Online Dating

Last Friday on PlentyOfFish.com the Instant Messenger was disabled. Since then POF claims a 10% increase in traffic from the UK and over 15% from Australia. There is no mention on if the visitor traffic increased for the US or Canada. With the traffic increase Markus (CEO of POF) has decided to completely remove the feature. He also mentions that he should of realized there was a reason why a number of the other major dating sites don't use Instant Messengers on their websites.

I'm not sure why Markus attributes POF having more visitors to him removing IM from POF. There was no news story surrounding this (until now) so why would this increase visitors to his site (since no one knew about it)? It probably increased page views of visitors since members now have to use the mail center more instead of the instant messenger. I think it might be a mistake on his part since he freely admits that hundreds of thousands of users used it every day. While Plenty Of Fish's instant messenger may not have been as smooth experience as Microsoft's, it was still definitely useable. Maybe he should of disable IM on a user's account by default and require an action by them to enable it? This way users who don't use IM would never be bothered by it.

POF logo also has been updated. It has a cleaner look and the tag line of the site has changed. It use to say 100% Free Online Dating. Now it says Free Online Dating. Which is true, since POF just recently started to offer a paid membership that has a few additional perks (see Story).

Read our PlentyOfFish.com review for more information on this popular dating site.

We just got a coupon code for PerfectMatch.com which is good until April 30, 2009. It is a little hard to remember, but if you type in

Coupon Code: 8G37A564

into the coupon code box when you upgrade your membership, you will receive the following special offer: 3 months on Perfectmatch for only $26.65 per month (Regular $36.95). This also includes a free book titled "Finding your Perfect Match".

This book is by relationship expert, Dr. Pepper Schwartz, and is valued at $14.95. Dr. Pepper Schwartz has written 15 other published books and many articles for such publications as the New York Times and Lifetime Magazine. She has appeared on such shows as Oprah, Good Morning America, Dr. Phil and CNN as a relationship specialist. For more details on what the book itself is about, visit Amazon.

For more information on this dating site, read our Perfectmatch.com review.

eHarmony has gotten into legal trouble again. Lynda Kelly and Miranda Soegi of California have initiated a federal class action lawsuit which claims that eHarmony does not have a scientifically proven system for matching members. Lynda and Miranda believe eHarmony have been misrepresenting the services they provide. They feel they did not receive the service they had paid for.

eHarmony have kept their matching algorithm a closely guarded secret while other sites like Chemistry (see Story) may slowly begin allowing us a peek inside. eHarmony has patents on their matching system so their multi-million dollar investment should be protected if they ever wanted to release more information about it ( U.S. Pat. No. 6,735,568 and 7,454,357). Check out the comments here for more of a discussion on eHarmony's matching system, including some comments from matching experts like Helen Fisher.

I don't think this lawsuit will get to far. eHarmony has been sued before so I am sure their Terms and Conditions have been made air tight by their legal experts. With dating sites that have a scientific matching system, I think what members get confused and angry about is, how loosely the matching algorithm gets applied. I have a feeling that the longer you are on the dating service, some of these sites (to enable to send you more matches) may lower the requirements for a match. Another thing members have to realize is the matches you do receive on these type of dating sites are from both free and paying members. Usually paying members can reply to you, free members cannot.

Misrepresentation is a problem on the internet in general. How many websites are you on in a day that claim to be the biggest or most popular? You will also find a lot of sites that claim to be free, while in fact they are not.

For more information on the story here is a copy of the legal complaint in pdf format.

According to an online report, it looks like email spammers are spoofing Match.com. Since Monday spammers have sent out emails that appear on the surface to be from Match.com.

The attack involves messages claiming to be from someone on the dating website who wants to show the user pictures and videos.

If the link is clicked on, you are then directed to a malicious website which then attempts to install a fake video player which is actually the Trojan called Papras. From the F-Secure website summary page on this Malware:

Trojan-PSW.Win32.Papras.DC steals login credentials and other sensitive information on the compromised system. It also drops and uses a rootkit driver to hide itself. The rootkit driver is detected as Rootkit.Win32.Agent.SZ.

This is definitely not something you want installed on your computer.

The good news is most of the popular Anti-Virus programs will protect you from this threat being installed now (as long as you keep them updated), but as always you should be careful when clicking on any link from an email. If you get an email that you are unsure of and it is from a website you deal with, always visit the website by your browsers bookmarks instead of the link in the email. You should also forward the email to the company to let them know you think someone is sending you fake emails.

Match.com is far from the first site to be spoofed like this, though it is the first time I have heard of a dating site having this trouble. Usually it is the major banks or websites like PayPal which get targeted by email spoofers.

Visit mxLogic for more information on this story and read F-Secure for more about what Papras modifies on your computer.

Perfect Match just let us know of their new Buy 2, Get 2 Free promotion. This means when new members signup and purchase a 2 month subscription, they will get 2 additional months for Free.

To be eligible for this promotion, visit Perfectmatch.com.

Perfect Match is a dating site that combines the best of two types of dating sites. You get a detailed profile and a relationship assessment which helps them generate matches for you using the DUET Compatibility matching system plus, you can search for members yourself using their advance website search tools. This popular dating site has been featured on many TV shows including Dr. Phil, The Today Show and Dancing with the Stars.

For more information on this dating site, read our Perfect Match review.

The Richard Ivey School of Business (The University of Western Ontario), Intouch Magazine (Winter 2009 edition), has a feature story about the history of a few of their graduates who are successful business men in the online dating industry. Lavalife co-founder Nicholas Paine (HBA ’83) is interviewed first. He talks about his experience in the early 1990's of converting their Tele-classifieds business (Classifieds over the phone) into a web personals site, and by 2001 into the popular dating site Lavalife.

Sam Moorcroft (MBA ’95), is also interviewed about how he started the popular Christian dating site, ChristianCafe.com. In the late 90's Sam had used a U.S. based Christian dating service to meet women locally and on the advice from a friend decided to start a website himself.

The key to the success of Christian Cafe.com was filling a niche in the market. Moorcroft knew from the women he had dated that they wanted to meet believers like themselves.

In the beginning years Sam and his brother held down several jobs to support themselves while they got their online dating site off the ground. In ten years ChristianCafe.com has grown into a multi-million dollar business.

To find out more information about these dating services from Canada, read our ChristianCafe.com review and our Lavalife review.