eHarmony

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 see eHarmony is getting more creative. I noticed this interactive Flash ad which prompts the reader to guess which man was matched with the woman. Dragging the man's profile photo to the blank box will reveal the answer.

While ultimately this is a guess on the participators part, the resulting message by eHarmony drives home the point that they don't use guesswork to determine matches. I thought this was a smart way to show potential members what is eHarmony's major selling feature, their matching algorithm.

eHarmony also has this ad which you need to guess one of their 29 dimensions of compatibility. By clicking on the letters in the correct order you can spell the dimension. This simple exercise engages the user before they even reach the dating site. If someone takes a few seconds for this puzzle, I bet most will continue once the reach eHarmony and fill out the profile.

To find out more about this dating service, you can read our in-depth eHarmony review.

It looks like the featured fans of eHarmony's Facebook page (see Story) may also be a part of eHarmony's new TV marketing campaign. These new ads are a different format than we have seen before from eHarmony. They will contain web cam interviews of actual couples who got married because they met on eHarmony. We have seen eHarmony couples in ads before, but those ads were very polished. These new ads with the low quality web cam footage make the "commercials convey a high degree of authenticity and immediacy". The lower quality of the web cam videos lends to the credibility that these are real couples with real stories about eHarmony. To see one of the commercials you can visit the eHarmony Facebook page here.

Lucas Donat, CEO of Donat Wald, is the guy who has come up with the concepts for this new marketing campaign. He has been responsible for eHarmony’s television commercials since 2002.

If you have an eHarmony success story and want to be considered for one of their new commercials, visit this page to submit your success story and to send the eHarmony team a short video of you and your partner.

For more information about the new ad campaign, read the eHarmony blog here. To find out about this internet dating service, check out our eHarmony review. To date we have 73 reviews of eHarmony from our readers.

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.

Edward Butler, a senior analyst at IBISWorld, used Australian Bureau of Statistics data and industry surveys to review and crunch data on the global sex services industry. He determined that the $1.2 billion industry has seen a 6 percent ($74 million) decline since the global financial crisis started. Brothels, tobacco and alcohol are usually recession proof but that doesn't appear to be the case this time.

Some analysis like Butler think that the popularity of adult dating sites have taken business from the sex industry. Adult dating sites make it easier for consenting adults to be frank about what they want and need in terms of sex. It has never been cheaper for like-minded individuals to organise casual liaisons with the rise of adult and casual dating services.

About 1.5 million men and women now have accounts in Australia with sites such popular dating sites as RSVP, Match.com and eHarmony. Most of these singles are not looking for casual sex and are intent on finding a partner for a long term relationship. Adult FriendFinder, one of the more popular casual sex dating sites reports on having just over 892 thousand profile listings from Australia.

For more on the story, read The Sydney Morning Herald.

Have you ever been rejected by eHarmony? According to a recent article you are not alone, about 20 percent of people who sign up for eHarmony are ultimately rejected. (see Story) Have you ever wondered why? Here are a seven confirmed reasons why:

1. The main reason people are rejected by eHarmony are if they are still married or separated (but not divorced). Earlier this year if you entered one of this options as your Marital Status you where told this right away by eHarmony that they don't allow married people to use the service, but now I see they let you continue on with entering your profile.
2. This is related to point 1, if you answer that you have been married for more than 2 times (this may now be 4).
3. If you entered" I am a Man seeking a Man" or a "Woman seeking a Woman" would also get you the boot. This happened before eHarmony opened their same sex dating site called Compatible Partners. Now, you will get redirected to Compatible Partners.
4. Your answers don't jive. This actually happened to me. Randomly selecting your profile answers may speed up answering the questionnaire but it will most likely get you a rejection notice. A simple test for this one is to enter you are a Man seeking a Woman on the eHarmony homepage and then on the first section and question of the questionnaire confirming your gender as female.
5. Age. According to eHarmony's Terms and Conditions of Service " You must be at least 13 years old to use the Site (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction, if it is older), and at least 18 years old to register for the Services.".
6. That you have been convicted of a felony. While eHarmony does not conduct criminal background screenings, they do reserve the right to conduct such checks by using available public records. This one won't get you rejected right away but if someone complains about you, and they do a little digging and find a criminal record, you may get served a notice of rejection.
7. As reported by a number of other blog sites (I never did find the source), eHarmony will reject you if you score low on a number of different traits or dimensions. These can include your emotional status, character, conflict resolution and several others.