General News

To power their complex matching algorithms, eHarmony relies on four database and data warehousing products.

• The very popular and open source MySQL database server.
• Oracle Database.
• Data warehousing appliances from Netezza Inc.
• Hadoop, a open source data crunching application which divides work among a large number of computers.

eHarmony uses Orcale to do the initial matching after a new member signs up. For the behind the scenes processing, eHarmony uses a 50 node Hadoop cluster. Since moving to Hadoop, eHarmony has seen 4 to 6 times sped improvement in how long it takes to perform matching calculations on a large scale.

All this technology is controlled by eHarmony's main technical team, which includes 40 engineers based at the Los Angeles headquarters. eHarmony also has hired a number of development firms throughout Europe, which has doubled the number of engineers working for them.

To find out more about the technology that powers eHarmony, read ComputerWorld. For more on the dating site itself, check out some of our reviews of eHarmony.

Thomas Wong originally filed his petition against True.com for their auto billing and renewal practices of membership subscriptions on June 12, 2007. In March of 2009 a class action lawsuit was filed (see Story). As of September 22, 2009, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas approved the settlement. TrueBeginnings LLC has agreed to pay $1.5 million into a settlement fund over a period of a year in which former True.com subscribers are eligible to make a claim. True.com denies any allegations and wanted the case settled so they can move on and distance themselves from further bad press.

Members of the settlement class have until October 21, 2009, to submit claims forms to participate in the settlement. For more information on this, visit WONG V TRUEBEGINNINGS, LLC.

I found another expensive matchmaker. The first one I talked about 10 days ago was named Janis Spindel (see Story). She charges clients upwards of $50,000 for her services. This new matchmaker named Samantha Daniels runs a matchmaking service called Samantha's Table whose clients are mainly financial whizzes and bankers from Wall Street in New York. She charges clients close to $25,000 a year for her matchmaking skills.

Daniels clients have shifted somewhat from the big banks and hedge funds. With the recession in the past year her clients now deal more with asset management, private equity, and venture capital. A lot of her current clients are from companies in the Goldman Sachs Fortune 500.

Samantha's Table revenue so far this year has climbed 30 percent. Daniels attributes this increase to people wanting a stable personal life in the midst of the crisis of the economy.

For the full article on Wall Street's matchmaker Samantha Daniels, read CNNMoney and for another traditional matchmaker, who is much cheaper, read our review of It's Just Lunch.

Maybe it is me, or maybe I am getting to old, but finding singles by GPS is a little freaky for everyday use. Most mobile phone applications that offer this type of service works by alerting you when someone, who also belongs to the same service, comes within a certain distance of you (a few hundred yards/meters). Usually when the alert happens, your basic dating information with the other person is exchanged. Most of the time this information includes your first name, a photo, your age, and relationship expectations. If you like what you see you can then either send a text message or go look for the person.

All of the dating sites I have reviewed which have a location based dating component, require the member to explicitly opt-in to this type of service. Safety can be a concern, so only the distance is give and not the exact location of the other single. Members can also block people they have no further interest in.

One bad point that I can think of with a GPS dating service is companies taking advantage of knowing your location to display advertising. Just think, you are walking close by a Pizza restaurant and your phone vibrates. You think it may be a potential date, but lone behold, it is an ad for the pizza place telling you of their latest specials. Some people also worry about services like this being used in court cases. Police could demand records from companies of your movements to prove you were in a location at a certain time a crime was taking place.

In my opinion I think this type of location-based dating could be fun, but only in certain locations and time periods. For example, if it was Friday night and you were at your local bar or club. This type of service most likely will appeal to young tech savvy singles.

For more on the story called Radar Love, visit The Globe and Mail. To find dating sites that offer a mobile dating service, check out our Cell Phone Dating category.

Match.com's SVP and North American General Manager, Mandy Ginsberg, has been named as one of Brandweek's 2009 "Marketers of the Year". These awards honors 12 individuals yearly who display creativity in marketing. A select panel of Brandweek editors choose the winners by scoring candidates by merit and marketplace efforts.

Ginsberg was honored for her work on Match.com's "It's Okay to Look" campaign, as well as the "Rejected by eHarmony" campaign for Match.com sister site, Chemistry.com.

After the Chemistry campaign, Chemistry.com's awareness figures quadrupled among singles. Similarly, Match.com's campaign with real Match members in TV commercials, combined with the 6 month guarantee helped the dating site grow by 15 percent this year.

On a related note, one interesting statistic that Ginsberg mentioned in a Brandweek article was, every day at Match.com 1,000 members leave the dating site because they have found someone special.

For further information about the dating site, read our reviews of Match.com.

From a Australia point of view, online dating for singles 50 years or older, is seeing a huge increase in popularity. The premier Australian dating site, RSVP has seen a 30 percent increase of these members each year, for the last 5 years. Currently 13 percent of all members are over the age of 50 at RSVP.

RSVP is not alone in their findings. Other Australian dating sites are reporting the same trend. Match.com Australian dating site has seen similar numbers. 12 percent of Match.com.au members are over 50 and this age groups saw an increase of 23 percent in 2008.

For a bit more on this story, see Stuff. To find out more about the most popular dating site in Australia, read our RSVP review.