General News

Match.com UK celebrated 2 milestones in London yesterday. Since 2001 more than 1 Billion emails and 1 Billion winks have been sent through the Match.com dating site. During this celebration Match.com launched match100, a new consumer panel.

The responsibility of this group is to consult on new services and provide a valuable on-the-ground view of the search for love in 21st century Britain.

The match100 is made up of a diverse group of old and current Match.com members from all over Britain. The groups first job will be to create an Insiders Guide to Online Dating based on their own experiences. Find the new match100 media center here.

Related Story: eHarmony has Issued more than 1 Billion Matches

For the full story visit Marketing Week and for further information on Match.com UK dating site read our detailed review.

For the last number of years eHarmony has been playing up the fact that a large number of people get married everyday who originally met each other on their dating site (current published average is 118). JDate appears to be copying this market tactic. They are currently advertising:

Each day over 60 people tell us they found their soul mates on JDate.

Finding a soul mate is not the same thing as being married but it does lead people to believe it is something more than love. It makes it appear as if the relationship may be leading to marriage. 60 is a fairly large number for a dating site which serves a specific niche. I wonder if we will see other popular dating services following suit and start advertising similar facts.

See our JDate Review for more information on this Jewish matchmaking service.

Spark Networks sent out a press release a few days ago about a new website of theirs called Facelink. This site allows visitors to search for singles across 20 of Spark Networks dating websites. Some of these sites include AmericanSingles, JDate, BlackSingles.com and ChristianMingle. Facelink is currently in beta.

The tool is very simple and allows visitors to select what gender they are looking for, age range and a text box where you can enter in keywords which describe the most important attributes of your match. When you search, the site will then bring up any matching profiles with the profile handle, introduction and location. When you click on the profile name in the results, you are then taken to the full profile page on whatever dating site the profile resides on.

I realize Spark Networks is going with the KISS philosophy and Facelink works but, it could use improvements. The search results contain the location but, on the search page you must enter the location in the text keywords box. I think location needs to have its own text box with a radius selection (ie anyone within 15 miles of current location). I also think it is important to list what site the person is on in the search results. This is important as someone who has joined JDate (a Jewish dating site) most likely will not want to date someone practicing another religion. Keyword searching also seems to be limited to the introduction essay and location. Why not include all aspects of the profile. If someone likes watching Lost and mentioned this in Fun Facts, I doubt they would reiterate this point in their introduction. Someone using "Lost" as a keyword for searching may be missing out on a potential match.

I do think the site could use a name change. The name itself FaceLink, instantly brings up comparisons to Facebook, in which the site does not have a whole lot in common with. In the title, the link part works but, maybe they should of tried getting the DatingSiteLink domain or something similar. One thing I did have a laugh at was Spark Networks disclaimer at the bottom of the site.

THANKS TO THE GREAT STATE OF NEW JERSEY, THE GARDEN STATE, HOME OF THE TURNPIKE, GOING DOWN THE SHORE, MYTHICAL HOME TO TONY SOPRANO, AND THE ONLY PLACE WHERE PEOPLE GREET EACH OTHER WITH "REALLY, WHAT EXIT YOU FROM?," WE ARE TELLING YOU, SPARK NETWORKS LIMITED DOES NOT CONDUCT BACKGROUND CHECKS ON THE INDIVIDUALS WHOSE PROFILES CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THIS SITE. THE HOME OF THE BOSS HAS GOT YOUR BACK AND WE SUPPORT THEM 100%! NOW DON'T FUHGEDABOUTIT.

This is in reference to the new flawed Internet Dating Safety Act which requires dating sites to notify visitors from New Jersey if the dating site performs background checks or not.

Facelink gives Spark Networks a way to tie all of their dating sites together and allows visitors to search all the sites at once. It saves visitors from having to visit each one individually. Once out of beta they should promote Facelink on all of their dating sites instead of showing other ads.

Click here to visit Facelink.

According to Reuters, Matchmakers in Singapore are seeing business slowing down due to the current economy problems. One Matchmaking company reported a 10% decrease in business.

These Matchmakers are different from most online dating sites. They offer a more one on one customer relationship and can charge men thousands of dollars a month to help them find a wife. Looking at some popular dating sites in North America, (the September statistics where just released) it looks like on average, online dating experienced a minor increase in visitors for the month of September.

How much do you plan to spend during October / November, when compared to the summer? Take our poll to share your answer:

Dr. Pepper Schwartz from Perfect Match was on The Bonnie Hunt Show yesterday. She is the dating sites chief relationship expert and helped develop their Duet compatibility matching system used on Perfect Match. On the show, Dr. Pepper Schwartz gives Holly Wortell (Bonnie's long time friend) dating profile advice as well as a personality test to help improve her odds of finding a match.

Here is a small video segment from the show in which Dr. Pepper Schwartz gives Holly advice on what profile photo to use.

Read our Perfect Match Review to find out more information on this popular dating service.

For the last few months Gay.com has been updating not only their dating website software but the hardware as well. From the new updates, one website called QUEERTY has reported that Gay.com has been offline more than it has been online this month. If this is the case, I would hope Gay.com gives paying members another month for FREE to thank them for putting up with all the trouble.

Here is a quote from Gay.com's Blog about some of the issues:

So what can you expect in the days ahead in terms of on-going improvements and our communication to you about them?

1. We are adjusting our hardware configurations and software code to further speed processes. Despite extensive pre-launch testing, a site of the scale and complexity of gay.com is virtually impossible to emulate in a test lab. Additionally, we have seen new usage patterns from the site that we could not model and are adjusting our hardware and code to streamline and improve performance. With the addition of more servers earlier in the week, we have seen positive results in overall site speed. We continue to monitor site performance and may add additional capacity as necessary.
2. We continue to identify and fix the bugs that have resulted in unplanned system outages.
3. We are committed to customer service and getting everyone on the site. We have received a tremendous number of phone calls and emails with your questions and suggestions. We are working to meet your needs as fast as we can. We also know that many people still cannot get into chat for technical reasons. Should you need help immediately, we keep an up-to-date Known Issues link on our blog at http://gay.blogs.com/gaycomblog.
4. We promise to be as open as possible in our communication to you. We know these changes (both the relaunch itself and the follow-on outages) can be confusing and frustrating. We will do our best to let you know what is happening, and when and how it may affect you as a user of the site. Given the changes that we need to make, we know that we will need to have a few more planned outages. We will do everything possible to give everyone adequate advance warning of these outages. Whenever possible, planned outages will be conducted in off-peak hours.

Find out more and see the full apology letter to members at the company's blog. For more information about the dating site Gay.com, including costs and features of this matchmaking service, check out our Gay.com review.