General News

Ever since Zoosk received the additional $30 million in funding (see Story) they have received a lot of publicity. Even the famed Reuters Media division took notice and wrote this article. It gives a good overview and history of the company in which we have discussed before here on this site.

The article does mentioned a couple of new pieces of information about Zoosk member demographics. According to Reuters sources, about 65 percent of Zoosk's 40 million user base is under the age of 30. 24 percent of Zooskers are in their 30's and only 11 percent are over 40. This shows how popular social networking sites are for young adults. The Zoosk dating application can be found on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, and Friendster. The more traditional dating sites, like Match.com and eHarmony, usually attract older singles who are looking for long term relationships, and not necessarily the quick hook-up that Zoosk provides.

If you would like to find out more about this Facebook Dating Application, you can read our Zoosk review.

eHarmony is having a free communication weekend (FCW) starting Wednesday December 30th, 2009 and ending Sunday January 3rd, 2010. This is a special holiday event and it has been extended to 5 days (most FCW are 3 days long).

What does a free communication weekend mean? It allows members from eHarmony to be able to review their matches and communicate with them for free through the 4 stage communication process. All members can be contacted and I would expect eHarmony to be extra busy during this timeframe as most singles will be on vacation for the Holidays. If you join eHarmony during the first day (Wednesday) of the FCW, who knows, maybe you will have enough time to meet your match on New Years Eve.

The last free communication event occurred mid November, just over 4 weeks ago (see [story: eHarmony-is-Free-for-the-next-5-Days Story]). This is Free Communication Weekend number 22 for eHarmony here in the US.

Check out our review of eHarmony for more information on the dating site.

Singles interested in the Australian Free Communication Weekend, read this News Story.

Singles interested in the United Kingdom Free Communication Weekend, read this News Story.

I am not surprised that Facebook is mentioned in divorce cases now days. It can be poison to marriages, as some couples I know spend more time on Facebook everyday than they do talking to each other. I had a laugh when I read that Facebook:

is nothing more than a gigantic catalogue of people you never quite slept with. Some friends, the occasional sibling, but mostly a huge, interactive menu of sexual roads less traveled.

I don't know a single person who has not used Facebook to look up a long lost flame or the one that got away. I am not saying that it is a bad thing but when people in relationships are on Facebook looking through pictures and talking to people from the old High School and/or University days, instead of spending quality time with their partner, you have to start to wonder.

Some people also see Facebook as nothing more than a dating site. Just like on a dating site, most people on Facebook reveal themselves selectively, according to what they think will show them in the best light. On dating sites you know this type of behavior happens, but with Facebook it has the appearance of being an open book, when it really is not.

For more on this story, read the Telegraph. If you are interested in a real dating experience on Facebook, you should check out our Zoosk review.

One of the stumbling blocks for members of dating sites is that fact that people can be deceptive online. In "real life", people can obviously be deceptive as well, but at least the other person can read nonverbal cues to help in determining if they think that the person they are talking to is lying.

Jeffrey T. Hancock, a communications professor at Cornell University gathered hundreds of active online daters in New York City to see how far people went in lying on dating profiles. The researches downloaded the peoples profiles and compared the information with verifiable data. This included physical attributes that could be gather on the spot like, height and weight, as well as income information which they could later look up. What the research found was white lies are common. 8 in 10 people had a small fib on their profile. This include things like their height being off by an inch or so, too their weight being 10 pounds over what they specified. Major lies like someone's marital status, were found to be rare.

Women also tended to lie more about things men care about. The most common was about physical attributes. Men lied as well, but usually on things that indicated their status in life, like income or occupation.

Most of these deceptions were not intended to be malicious. People usually lied about things that they see, they may be lacking in. If they ever meet a person in real life who had read their profile, they hoped that they would be interesting enough, that the other person would over look any deceptions.

Hancock also suggests, in which I agree with him on, is

as online dating sites are woven into social networks -- where people are linked to a web of real references -- instances of exaggeration will decrease. But even then, he says, people are still likely to present a version of their best self, even if that's not quite who they are today.

For more on this story, you can read the Washington Post.

We got official word that Compatible Partners is having a free communications weekend this December 30th, 2009 to January 3rd, 2010. For those of you who haven't heard of Compatible Partners before, it is a dating site that eHarmony setup for singles who want a same-sex relationship. Basically Compatible Partners is the Gay and Lesbian communities version of eHarmony, with all of the same features and technology.

This is an extra long Free Communication Weekend (FCW) this time around. It is a full 5 days starting on the Wednesday after Christmas and ending on Sunday in the New Year. For those of you who haven't heard of the FCW before, it is where Compatible Partners allows not only viewing of all your matches for free but you can communicate with them as well. Free members get almost all of the benefits of a paid subscription. One of the few exceptions is, not being able to fast track the 4 step guided communication process.

I know Compatible Partners has had one or two free weekends before but this is the first one we have blogged about. We are currently working on a review of this dating site and hope to have it up before the new year. If you would like to check out the dating site before this, please visit Compatible Partners.

We are virtually positive eHarmony will have their free communication weekend as well, for the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom during the same time as Compatible Partners. For those of you interested, stay tune for a future blog post...

eHarmony announce a new site feature that is designed to help you set your geographic range with greater understanding, ease, and accuracy. The feature lets the user visualize an area in a 30 to 300 mile range from where your matches will be chosen (as seen in the right image for the city of Los Angeles). This new feature works in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Now eHarmony members can visit the account settings page and use the map to see with the location range they set, from what cities and towns their matches will come from.

For more on the story, read the eHarmony Blog and for further details about the dating site, read our eHarmony review.