General News

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.

Millionaire Match now verifies a members education level if they fax or upload a copy of the proper documentation. If verified a check mark icon with the verification date will appear on the profile next to the members education status. Millionaire Match also verifies 4 other profile items. This includes Income (certified a Millionaire), Occupation, Photo and Age.

While the verification process is not completely fool proof, it does make a large step towards validating a member is who he or she says they really are and what their credentials may be. As a site that caters towards wealthy men or woman looking for the perfect match, these 5 aspects of the profile are important when searching for a potential match. The only thing now that Millionaire Match needs to add (which is related to verification) are Background Checks.

For more information on this dating site for wealthy singles, read our MillionaireMatch.com Review.

Over 10 years ago Shaadi.com, the online dating and matrimonial service was born. Recently Shaadi has become available on your cell phone browser and for viewing on satellite TV. Now Shaadi.com has launched Shaadi.com Sapphire. This is a new phone service which allows singles to talk with a trained matchmaking assistant who will help them with every step in dating online. This includes writing a profile, searching for matches and replying to messages.

The service has been designed for the "busy professional" who doesn't have the time to search through all of their matches. Members can call 91-22-67752020 daily between 10am and 7pm to speak to a Matchmaking Assistant and to sign up for the service.

For the full release go to indiaPRwire and, read our review on Shaadi Matrimonial dating service for more information.

There are a few new things mentioned in a press release on Market Watch from eHarmony. They are reporting 93 percent of Brits do not believe a scientific formula can match them successfully, eHarmony hopes to change this thinking. The release also mentions there are currently 150,000 singles living in the United Kingdom registered on the U.S. version of eHarmony. Lastly, the press release mentions a few key differences in the U.S. and U.K. matching algorithm:

The OII research revealed that while the UK had many similarities in what determines a successful relationship, there were also some interesting differences between US and UK couples.

For example, married people in the United Kingdom consistently express greater satisfaction with the amount of consensus they experience in their marriage, such as the time spent together, how they get along with family and in-laws, and their sexual relationship.

Those from the United States, on the other hand, show more satisfaction with interpersonal aspects of the relationship, such as laughing together more frequently, exchanging ideas, and kissing more often.

Reuters mentions that eHarmony will reject members who are currently married (which we knew) or who have been married more than 3 times. Also, members who "are emotionally unfit to enter a relationship, such as the severely clinically depressed" will not be granted a membership. eHarmony also restated the fact that they would consider started a dating site for homosexuals but, do not currently have plans to do so.

It seems the eHarmony Cracked blog will not be updated for the next little while. The writer of the blog, Scott, needs to concentrate on some other aspects in his life. We wish him well and hope he can return to blogging soon.

As always you can find our more about eHarmony by reading our review.

Online Dating Insider recently had A Conversation with Match.com GM Mandy Ginsberg. I noticed a few points which I would like to share. First off, Chemistry.com's growth is up 11%. I believe David is referring to membership numbers but this could be revenue growth. I would hope membership numbers are up as Chemistry has been spending a lot of money lately on TV advertising.

The other point I noticed is the article mentions Match.com gets 25,000 new members a day. This is a large number but not nearly as large as what we have reported on are Online Dating Statistics & Facts page. According to our research, Match.com sees more than 60,000 new members a day. Why the difference? Let's look at the different scenarios:

Could David have mixed up his numbers (I doubt it) or did the GM of Match.com give him the wrong information?

Could they be talking about new paid members and are number refers to all register members?

Maybe 25,000 is the right number and IAC needs to update their Match.com information page. If this is true, this means Match.com now receives less than half of new member registrations than they use too. Now, that can't be good news for Match.

View our review of Match.com and Chemistry for more information in these dating sites.

The company Avalanche, which owns Date.com, Matchmaker.com and Amor.com, released a press release which reviews how these dating sites are performing this year. Avalanche's revenue grew 17% in the first two quarters of 2008 when compared to the same period last year. The release also points out increased activity on the dating sites with members logging in more often and staying online longer. This activity has been increasing by at least 3% per month since the start of Avalanche's fiscal year. In total this means a 26% increase in member activity. New subscriber numbers have also risen but no percentages where released.

With many dating sites appearing to be reaching a plateau this year thanks to in part the recent economic conditions, the Avalanche suite of dating services have been performing well. While revenue increases don't help singles directly (unless used to help improve the site) the increase in member activity does. I just wish Avalanche had released their new subscribers numbers so we had a better idea on how things look.

For more information on these dating sites read the following reviews:

• Amor.com Review
• Date.com Review
• Matchmaker.com Review