General News

The free dating site by Match.com called Down To Earth was launched in January and since then, they have had more than 100,000 members join. On average, Down To Earth has about 1,500 members join every day. According to DownToEarth Spokesman Tori Johnson:It’s very user-friendly, it’s completely free, and you can post images of yourself, Johnson said. It’s like a normal profile. Solotaroff said online dating is increasing among Americans. There are 93 million eligible singles in the U.S. and about 3 million are using paid dating sites, he said. Free online dating also is growing – at a rate of about 70 percent per year.

Down To Earths market is the College-aged crowd (18-25) which they currently have about 21,000 members. By the end of 2009, the goal for total number of memberships at Down To Earth is 250,000. The dating sites main feature which makes it fairly unique is the RealRatings system. It is designed to keep married people out and dating profiles honest by allowing other members to score a person's profile accuracy after a date. The score is a 1 to 5 star rating.

For more information on the dating site, read our Down To Earth review.

With all the press lately for Chemistry, they have decided to up their 7 day free trial offer to 14 days. New members now have a full 2 weeks to try out Chemistry with all of the features a paid member receives. This new promotion gives members enough time to see if this matchmaking site offers the service they are looking for. Remember, Chemistry has an in depth profile and matching system designed in part by Dr. Helen Fisher, a leading Biological Anthropologist. This is a dating service primarily designed for singles looking for long-term connections.

For the 14 day free trial visit Chemistry.com now and to find out more information about this dating site, read our Chemistry review which includes user reviews as well.

On February 3rd, InterActiveCorp released their fourth quarter financial results. Overall, compared to Q4 2007 IAC saw revenue drop 7 percent to $351 million. This loss mainly was do to the media and advertising side of their business. With regards to Match.com IAC saw revenue for 2008's quarter 4 drop 3 percent to $88.1 million but, operating income after amortization increased 53 percent to $24.8 million.
For the entire 2008 year, Match.com saw operating income before amortization at $91.3 million ($75.5 million after). No mention was made about Chemistry this time in this financial report. For this reason you have to wonder if Chemistry is not doing as well as IAC wishes.

Here is the complete IAC Q4 Report For more information on the dating sites owned by IAC, read our Match.com review and are Chemistry review.

A report from Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau shows that a total of 41,093 cases of fraud were reported in 2008. Of these cases a total of 54 percent were caused by personal online shopping information being stolen. 8 percent or 5,803 of the cases involved dating related scams. Of these cases:

.. 2,183 persons fell victim to online interactive dating fraud, of whom 90 percent were urban women in their 20s and 30s, with 20-somethings accounting for 51 percent and the remainder in their 30s.

The CIB further states that online dating related fraud has risen dramatically in recent years and young woman need to practice safe dating habits to better protect themselves.

For the full story read the Taiwan News.

<p>The New York Times has an article about the recession and how it has affected online dating. Nothing much new is mentioned in the article that hasn't been mentioned before in others except with a couple of exceptions.</p>

<p>We knew that PerfectMatch.com has seen a large spike in members in Q4 of 2008 but we only knew it was around 47 percent which was about half way through quarter 4 (see Story). According to the New York Times article, Perfect Match saw a 51 percent increase in members in quarter 4, when compared to the same quarter of 2007. Perfect Match growth continued into January 2009, but not quite as high at 30 percent. PerfectMatch.com CEO, Duane Dahl also noted that they experienced a similar trend in the rise of memberships for their dating site during the last economic downturn in 2001, after the internet economic bubble burst.</p>

<p>To read the complete story visit the New York Times. Registration may be required to read the article. For more information on PerfectMatch.com, read our online dating review.</p>

Here are two interesting points from an article called "Dates with destiny", which is hosted on easyJet Inflight.

• Match.com launched their United Kingdom dating site in 2001, interesting enough Marc Simoncini, the founder of Meetic (which is set to purchase Match.com's European Operations) was also launched in 2001.
• In 2004 as online dating became more popular, Match.com became the first dating site to run TV commercials.

For more information on Match.com's British dating site, read our review.