Online Dating

eHarmony is planning an extra long Free Communication Weekend this New Year. Starting next Thursday, January 1st to January 4th 2009 new members of eHarmony will be able to not only review matches for free but communicate with them as well (just like a paid member).

Since we started counting, this makes it, Free Communication Weekend number 14 for eHarmony. The last two were in November, 2008. This would be a good time to see if eHarmony is the type of dating service for you as the next time this promotion most likely will be available (if history is any indication) is in February, on the Valentine's Day weekend.

Read our eHarmony review for more information on this award winning dating site.

On December 3rd in a story called New Features & Design at Match.com we reported that on Match.com's fact sheet at their parent company website, IAC reported that Match.com receive 60,000 new registered members every day. Well, it appears they have updated this information. IAC now reports "more than 71,000 new people register on Match.com every day". That is roughly a 18 percent increase in new registered members. Recently Match.com also reported that they had their best November in 7 years. Things seem to be on the upswing for Match.com who's membership levels have remained stagnate in recent years.

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

It looks like Match.com UK mascots Cupid and Fate will be around for another year. Starting December 26, 2008 Match.com will begin its new multi million pound marketing campaign in the United Kingdom. This campaign will dedicate 50 percent of the available air time to creative's for the new matchmaking personality test (see Story). The new ads will use humour and are targeted primary at women between the ages of 25 to 34.

Read our UK Match.com review for more details on this dating service.

Earlier this month ChristianCafe.com announced that American and Canadian members now have improved search functionality. Members can now search for other members based on a distance from a postal or zip code. This search parameter can be combined with other search options.

To try out Distance Search simply create a New Search just like before. You will see Distance as the third option down. The zip/postal code you see there by default is the one that we have on file as part of your profile. If you would like to change it, change your address under Edit Profile. You can always change the zip/postal code on-the-fly for every search (just input it right in the box). Every new search you do, however, will default back to the zip/postal code indicated in your profile settings.

Christian Cafe staff also suggest you update any saved searches you are using to specify a maximum distance to find members.

For more information on this award winning dating site, read our ChristianCafe.com Review.

Just a small news tidbit,

JLM Pacific Epoch is reporting that Match.com China (cn.Match.com) has been online since 2006 and has now more than 8 million registered members.

E Harmony has taken a lot of flack lately regarding their dating site not allowing gay singles to join. The recent settlement about eHarmony violating the New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination has only fuelled the flames. A large number of newspaper articles and blogger posts support the gay activists in which they have the right to use the dating service. Here are a few posts which take the stand on the other side of the argument.

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article called EHarmony settlement erodes everyone's freedom. Their main point is, E Harmony just didn't provide the service in which Eric McKinley (the plaintiff of the settlement) wanted, male to male matching. The author goes on and points out this would be like someone suing an Asian grocery store for religious discrimination, for not selling kosher meat

The unofficial eHarmony Blog has a post called From Arjewtino: 7 more lawsuits inspired by the eHarmony case. It is written by a gay author and looks at the case from several different angles. He also pokes fun at the E Harmony case by including 7 sample cases in which other groups of people could sue companies for not providing a certain service.

For more information regarding this dating site, read our eHarmony review.