Online Dating

With New Years Eve just past and Valentines Day just a month and a half away this marks the busiest time period for online dating sites. Singles are either fulfilling their New Years resolution to take time out of their hectic lives to find love or, they want to find someone before the day of expressing love, Valentines Day. Several dating services such as Match.com, eHarmony and PerfectMatch.com all start major advertising campaigns or increase spending in advertising this month to try and capture these additional online daters. This marketing is done mainly via both the internet and with TV commercials. Most dating sites hope to get at least a 15% increase in singles signing up for their service.

An article by the Seattle Times has a few more statistics for you about dating in the month of January. Mark Brooks from OnlinePersonalsWatch.com is quoted in this article as well.

The New York Times has published an article regarding Chemistry.com new attack ads on eHarmony. Chemistry will be launching ads this week in newspapers and magazines which strike out at eHarmony for not accepting gay members. eHarmony counters Chemistry.com's attacks by stating:

eHarmony's matching system is based on psychological data collected from heterosexual married couples, and we have not offered a service for those seeking same-sex matches. Nothing precludes us from offering a same-sex service in the future, but it's not a service we offer now.

You may remember, last April Chemistry did a similar ad campaign called "Rejected by eHarmony". They spent $20 million on that campaign which helped raise their membership levels by 80% and gay members have increased by will over 200%. Currently it is estimated that Chemistry has 3.7 million registered members and eHarmony has 17 million members.

We will soon be seeing some new ads from Match.com 2008 ad campaign called Rewind. Rewind will feature couples who have met online using the Match.com dating service. Expect to see both internet and TV spots. The TV commercials will mainly be airing on the NBC and ABC TV networks during shows like Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. These ads will also include information on new features at Match including Match My Friends (see this story).

Match owes a large part of their success to smart and tasteful ad campaigns. Last year (2006) Match spent $92 million in several different advertising mediums.

Read more regarding this new ad campaign an about Match.com's previous campaigns at Brandweek. Go here for our review on Match.com.

I finally got more information on Match.com's new "Match My Friends" feature. Here is how it works, straight from the press release:

Match My Friends(TM) engages friends in two ways. First, anyone can get their friends in the game -- regardless of whether or not they're already a Match.com member. When someone wishes to sign up a single friend, they can create a suggested profile for their friend, upload a photo and even sponsor their friend's subscription. The resulting profile is then sent to the single friend for editing and approval before being posted on Match.com. From here, the "recommender" and single friend can search for and share recommendations on potential dates for the single friend.

Match My Friends(TM) also allows for personal testimonials to be added to Match.com profiles. Any existing Match.com member can email friends and/or family and ask them to create a short testimonial, which can then be approved by the Match.com member and posted on their profile. The testimonials will offer potential mates a glimpse into the person's life, personality and off-line friendships.

This is an interesting idea and it would be fun playing cupid on a dating site and finding matches for your friends. Match.com implemented this feature the correct way, by having the friend have to approve the profile first (through email) before it can go online at Match. This way the friend can correct any information or decline if they really don't want to have a dating profile.

Personal testimonials are a great tool as well. It helps legitimatize a profile since you have other people vouching for this profile and single. Friends and Family who may post a testimonial also may offer a personal insight of the person which may help you decide if he or she is a potential match for you. Of course if you don't like the testimonials you receive for your profile you can always decline them.

Match.com's have had several updates and new features lately for there service. This speaks to their commitment on being the number one dating service by reinvesting constantly into your business and letting your competition play catch-up.

My only small problem so far, a pet peeve really, with Match My Friends is the name. You have the name on the site with spaces and then in other places they call it "matchmyfriends". Match has done this before with Match Mobile. I never know what to use! I plan on playing around with this feature a lot more to see how it turns out.

For more information on Match.com please check our review.

All matchmaking services in Shanghai must register with the Shanghai Association of Matchmaking Management by next year. Among other things, the association will keep track of any misdemeanors of the matchmaker service.

Each employee who works at a matchmaking service must obtain two certificates from the Shanghai Association of Matchmaking Management. One is a qualified matchmaking certificate and the second one is a matchmaking company employee certificate.

More information on the new regulations can be found at Shanghai Daily.

Apparently about half the adults online have looked either themselves up or someone else on the internet according to the findings of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. I find this a little surprising. I expected the percentage to be a lot higher, especially if we are just talking about people who use the internet on a regular basis. I don't know of anyone who hasn't typed their name into Google to see what comes up.

It's also a good idea to do before you meet someone for the first time on a date. It could give you a little bit of insight on their life. Just remember there is a lot of people out in the world with the same name!

More information about this survey can be found at SFGate.com.