Online Dating

According to a local Michigan author, 97.5% of the almost 300 online daters she interviewed did fudge the facts about at least one aspect of their dating profile. Woman tended to lie more about their age and weight while men lied more about age and their marital status. The author found about 60 percent of men who stated they were either single, separated or divorced where actually married. Most of the interviewed online daters used popular dating sites such as American Singles, eHarmony, Match.com, Senior FriendFinder and Yahoo Personals.

While I expect a few not quite truthful answers in a dating profile (I always assumed more people than not probably round down their weight), I was surprised at the percentage of men she found who lied about their marital status. This is a much larger issue than saying your 6 feet tall, when you are only 5 foot 11 inches. I wonder if the same percentage holds true for men at bars?

This topic would make a good poll. I should create one to see what visitors of Dating Sites Reviews fib about in their dating profiles.

It looks like CNBC received a number of complaints of some dating ads which had been displayed on their website recently. The ads showed:

... women unbuttoning sweaters and listing mileage to ladies looking for a date. And the others showing come-hither countenances and blaring "NO CREDIT CARD REQUIRED".

A couple of days ago, the Managing Editor of CNBC.com, Allen Wastler, posted an apology to their readers with a small explanation on how it happened. He doesn't mention which dating site the ads are for, but I have a feeling it was SinglesNet.com. I have seen several of their No Credit Card Required ads before. They also tend to have woman in sexually suggestive poses on most of their ads (of course they are far from the only ones who do this).

I saw some interesting statistics on a website that mentions:

According to the US Census, 40% of American adults patronize the services of online dating sites resulting in about 120,000 marriages annually.

I searched the U.S. Census Bureau website for awhile and couldn't find the information mentioned in the quote. If this statistic is true, it would mean that eHarmony is responsible for a third of all marriages that resulted from online dating. According to eHarmony they are responsible for on average 118 marriages a day or 43,000 in one year, in the United States (see stats).

I am suspect of the number of total marriages resulting from online dating as mentioned in the quote above since, other facts didn't ring true in the article. As example, it also mentions:

China too expects dating patrons to grow in huge numbers. With 64 million singles residing in the nation, the market is expected to double in the present year.

The United States has a population of roughly 300 million with over 90 million singles. Canada has a population of 30 million with a third being single. This is the same ratio as the United States. China has a population of over 1.3 billion. I would expect them to have more that 64 million singles, a lot more! If the same ratio holds true then you would expect to see over 400 million singles.

For the full article called Internet Dating – The Good, Bad and Ugly, visit MedIndia.com. See our eHarmony Review for more information on this dating service.

According to the unofficial eHarmony blog, eHarmony is planning its eleventh free communication weekend this coming Labour Day. It starts Friday, August 29, 2008 and ends on Monday. September 1, 2008 at midnight. On these 4 days new members of eHarmony will be able to communicate for free and really test drive the dating service. This promotion will be available for both the US and Canadian eHarmony sites.

Visit our eHarmony review for more information and user opinions about this dating service.

An article called You and improved takes a look at a few of the photo retouching services that are available on the internet. Since the rise of social networking sites this type of business has become a lot more popular. Now it is not only dating site members using the service but people from Facebook, Flicker and MySpace as well.

A few services like Look Better Online offer the full package which includes a photographer, a studio (with proper lighting, etc..), and photo touch ups if needed. Most of the photo touch up services just take your pre-existing pictures which you have uploaded to their website. Retouching can include simple things like fixing the lighting of the photo, removing red eye and whitening your teeth. More advance retouching services allow for the removal of acne, moles and reducing your wrinkles. Some services even go a step further and offer to slim the person in the photo as well. This can include everything from your arms and legs to your waist. I also notice on one site I found, you can go the other way in which men can get a more muscular physic and woman can have larger breasts.

In a world where almost every commercial photo printed now has been retouched, does these type of services have a place in online dating? Like profile writing services, for the most part I think they do. Some people just don't take good pictures (I am one of them!) and going to a professional can help. The photographer can find your best angle and enhance your features with the proper lighting and background. For those of you who already have a decent picture with just a few problems you don't know how to fix then these retouching services are a great option. Small touch ups like red eye, acne removal, lighting and color usually start around the $5 mark. With regards to online dating I think this is where most people should stop. Getting your photo "Slimmed" may help you get more responses but in the end you are not being truthful in which on your first date your partner will discover. The way you look shouldn't matter, but for a lot of people it does.

For people who opted into marketing emails from Datran Media, eHarmony's e-mail marketing partner, they recently received 3 different emails over a 6 week period. The goal of this marketing email campaign was not only to find customers but also to increase brand awareness. At the end of the campaign, a study found brand awareness increased by over 37 percent for eHarmony, from those who received the emails. Through email, advertisers can focus their marketing dollars and zero in on key demographics. As an example, in a test, eHarmony targeted people over 40 who where Asian and Canadian. Once sent, they found brand awareness increased by almost 12 percent from those who received the email.

Click E-mail gaining utility among marketers for the full story.

For singles interested in this online dating service, our eHarmony review is a good source of information.