Dating Services

According to a recent Financial Post article, Ashley Madison, the dating service that caters to people who want extramarital affairs is banned from placing ads on the Microsoft Network (MSN). MSN Canada states the reason for the ban is because this web service is designed to facilitate deception.

While I don't agree morally with the Ashley Madison dating site concept, I'm on the fence about this ban. On one side MSN is a business and they have the right to decide who can and who cannot advertise with them. On the other hand, say all of the big 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) took the same stance on who can advertise. This would hurt your legitimate business. It is a form of censorship in a way and IMO the big 3 search engines are basically an essential service of the internet.

There are a large number of Christian and religious oriented dating services on the internet. This makes it a difficult choice for singles who are looking for a Christian faith dating site. For this reason, these singles tend to take a long time in researching and are very meticulous when selecting a site to join. Their faith and moral values are very important to them.

We recently reviewed a site called ChristianCafe.com which appears to be an excellent dating service but, it is still new to us so it was decided to wait until next year to reconsider this site for the Christian award. In the end, the Editor's Top Pick - Christian Award will go to eHarmony. While not a pure Christian only dating service, they do promote matching based on Christian principles and have a large number of Christian single members. In fact, I would consider eHarmony as probably having the largest number of Christian members for a dating service. When you are filling out eHarmony's detailed profile and you indicate your Christian faith as very important to you, eHarmony will make sure you are matched up with similar minded members.

eHarmony matching system is complex but it is very successful at matching singles. In fact, on average 90 members of eHarmony get married every day. This works out too over 33,000 members every year (according to a Harris Interactive Poll)! To achieve this eHarmony uses a scientifically proven method to match singles based on 29 key dimensions of compatibility. Because of this system, eHarmony was considered and almost won our Top Pick Match System award.

Read our review of eHarmony for more information about this dating service or visit eHarmony directly.

This Years Runner Ups for this award include (in no particular order): ChristianCafe.com, ChristianMingle.com and BigChurch.com.

The Editor's Top Pick - Innovative Award is designed to showcase a dating service which has implemented a feature that has expanded the user's online dating experience in an innovative way. This year's recipient is Date.com for their excellent new web browser toolbar application.

The Date.com toolbar allows you to stay logged into Date.com even while you surf other web sites. The toolbar keeps you updated on all sort of information like the number of member's currently online and it gives you easy navigation to your mail messages and other areas of Date.com. You will even receive notification when your favorite singles or friends log into Date.com.

The other great advantage of the toolbar is it enables a greater number of singles to stay online, even while not actively searching for singles or using the other dating features of the service. Whenever someone views your profile or sees your profile summary in a search result, it is indicated you are online. This gives you a much greater chance for being contacted in a number of ways including interests (same as winks) and instant messaging. As soon as a request for contact has been made, you will be automatically notified through the toolbar with a link to either view the message and reply or to start a private chat. Plus, since you are online you also appear higher in the search results of similar singles which also increases your chance for success.

Read our review of Date.com for more information about this dating service.

This Years Runner Ups for this award include (in no particular order): Match.com and FriendFinder.

Consideration for the Editor's Top Pick - Match System award came down to the big 3 dating services who proclaim their matching system and dating service as the best for singles who are serious about finding a relationship. Those 3 services are eHarmony with their "Compatibility Matching System based on 29 crucial dimensions", PerfectMatch.com and their Duet Total Compatibility System and Chemistry with their "chemistry-inspired" matching system. In the end we choose PerfectMatch.com as the winner of this award.

PerfectMatch.com's profile creation was very detailed and does take a little while to fill out, but it is worth it in the end. Not only does it help in matching compatible members together but you definitely get a few insights about yourself. Dr. Pepper Schwartz is the woman behind the Duet Total Compatibility System. She has over 30 years of relationship experience which has prompted show like Oprah, The Today Show and Good Morning America to call on her services as a relationship expert. With these third party endorsements, this gives Dr. Pepper Schwartz more clout as an expert than the other dating services matching system designers. TV shows like Oprah, would make sure their guest experts have the credentials and knowledge needed to offer true advice.

With Duet, you not only receive matches that have singles with compatible elements of their profile but elements and traits that will complement you. Plus, unlike some of the other dating sites which where considered for this award, PerfectMatch.com still allows you too search for your own match as well. These extras made the Duet matching system more complete to me. User reviews on the internet seem to be split. I could find both positive and negative reviews for all of the matching systems considered but the reviews for PerfectMatch came out on top.

Read our review of PerfectMatch.com for more information about this dating service.

This Years Runner Ups for this award include (in no particular order): Chemistry and eHarmony.

TechCrunch have posted a rumor from what they call a reliable source that the FriendFinder Network of sites has been acquired for $1 Billion. In an update to this rumor the buyer is reported to be Penthouse Media Group. The FriendFinder Network of dating sites includes AdultFriendFInder, Passion, Senior FriendFinder and over 15 other different types of dating services. The article further reports that rumored revenues for the Network is over $300 million a year which makes this acquisition worth about 3 years of revenue.

Is this a good deal for Penthouse? Could be, the FriendFinder dating sites have always done well financially and they don't seem to be slowing down. At a cost of 3 years worth of revenue seems a little on the low end to me but most likely there is more too this deal than we know about (if it actually is true!).

The Editor's choice for the Top Pick - Sexy award for the best dating service which offers you a chance to meet other people for intimate encounters goes to Passion.com. This is an extremely popular dating service with over 20 million members who have joined to date. There market is very competitive with many dating services vying for members for which Passion.com has come out on top (no pun intended). How did they do this? By being one of the first sites to offer an adult oriented dating service in the industry with a very feature complete site. Passion.com is constantly evolving to make the online dating experience easier and more enjoyable for there members. This is easy to see by just the sheer number of things to do and explore on the site.

• Passion.com embraced video early on. Members can not only upload there own videos but can view a large number of high quality live member webcams. You also can participate yourself or try out the video instant messenger (text is available as well) for a more private conversation. There are always thousands of members chatting and instant messaging at any one time.
• Members are always posting in their Blogs and Interest Groups with almost 6 and a half million messages available to be read.
• It's easy to create or find a local event in your city which members are participating in. Plus it is simple to find new places to visit with member's recommendations, comments and ratings on local businesses. These include places like bars, restaurants and clubs.

There is a lot of information to digest at Passion.com but they make it easy to do with a well designed web interface. Everything from updating your profile, adding pictures and videos, to browsing profiles, articles and forums is simple to do. Plus if you every have a question, Passion.com's customer support staff is just a phone call away and are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Read our review of Passion.com for more information about this dating service or visit Passion.com directly.

This Years Runner Ups for this award include: Lavalife.