General News

There is more bad news for FriendFinder Networks regarding their IPO (see Story). FriendFinder was suppose to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange this Thursday under the symbol FNN. They now plan to launch sometime the following week. The dip in the market last week is said to take partial blame as well as some last-minute questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission. These questions are not uncommon and can delay the process of launching a deal.

For more information, read the Wall Street Journal.

Golden Bachelor is an online dating service based in China. This dating site caters to the super-wealthy of China with a top tier "Diamond Love" membership going for $44,000 USD or 300,000 Yuan. The Golden Bachelor has 5 million registered members. Every male member must have a personal or family wealth of at least 2 million Yuan or $292,000 USD.

This Chinese dating service employs psychologists and matchmaking consultants to help their clients get matched with the perfect partner. They also employ "Love Hunters" who travel the country looking for single women who meet the high standards of the Golden Bachelor's clients. These employees are also the ones who throw matchmaking parties to help bring their clients and the bachelorettes together. One such party held in December of 2009 in Beijing, had a ticket price of 100,000 Yuan. 22 men and 21 women attended. The women took part in a wedding fashion show, cooked, and danced in a talent contest. From this event 18 of the men had setup dates, giving the party an 80 percent success rate.

For more information on this story, read CNN.

eHarmony has been in business for over 10 years now and to help celebrate, Dan, eHarmony's first Customer Care agent released a few fun facts. The most interesting fact I found was that on average, eHarmony members submit 24,000 photos per day to the dating site.

The other facts deal more with just Customer Care. Did you know, every day eHarmony's Customer Care team handle thousands of requests for help and information via emails and phone calls. This large and dedicated staff performs their job well and has been recognized by the industry. In 2009 eHarmony received 3 awards of excellence for customer service. You can see one example here.

For the full story, read The Official eHarmony Blog and to find out more about this dating site, check out our eHarmony review.

Another Spark Networks dating service has changed its domain and name. PrimeSingles.net has become SingleSeniorsMeet.com sometime in late November 2009. It looks like they wanted a more descriptive name to help promote the dating site for older singles.

For more information on this dating site, read our Single Seniors Meet review.

Avid Life Media Inc. is the parent company of several online dating sites. This includes the popular affairs site AsheleyMadison.com, as well as EstablishedMen.com and CougarLife.com. Avid Life Media is looking to raise $60 million with its possible debut on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) in the coming months. In 2009 Avid Life Media earned $30 million in revenue and $8 million in EBITDA. The dating site Ashley Madison, currently accounts for only 15 percent of the total revenue earned by Avid Life Media.

Avid Life Media plans to use some of the money raised to buy an online advertising sales company called Moxy Media.

MillionaireMatch.com has added a few updates to their dating service. Searching has seen the most changes with some of them being, the ability to search for new members and, searching for members whose birthday is coming up. You can also now specify a lot more information about your ideal match. This makes the "My Match" search much more useful. Along with "My Match" members can now also specify a few questions that members can answer when first contacting you. This not only gives you the information you want (without asking directly) it also acts as an ice breaker and helps get the conversation started.

When replying to emails now, Gold Members can now select from 8 prewritten replies. This makes it easy if you have a quick question to ask the member or if you want to let the person know that you currently are not interested.

Customer email support at Millionaire Match is good with most members only waiting an hour or so for a response. The dating sites Help and FAQ section is only okay. This section could still contain a lot more useful information. What MillionaireMatch.com did add (for Gold Members only) was live chat customer support. This means no more wait times for messages since you now can ask someone directly.

For more information on this dating site, read our updated review of MillionaireMatch.com.