General News

I heard on the radio today that loneliness is contagious, and like a bad cold you can spread it around.

I wasn't sure if I believed this or not and after a quick search on Google, I found this recent article at The Globe and Mail.

After studying 12,000 people, researches from 3 Universities (Harvard, Chicago and California) concluded:

that lonely respondents “infected” remaining friends with their loneliness before the relationships crumbled, perpetuating a cycle of isolation.

Believe it or not if you are lonely you can affect people (spread your loneliness) up to 3 degrees of separation. At one degree of separation, 52 percent of people have a greater chance of being lonely if they are directly connected to someone who is. At two degrees of separation the chances of you being lonely drops to 25 percent and at three degrees, it is 15 percent. At 4 degrees of separation the effect disappears.

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.

The eHarmony Facebook Fan Page has received several updates over the last few weeks. We first talked about this Facebook page in early November (see Story) and since then, the Celebrate Love Tab has seen a major overhaul. In the initial weeks, the Fan page was all about the Wall and people submitting success stories. This was in response to good marketing by eHarmony and spurred on as well by a weekly contest being held for Amazon gift cards.

With thousands of fresh success stories on their hands, eHarmony got their Social Media Specialists (there is a job opening for this at eHarmony) working to condense this information onto the Celebrate Love Tab. There is now a news section, a Fan Gallery and a "Meet Our Feature Couples" box on this tab. Clicking on the "Meet Our Feature Couples" box enlarges it and allows you to view a number of enhanced success stories of couples. There is a detailed description, tons of photos and even videos.

Other dating sites need to take a look at what eHarmony is doing here, it is a well executed marketing campaign that has engaged Facebook users. In the news section of Celebration of Love, eHarmony announced that they are launching a new ad campaign that will be on TV soon. I bet they will mention the Facebook Page.

You can find the eHarmony Facebook Fan Page here. To find out other details about this dating site, including costs and what is involved in creating a profile, read our review of eHarmony.