Online Dating

I was reading an article at the Noblesville Daily Times about recommended online dating sites and I came upon a statistic regarding eHarmony's goal of reducing the U.S. divorce rate by 1 percent per year. I was surprised at this and I didn't remember hearing about it before. After a little more digging I came up with this eHarmony feature article called Religion, Marriage and eHarmony by the founder of eHarmony Dr. Neil Clark Warren which talks a bit about eHarmony's mission to lower the divorce rate by 1 percent (but not in a year as the other article suggests). I have a feeling the article is a few years old but there is no date so I can't be sure. They do have a success story listed with the article that is dated August, 2004.

Currently the divorce rate in America is around 50% and if eHarmony could effectively reduce this by 1% this would mean 500,000 couples would not have divorced because of eHarmony's matching them. When will they be successful? Let's see, currently according to eHarmony's "Why eHarmony" web page, 90 members get married every day. Lets assume these members met each other because of eHarmony, so in reality it is 45 couples who got married. If this rate was static, it would take over 30 years for eHarmony to reach this goal and this is if every single couple did not divorce and was still alive (to meet the 1% of divorce reduction). eHarmony got its start in 2000 so they are in their 8th year or over a quarter of the way to 30 years. I wonder what the current statistic is for eHarmony on how many people who met on eHarmony, got married, and still are?

I doubt eHarmony would ever release this type of information since I am sure some of their couples have gotten divorced and the news would be spinned to eHarmony's disadvantage. I do think eHarmony matching system does work better than most matching systems, so this statistic would probably be much less than the current 50% divorce rate for all of the United States. In the end eHarmony should of really come up with a more realistic achievable goal. Maybe it should of been based on the number of eHarmony married couples every day. I just would have made one that would have been accomplished within a few years.

For more information about eHarmony, try reading our review.

Date.com, Amor.com and Matchmaker.com (all owned by Avalanche, LLC) will soon be available in multiple languages. Enlaso will be doing the translation services for Avalanche. They offer enterprise language solutions to companies who not only need translation services but business and cultural perspectives as well. In the press release they mention "localizing" the dating sites, I wonder if this means a redefining of the profile depending on the country and the culture? Match.com International does this with great success, they ask dating profile questions that are more relevant to where you live (see The Issues with International Online Dating).

By the end of 2008 all 3 dating services will be translated and localized into Spanish, Portuguese and German and by 2010 there will be another 15 languages added. With online dating growth leveling off in North America, Avalanche is looking to international markets to help grow its subscriber base. Since 1997, Avalanches largest dating site, Date.com, has had more than 20 million members worldwide.

Courant.com takes a look at eHarmony and their online marriage therapy service. It is different than traditional therapy since there is no talking, couples must fill out a detailed questionnaire instead. This paragraph from the article sums up how the 2 year old service works:

Based on that information, the service prescribes a series of self-directed exercises and interactive videos that target their trouble areas — communication, intimacy and conflict resolution, for example. Offered in 20-minute weekly sessions over three months, the site touts among its benefits at-home convenience and a $149 price tag that would otherwise buy them one, maybe two sessions with a traditional therapist.

eHarmony states that they receive between 300 to 500 new registrations to the service every day. They also state that 19% of the couples who are at risk of divorce are no longer after completing the 3 month session.

eHarmony does agree that it does not replace real talk therapy but it is designed more as a practical tool to get couples communicating in their relationship again. There are critics of services that offer online therapy sessions. The biggest complaint is they are not regulated by a governing body.

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

Related Story: eHarmony and being Divorced

It appears that AshleyMadison.com has been doing very well this last year. According to Fox Business they have doubled their membership from 1 million to over 2 million. This online service is geared toward people looking for one night stands and they specialize in married men and woman looking for affairs.

This Canadian based dating service has seem huge growth numbers in the United States with the state of California seeing the highest at over 200%. New Jersey and New York also saw great numbers with membership jumps of 172% and 155%. Pennsylvania and Florida saw high numbers as well. This is in part do to the increased exposure of this site on TV talk shows like Montel, Ellen and Dr. Phil where marriage, infidelity and divorces are hot topics.

One rather unique concept that Ashley Madison does (now days) is their dating service is based on a credit system instead of a monthly payment system (like Lavalifes use to be). Basically this means signing up as a member is free but if you wish to contact someone (not including winks) you need to purchase credits to perform the task. You pay for what you use. The other unique thing Ashley Madison allows which I think all dating services should is, it is free for guest members to reply to any mail message from a full member. This is a perfect way to increase communication between members of a paid dating service.

Match.com launched the Insiders' Guide this week. It's a place where you can get free, reliable advice from current Match.com members. Before I checked it out I thought it would just another online dating advice magazine that most dating services have, except it is written by members. Even this is not a new idea, since for a few years now FriendFinder already has an online magazine that allows for member submission. Plus, Match.com already has an advice magazine called happen.

When I logged into Match to check the Insiders Guide (accessible from the top members menu) I was pleasantly surprised. While the information given was nothing new or ground breaking the presentation of the dating tips was very well done. Everything is animated and the 7 dating tips are presented in videos by Match.com members. While the videos are playing tip bubbles pop up reinforcing the members message. I think a lot more people will take the time to view the dating tips in this type of format instead of reading a dating advice article that contains the same information.

I thought there would be more tips, but the ones they have are explained in detail and there probably is one or two tips here that someone who hasn't been into online dating for more than a year could use. Other season daters probably don't need to visit the guide. With only 7 tips available I am sure Match.com has a few more on the way if it becomes a popular destination for their members.

For more information about Match.com, please read our review.

It appears that Jangl is going out of business according to Mashable, but nothing has been posted on their website yet. Most readers of this dating reviews site and blog may not know what Jangl is. They offer text and voice messaging and chatting to dating and social networking websites. Jangl is pretty popular and had numerous large websites as clients. I am not totally sure how much they charged the companies using their service (if anything) but from my understanding is they made most of their money from audio ads inserted into the voice calls and text ads inserted into text messaging. Obviously this revenue model did not pan out since they are closing.

In a blog post one of the founders of Jangl, Michael Cerda, talks a bit more of the demise of Jangl. He also stated his opinion that Jangl:

... needed another 18-24 months worth of runway to realize its fullest potential ...

I guess the venture capitalist didn't see it that way.

Match.com uses Jangl for their anonymous calling, so does FriendFinder and Friendster. PlentyofFish also used it but, according to the owner Markus Find he is removing the links for the service from his site right now.

You can also use Jangl on Facebook and it was coming soon to MySpace.

I wonder what business Match.com and the others will be switching too now? Maybe they will develop an in house service instead? Voice chatting is pretty important to a dating service and I hope these companies have a contingency plan in place. When you use 3rd party services for important aspects of your business you always need a backup plan if something unforeseen should happen.