people are unhappy (those 10 percent of you at any given time), either divorce happens quickly or the problem which made you question the marriage is resolved.

For more on the poll, read CBS News.

A new study conducted by eHarmony shows that attraction is more than merely skin-deep. How do they know? A survey of over 598,000 users of eHarmony provides the details.

The online dating site that matches people on 29 dimensions reviewed the responses of over half a million users in order to derive its conclusions. Previously and never married alike, they examined member responses to questions about key qualities people look for in potential mates.

From the "never married" side of the fence, members frequently responded with desires for looks, passion and personality. On the contrary their previously married counterparts cited the most important qualities in a partner as values, emotional intimacy, conflict resolution skills and core beliefs.

So herein lies the question: are you focusing too much on what you find attractive and not enough on what ultimately makes relationships successful? Surely, there is a balance, but the study findings are likely substantiated by simply this: those who have had failed marriages understand why they failed and they're not looking to repeat the same mistakes in their next relationship. It's not to say that you should completely ignore the importance of physical attraction, but the study hints that there are other characteristics that may help create physical attraction as well. Knowing that you're with someone with similar goals and values that has a great set of communication skills will even stoke the fire of the hottest Hollywood couple. While we're not all magazine cover or runway material - we don't need to be. All we truly need is an understanding of what's important to us, both physically and emotionally, in a relationship.

When conducting your online dating searches, try adding another layer to your search. A fun picture with a great headline - give it a click! Read on and you might be surprised what you find. There's nothing like discovering a "buried treasure" in the online dating world, and even if you don't ultimately wind-up a match, it's likely you may end up with a great friend out of your efforts!

For more details on the study, read Money Control and to find out more about this dating service, read our review of eHarmony.

Ever wonder what makes people compatible? Well, a recent study by eHarmony and the Oxford Internet Institute says that there's no place like home for people seeking true compatibility.

eHarmony considered the results of over 1,000 UK couples in the survey, considering responses to questions about culture and preferences for relationships. The results indicated that certain cultures shared similar beliefs and were thus more likely to result in more successful cross-cultural relationships. Some examples would be striking similarities between UK and U.S. cultures as well as relationships between residents of South American countries such as Argentina and Spain or Mexico and Brazil. Contrarily, people from strikingly different cultures such as Mexico and Japan or China and India are said to have less opportunity for relationship success.

While the final results of the joint study between eHarmony and the Oxford Internet Institute have not been published in their entirety, the initial results offer some food for thought in the world of online dating. Perhaps you never considered dating someone with a different cultural background than yours. Well, now's the time to add those criteria to your search! Here are two things to consider when conducting your online dating search for a mate from a different culture:

Religious Background: Understand your commitment to your personal religious beliefs when you initiate your online dating efforts. This will help you as you choose profiles to review. For example: staunch Christians may not share enough in common with someone from an East Indian background due to the prevalence of Hinduism in that culture.

Cultural Rituals: Do you celebrate Christmas? Is Mardi Gras a huge event for your family? Do you observe the Chinese New Year? Don't be afraid to open up a dialogue with a new date about landmark events that light up their calendar and feel free to share those of you own.

For more on the story read the official eHarmony Blog and to find out more about the dating site mentioned in this article, check out our eHarmony review.

IAC saw revenue before amortization grow 5 percent in quarter 4 of 2009 to $367.2 million, when compared to the same quarter last year. For just the Match.com properties, quarter 4 2009 saw revenue drop 6 percent to $83.3 million (from $88.1 in 2008). Revenue declines reflected the sale of Match Europe to Meetic and were partially offset by the purchase of PeopleMedia. If you exclude both of these properties, revenue actually grew 5 percent for Match.com.

IAC also noted that smartphone downloads increased more than 5 fold accross all businesses. This is a merging market for online dating which Match.com has targeted by releasing 4 Applications with another 1 to be released soon. With these 5 smartphone applications Match.com has 90 percent of the worlds phones covered (see Story).

Here is the complete IAC Q4 2009 Report. For more information on the dating sites owned by IAC, read our Match.com review and Chemistry review.

Related Story: Match.com Third Quarter 2009 Financials

I found an interesting statistic. Apparently in 2009, there was 2,660 consumer complaints nationwide in the United States against dating services (both online and off). In 2005 there was only 824 and in 2004 only 126. Considering that there are about 40 million singles that used dating sites and social networks to meet new people last year, this number doesn't seem overly high. I realize that the increase from 2004 to 2009 is big but I think there is a reason for that too (besides the dating sites themselves). I am not sure exactly how businesses get put into the BBB databases and for the record I couldn't find a lot of them back in 2008 (see Story) but, how many dating companies existed in the BBB database in 2004 and then in 2009? Is it the same or are there twice as many companies? If it is more, chances are you will have more complaints. When I reviewed a few BBB reports, I see that Match.com only became an Accredited Business of the Better Business Bureau in 2006. PerfectMatch came on board just last year. I have a feeling that a part of the rise of complaints is due to the fact many of these dating service companies were never being tracked until just a few years ago.

Dating sites can also be hard to find in the BBB database, especially if it is owned by a company with a different name. Sometimes you can only find complaints about a certain dating site if you visit their parent company. Though, since my 2008 report it does seem that the Bette Business Bureau website has seen a few improvements. It was much easier to find a number of dating sites now since the search for the BBB seems to take into account websites own by the company. With this in mind I was still not able to find several medium size dating sites in the BBB database (US or Canada) and one of the largest dating sites, PlentyofFish.com. If these dating sites were included, we would certainly see more complaints.

When people release statistics like this I wish they would give us a comparison. It would be nice to know how many people used the products or services in the industry when compared to the complaints. This way I could see that this "blank" percentage of people were not happy. Plus, if I had other industry numbers, I could then see how it stacks up with the dating industry to get a better idea if 2,660 complaints is a lot, or not much to worry about.

I want to make it clear here, I am not saying that the rise of complaints is solely a reporting issue. I do think most dating sites have a lot more room for improvement on not only the features they offer, but on how they treat their customers.

For more information read WISBusiness.com.