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The eHarmony Facebook Fan Page has received several updates over the last few weeks. We first talked about this Facebook page in early November (see Story) and since then, the Celebrate Love Tab has seen a major overhaul. In the initial weeks, the Fan page was all about the Wall and people submitting success stories. This was in response to good marketing by eHarmony and spurred on as well by a weekly contest being held for Amazon gift cards.

With thousands of fresh success stories on their hands, eHarmony got their Social Media Specialists (there is a job opening for this at eHarmony) working to condense this information onto the Celebrate Love Tab. There is now a news section, a Fan Gallery and a "Meet Our Feature Couples" box on this tab. Clicking on the "Meet Our Feature Couples" box enlarges it and allows you to view a number of enhanced success stories of couples. There is a detailed description, tons of photos and even videos.

Other dating sites need to take a look at what eHarmony is doing here, it is a well executed marketing campaign that has engaged Facebook users. In the news section of Celebration of Love, eHarmony announced that they are launching a new ad campaign that will be on TV soon. I bet they will mention the Facebook Page.

You can find the eHarmony Facebook Fan Page here. To find out other details about this dating site, including costs and what is involved in creating a profile, read our review of eHarmony.

Edward Butler, a senior analyst at IBISWorld, used Australian Bureau of Statistics data and industry surveys to review and crunch data on the global sex services industry. He determined that the $1.2 billion industry has seen a 6 percent ($74 million) decline since the global financial crisis started. Brothels, tobacco and alcohol are usually recession proof but that doesn't appear to be the case this time.

Some analysis like Butler think that the popularity of adult dating sites have taken business from the sex industry. Adult dating sites make it easier for consenting adults to be frank about what they want and need in terms of sex. It has never been cheaper for like-minded individuals to organise casual liaisons with the rise of adult and casual dating services.

About 1.5 million men and women now have accounts in Australia with sites such popular dating sites as RSVP, Match.com and eHarmony. Most of these singles are not looking for casual sex and are intent on finding a partner for a long term relationship. Adult FriendFinder, one of the more popular casual sex dating sites reports on having just over 892 thousand profile listings from Australia.

For more on the story, read The Sydney Morning Herald.

Have you ever been rejected by eHarmony? According to a recent article you are not alone, about 20 percent of people who sign up for eHarmony are ultimately rejected. (see Story) Have you ever wondered why? Here are a seven confirmed reasons why:

1. The main reason people are rejected by eHarmony are if they are still married or separated (but not divorced). Earlier this year if you entered one of this options as your Marital Status you where told this right away by eHarmony that they don't allow married people to use the service, but now I see they let you continue on with entering your profile.
2. This is related to point 1, if you answer that you have been married for more than 2 times (this may now be 4).
3. If you entered" I am a Man seeking a Man" or a "Woman seeking a Woman" would also get you the boot. This happened before eHarmony opened their same sex dating site called Compatible Partners. Now, you will get redirected to Compatible Partners.
4. Your answers don't jive. This actually happened to me. Randomly selecting your profile answers may speed up answering the questionnaire but it will most likely get you a rejection notice. A simple test for this one is to enter you are a Man seeking a Woman on the eHarmony homepage and then on the first section and question of the questionnaire confirming your gender as female.
5. Age. According to eHarmony's Terms and Conditions of Service " You must be at least 13 years old to use the Site (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction, if it is older), and at least 18 years old to register for the Services.".
6. That you have been convicted of a felony. While eHarmony does not conduct criminal background screenings, they do reserve the right to conduct such checks by using available public records. This one won't get you rejected right away but if someone complains about you, and they do a little digging and find a criminal record, you may get served a notice of rejection.
7. As reported by a number of other blog sites (I never did find the source), eHarmony will reject you if you score low on a number of different traits or dimensions. These can include your emotional status, character, conflict resolution and several others.

The Unofficial eHarmony Blog sure knows how to dig for eHarmony news. They found this banner on the eHarmony US website:

under the URL "http://www.eharmony.com/static/images/diamondgiver/banner/".

From this banner it looks like eHarmony is creating marketing material for a possible new personalized matchmaking service where eHarmony Matchmakers select matches for you and possibly setup the dates (my thinking on this). All this is speculation, but it does sound close to how the China dating site Zhenai.com operates (see Story). They have a 350 matchmaker call center which sets up dates for clients.

The service looks to be called eHarmony Personal Matchmaker Service but the above banner image was found in a directory called DiamondGiver. In the service industry Diamond usually means the highest quality (and most expensive) service. We didn't see the word Diamond in the image so once again we are just speculating.

Match.com has done this type of service before in which eHarmony may be getting into. They called it Match Platinum (the old Platinum service not the new one, see Story). This Match.com service was only available in Texas and was not tied directly to the Match.com dating site. Match Platinum offered customers a one on one matchmaking service but it has since been shutdown (RIP 2006-2008).

To find out what other think about this dating site, check out some eHarmony reviews.

Oops, eHarmony.co.uk got into a little trouble with the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for a TV campaign which aired in 2008. The TV commercial in question shows 8 couples who me on eHarmony. A voice over states during the commercial:

It’s no surprise that over 4 million Americans get married each year. But what might surprise you is that 2% of those newlyweds said they met on eHarmony. And now we’re in the UK.

A total of 5 viewers challenged the 2% of marriages eHarmony claimed to be responsible for, and a further 3 complained about the "significant conditions" needed to receive free matches.

The ASA ruled that the eHarmony ad was misleading because it had made an absolute claim on the statistics in the ad and the dating site also failed to make it clear that 20% of all visitors who attempt to sign up to the service are disqualified. To fix this problem eHarmony plans to indicate that the statistics mentioned in the advertisement are the results of a study done by Harris Interactive in 2007. eHarmony will also further explain that to receive free matches new members must fill out a in-depth questionnaire and fall within the required age range and marital status.

For more on the story, read Marketing Week. To find out more about eHarmony, you can read our review.

There is not much to this Economist article but it does offer a few interesting statistics on the UK online dating scene.

Did you know 5 million singles visited British dating sites in September, 2009? On average about 4 percent of people have used a dating site in Europe. In Britain, online dating is twice as popular with 8 percent of the population having visited a dating service.

This is probably one of the main reasons why eHarmony now operates a dating service in the UK. Since it opened in June of 2008 eHarmony.co.uk now has more than 500,000 singles registered with them. To find out what makes eHarmony a popular choice among singles, read our eHarmony Review.