General News

Muslima.com and a few other Cupid Media dating sites have received new home page designs. The new design includes the registration fields on the home page instead of the standard search fields allowing you to specify gender, location and age range. This new format does allow you to view profiles without creating an account first, but only by using the Men's and Women's galleries. For full search capabilities visitors must create a free members account.

We also got word that Cupid Media's IT team is working to improve the user experience and as a result, they are currently rolling out brand new hardware and databases for the entire Cupid Media dating network. This means the sites will not only load faster and experience less down time but will also offer users additional options for customizations and site features in the near future. The first website software upgrade on the list is the local search feature. When it has been upgraded we will review the changes in another blog post and update our Muslima review.

For more information on the dating site, read our review of Muslima.com.

On this day in the year 2000, eHarmony launched their dating service.

Happy 9th Birthday eHarmony!

To get a history of eHarmony from an employee who has worked their for 8 years, check out the eHarmony Blog and to find out why this is such a popular dating site, read our eHarmony review.

CheckedProfile.com is a new service designed to allow people to have their photo's and email address verified. They soon plan to have 5 levels of verification which will allow people to verify Name, Age, Country, Phone, Address and Net Worth. Only the first level is available now and prices range from free to $99.99 USD for all levels of service. CheckedProfile is aimed at people who use dating sites and social networks. The problem of profile and photo dishonesty is not new and there are already several other companies offering similar services which we have talked about before (see Story).

The way CheckedProfile works (at least for the level 1 photo verification) is you create an account an upload the photo you want verified. The service then gives you a custom alphanumeric code which is unique to your picture. You then need to put the code on a piece of paper and take a picture of yourself holding the paper. This new photo then is uploaded to CheckedProfile. Once verified (by an actual person) you will then get your original photo back with a verified stamp integrated into it along with a code. People interested in you, can now visit CheckedProfile.com to type in the code from the photo to verify that the photo has indeed been verified (along with any other information).

As with most of these type of services there are a few holes in the verification process that if people wanted to, they could circumvent. For one thing, a scammer could just steal someone else's photo that already has been verified and pass it off as his own. A scammer could also mock up a photo with the verified information, it may not pass the test when someone checks it on the website but I bet not everyone will understand that they need to do this. The last problem I see is, someone could just get their good looking friend to do the process for them. While CheckedProfile's verification process is not 100 percent it is a step in the right direction. If they improve on the verification methods maybe it will become one I would recommend.

Visit CheckedProfile.com directly and for more services designed to help you succeed in dating, take a look at our Dating Profile Help category.

A couple of weeks ago we talked a bit about eHarmony's seven new profile questions which dealt with common traits and interests (see Story). Last week eHarmony posted a bit more information about this feature called Something to Talk About. As the name suggests, this feature is designed to highlight what each profile has in common and to help matched couples by breaking the ice and giving topics of conversation. When you view a match and if you share some common interests, you will see these interests appear in the area titled "Something to Talk About".

For more on the feature, visit the official eHarmony Blog. Tto find out more why this is such a popular matchmaking service, read our eHarmony review.

Forbes has ranked their top cities for singles a litter earlier this year. We usually expect the results sometime in September. In 2007 San Francisco held the honour of the best city for singles, in 2008 it was Atlanta, and this year the honour goes to New York City. Looking at this list when compared to other years it seems that the recession has juggled the cities rankings quite a bit. For example, in last year's best city for singles list, New York City was in 8th place.

Here is the top 5 cities for Singles in 2009:

1. New York City
2. Boston
3. Chicago
4. Seattle
5. Washington D.C.

Unfortunately Spark Networks has continued their downward trend. Revenue for Q2, 2009 was $11.2 million, which is a 25 percent decrease when compared to $15 million from Q2, 2008. This is also a 7 percent decrease in revenue from Q1, 2009. Revenue dropped due to continued declines in subscriber numbers from JDate and the General Markets dating sites. Average paying subscribers for Spark Networks as a whole in quarter 2, 2009 is 163,217. This is a 3 percent decrease when compared to the last quarter and a 14 percent decrease when compared to the same quarter last year.

JDate saw revenue drop 18% to $7,1 million when compared to the same quarter in 2008. This is the result of subscribers falling 10 percent to 82,769. The Other Affinity Networks had revenues which totalled $3.3 million and 65,409 subscribers. Compared to the same quarter last year, revenue fell 3 percent while subscriber numbers increased 3 percent. General Market Networks saw the worse of it. Revenues dropped 68% to $701,000 and subscribers fell 58% to 14,022 when compared to quarter 2, 2008.

The planned decrease in revenue for General Market Networks is largely attributable to an 85% decrease in the marketing spend for this segment in the second quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008.

For the full 2009 Q2 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks First Quarter 2009 Financials