Online Dating

The Online Dating Insider, David Evans, was quoted in an article on the Washington DC radio station website for WTOP about online dating safety. Apparently another woman last weekend was kidnapped on a date by a man she met on Craigslist.

In the Fairfax County incident, the 23-year-old woman on her third date with Dennis Rother. Police say while at her Fair Lakes apartment Saturday, Rother ordered the woman to undress, threatened her with knives then told her to get dressed and forced her into the car. Her erratic driving caught the attention of a George Mason University police officer. He followed her and she was able to flee at a stop light.

I believe this is the third reported incident in the last month or so of a woman getting kidnapped or murdered by someone they met through Craigslist.

For more on the story and some pointers on how to be safe on a first date visit WTOP.com.

You want someone special in your life but, you don't want to use online dating and your circle of friends have limited social networks, what do you do? You could try a Professional Matchmaker. They bring singles together by offering a personal touch with face to face interactions. A professional matchmaker is ideal for you if you have a very busy schedule and you don't want to spend inordinate amounts of time searching and viewing online dating profiles of potential partners. The 3 most popular matchmaking services available in most major cities in the United States are The Right One, It's Just Lunch and Great Expectations. Both The Right One and It's Just Lunch state that:

... the majority of their clients are in their 30s, 40s and 50s, and come from all walks of life. And while there are fluctuations in the number of males to females who use the service, both sexes, for the most part, are evenly represented.

Members of these services tend to be the busy professional who wants to have a partner in their life but don't have the time to find one. For this premium type of service don't expect to pay online dating site prices. Prices start at around $1000 for a year of service with a professional matchmaker (this depends on the level of service you want), about 3 times as much as the average major dating site for the same time period. For this price all you need to do is give details on yourself, your personality and what type of person you are looking for. From here, most of these services will take this information and your schedule for the month, figure out who suits you best and setup some dates for you.

The Right One matching service is the oldest and has been around for 34 years (1975) and promotes the fact that nationally, they are responsible for, on average, 1 match every 17 minutes and 1 marriage per day. They also belong to an independent organization called the Matchmaking Institute which we discovered recently (see Story). The Matchmaking Institute was established in 2003 to set strict quality standards and a code of ethics in the matchmaking industry.

It's Just Lunch International has been matching singles for the last 18 years (1991). They offer their service not only in the US, but in Australia, Canada, and parts of Europe and Asia from 100 different locations. It's Just Lunch has about 30,000 members in total. who on average go on 50,000 dates a month. About 70 percent of dates lead to a second date.

Great Expectations has about 30 years of experience in matching (1980?) and over 50 locations nationwide. According to their website they have 100,000 members across the US. Currently, we do not recommend this service, do to the Arizona Attorney General filing a lawsuit against them in 2008 (see Story).

Professional matchmakers usually always are in major cities and have a smaller pool of daters than the major dating sites. What professional matchmakers may lack in number of clients (when compared to online sites) they make up in servicing the customer. You also are paying for the human intuition of the ability to size people up to determine what type of person would make a good match for them.

For more information on matchmaking professionals, check out our Matchmaking Services category.

The Unofficial eHarmony Blog let us know with a post that eHarmony has updated their interface based on feedback from users. There are now 3 tabs which organize your eHarmony matches. The New tab shows all new matches. The Communicating tab shows all matches you currently communicating with or have requested communication and the Closed tab shows all matches you have closed or have been closed by the match. A search field also has been added to find your matches easily, with a built in auto complete. Communication also has been streamed lined to make things faster and simpler to use.

For more information on this popular matchmaking service, read our eHarmony review.

According to a few reports, the dating site OKCupid.com went down late last night (May 28, 2009) for a couple of hours as apparently a cup of coffee was accidentally spilled on a router. When we tried accessing the dating site ourselves earliy this morning we received the following message:

So...We thought it would be cool to get a cat for the office, but we needed a litter box, and there wasn't really room in the bathroom, so we put it next to these servers in the back, and everything would have been fine, but the A/C repair guy was allergic and the cat reacts badly to loud noises and there were all these wires hanging back there and a bunch of surprisingly flammable packing material...

Erik thought it would be JUST AWESOME to put a paperclip on the end of a rubber band and shoot it at Vinay's eye, and it would have just been Erik and Vinay's problem except Vinay had a cup of coffee and was standing over James, who was fixing our router at the time...

Anyway, we'll have things back up soon. Sorry for the inconvenience. - Worker

Here's hope it is backup soon.

Update - May 29, 2009, 9:15 am - I just tried OK Cupid again and everything seems to be back to normal. Happy Testing!

CNN did a post about virtual currencies and economies. It is estimated that at least $1 billion USD were transferred into virtual currencies last year. The biggest use of virtual currencies are online games, followed by social networks and virtual worlds. Some websites even earn more revenue through virtual currencies than online advertising. The massive online multiplayer game, World of Warcraft (or WoW for short) uses WoW Gold. Even though it is against the rules set by Blizzard, this currency is bought and sold on the black market. This currency is so sought after, workers in China have been known to play the game just to earn the virtual WoW currency to sell to players in Europe and the US.

Social networking sites like Hi5 and MyYearBook have created their own currency as well. Hi5 has the Hi5 Coin and MyYearBook calls their currency Lunch Money. Hi5 Coins are mainly used to buy virtual gifts while with Lunch Money you can buy virtual gifts, play games and even donate it to charities. Facebook is looking into a unified currency since all the games and application on their platform that use a virtual currency has been created by the application developer. The problem with this for members is, the currency is only good with that one application. Facebook also doesn't see any revenue from these virtual currencies. This could be a way out for Facebooks revenue problems. If they create one unified Facebook currency for the entire site, not only could members spend it through any Facebook applicationg they want, Facebook would get a cut from each transaction.

The virtual world Second Life also has a currency called Linden Dollars. You can trade real currency for Linden Dollars which you can then buy whatever is for sale on Second Life (virtual real estate, entertainment, stores, etc..). Just like with real currencies, the Linden Dollar fluctuates daily against the USD. The buy and sell prices are set by the residents of Second Life on the LindeX Currency Exchange.

Some dating sites have a form of virtual currency called points. While you can't trade or buy something from other members, you can purchase virtual gifts, features and extended memberships from the dating site itself. Usually the way you earn points is by using and / or participating in the dating site. Two dating sites that I know of who use points this way is, Plenty Of Fish and, the FriendFinder Network of dating sites. With POF, every time you log into the site you earn 60 points, with a maximum of 60 points total every 24 hours These points can be used to buy virtual gifts for other members. With FriendFinder you receive points for participating in the site by adding or voting on articles, replying to questions and voting on topics. When you have earned enough points you can then purchase membership upgrades with them. This can include adding extra months to your membership and having your profile highlighted.

Check out CNN.com Technology for the full story. Read our FriendFinder review for more information on this dating service.

From the Spark Networks quarter 1, 2009 financial results, it shows the dating networks revenue has declined 20 percent to $12 million, with $300 thousand in net profit. In Q1, 2008 revenue was $15 million, with a net profit of $1.6 million. Quarter 4 in 2008 saw $13.2 in revenue. Adam Berger, Chief Executive Officer of Spark Networks, Inc. stated that revenue is down due to the turn in the economy and the lower than expected total average paying subscriber.