Online Dating

According to NewMediaAge, eHarmony is going to be doing a big marketing campaign in the United Kingdom. This is the first major marketing campaign for the UK version of the dating site, which launched last July (see story). For the first month or so eHarmony UK was offering free 90 day memberships to help populate their database with profiles. The digital marketing agency which eHarmony hired called Essence, will soon be launching a display, search and affiliate campaign. NewMediaAge also estimates eHarmony's US marketing budget at $160 million.

To find out more information about this popular dating service, read our eHarmony review.

ABC News has a story that looks at Sugar Daddy dating to find out if this type of dating arrangement is a fun way to explore love or if it is prostitution. The most famous Sugar Daddy arrangement was when Anne Nicole Smith went out with, and ultimately married the Texas oil billionaire, J. Howard Marshall in the mid 90s. ABC examines a couple in New York. Melanie is an 18 year old part time model who is going out with a guy named Chris. Chris is a 40 year old multi millionaire who also happens to be married. They both see the relationship as mutually beneficial. He gets to feel young again and has a sexual companion (I'm not sure where the wife is with all this) and Melanie gets a $5,000 a month rent apartment, all her bills paid, and to travel for free. According to Melanie:

... a sugar baby is a relationship you're dating someone but you have a monthly allowance ... You make it clear if you want to have sex or you don't want to have sex.

Good Morning America also weighed in on the subject , some on the panel called the woman in these type of relationship escorts and prostitutes while others said it was more like dating with perks.

As long as no one is getting hurt or doing anything illegal I usually don't have a problem with it. I just wonder why in stories like this, it is always the woman who has to defend herself. Chris is an active participant in the relationship as well. In fact, since Chris is married, he should be the one on trial.

For more information on the story The Anatomy of Dating a Sugar Daddy, visit ABC News. For a full list of our reviewed Sugar Daddy dating sites, check out our [staticpage: Wealthy-Singles-Dating-Sites] category.

I wasn't sure at first why Logitech released a press release about online dating called Sex, Lies and Internet Dates for St. Valentines Day since they are mostly a hardware manufacture. According to the release, Logitech commissioned the European study to "establish how much difference a video call with a prospective date would make". Ok, I guess this study makes a little more sense now since Logitech is one of the world's largest supplier of web video cameras.

What did Logitech's report reveal? First, that 58 percent of Europeans have been victims of online dating dishonesty. This breaks down by country:

• Italians at 72 percent
• Germans with 58 percent
• French and British at 55 percent
• Dutch at 48 percent

The number one thing singles lied about was attractiveness. Now this is a subject attribute so I'm not sure how accurate it is. Plus it is not mentioned if singles told Logitech that they lied or if people have said they have been lied too. In second place about things singles lied about in their dating profile was weight. One of the things lease lied about was the lack of hair someone may have had.

For the complete press release visit Response Source.

Between December 1, 2008 and January 5, 2009 a total of 1,629 online dating sites registered with Japans local public security boards. This is in response to a stricter law which regulates dating sites in Japan. The National Police Agency (NPA) said there was 432 applications filed for the dating sites which was a lot less than expected. It is assumed some dating services shut down due to the law being implemented. The largest application had 286 dating sites listed on it.

The last time we talked about dating regulations in Japan was last January when we wrote about Japans NPA wants Stricter Regulations for Dating Sites. It looks like the NPA got their wish.

For more information on this story visit JapanToday.

Dr. Helen Fisher was at the iDate conference which was recently held in Miami. Dr. Helen Fisher is Chemistry's chief scientific advisor for their match system. David Evans of The Online Dating Insider shared with us some information he learned from her keynote speech:

• Dr. Helen Fisher studied 178k people on Chemistry.com.
• The Chemistry questionnaire has been taken by 7 million in 39 countries.

Chemistry currently has 4 million paid and registered users (info from their about us page on IAC) so it looks like just under half never signed up after the profile questionnaire.

For more information on this personality matching dating site, read our [staticpage: Chemistry review].

The first month of the New Year to Valentine's Day is the season where online dating is usually is at its busiest. The owners of Date.com and MatchMaker.com have a promotion which gives singles a 10 day free trial to try out their dating services (the original promotion was 7 days). The free trial acts just like a paid membership and gives you full email and instant messaging access. Just type in this coupon code when you sign up as a new member:

Newyears10

For more information on these 2 online dating sites, read our Date.com review and our MatchMaker.com review.