General News

I usually don't post much about non-English dating sites (since I don't speak any other language, except a little French), but it looks like German online dating services are doing just as well as North American sites, according to Just 4 Business. German online dating sites generated 85 million Euros in 2007, a 27% increase from 2006. Jupiter Research has predicted 103 million Euros for 2008.

Well, I finished updating the price lists for this year, for all the dating reviews (about a month late). I really should put all this information on one page to make it easier for people to do comparisons. I have actually been planning to do this for a while. What I want is to make a very detailed Dating Site Comparison Chart that is database driven so it will allow visitors to select multiple dating services and do side by side comparisons, plus some other neat things. Of course, the time to implement this functionality is what is holding me back at the moment. Anyways on to the few other tidbits I notice while checking out prices:

I had to rub my eyes and refresh the browser page for this one, the gay dating site, Outpersonals only has 3 or 12 month membership plans. Where is the one month? Currently a 3 month membership costs $49.96, so I guess Outpersonals are trying to see if they get more singles signing up at 3 months to offset the cost of losing the ones who only wanted to signup for one month. A mistake on there part in my opinion. The more active profiles a dating site has, the more members they will attract.

I also notice that UK Singles Connection have cut their membership costs in half. In October 2006, 1 Month cost £10.99 per month. Now it costs £4.99 (From $20 US to $9.99 US). A 6 month membership is down to 3.99 pounds. It looks like they are really trying to bring in new members with this price cut. I'm not sure if it is working since there where not meny members online when I was reviewing the prices. I'll have to check out some other UK dating services again.

For the other missed tidbits see: A few Dating Site Missed Notable Tidbits from the last year.

Our Dating Profile Help Category is looking rather slim of late. I'm looking to doing a couple of reviews on several different dating profile writers. This review will be in the same format as our dating sites. It will offer a summary as well as some positive and negative points (if any) about your service. An option for visitors to post their reviews of your website will also be present.

If you are interested please contact me and include your web sites and some before and after samples. I'm only looking for 2 reviews here for now, so not all applicants will be accepted.

Something I have never really thought of came to my attention a couple of days ago. The Wall Street Journal has a piece about singles stealing parts of or in some cases the entire profile of singles from dating services. In most cases this comes down to either the dating profiles heading or the profiles essay answers which usually includes such topics as describing who you are looking for in your own words. The article post examples of where even the opposite sexes have stolen entire profiles and which they had only just changed the gender information.

Headlines of profiles I have less issue with and in fact profiles with the same headline most likely happened more by accident. There are only so many ways to sum up yourself in one sentence. It also can be hard once you see a good headline to get it out of your head when you are trying to think one up for yourself. Plus, headlines like "Must Love Dogs!" are important. If the person wants to be with someone who loves dogs then reusing the same headline doesn't create any real problems (unless of course, the profiles come up next to each other in the search results). If the headline is from someone's profile who lives a fair distance away or from another dating site and, you can't think up one yourself that is similar then, I would go ahead and use it.

Profile essay are by far the hardest part to write of any dating profile. Especially, if writing is not your strong point. It's a lot easier for some people to just cut and paste this part with someone else but in the end they are not doing themselves any good. I find these essays are a good tool to help you reflect on who you are actually looking for. Even if you are a poor writer this is a useful exercise. Once written you can then review it with friends and family who could then help you rewrite it. If this is not an option, there are also a number of inexpensive profile writers available online that could help you (type "dating profile help" into Google Search). Some of the larger dating services like Match.com also offer a profile review service for an additional cost.

A Press Release by Date.com talks mainly about the results of a poll Date.com conducted on their dating site (seems like these days everyone will release a press release about anything). The poll asked female members if they would wait for Mr. Right to come along to get married, and then have children or would they have children without the commitment of marriage. 58% of the respondents said they would not wait with only 42% saying marriage should come first.

The release never mentioned how many actually took part in the poll but I am surprised by the results. I would have thought that at least 75% of people would have wanted to wait until marriage before having kids. Every one of my friends would only want children after they are married so I am a little sceptical of these results. I have a feeling ,surprising results like this gives companies an excuse just to post a press release. Another example of this is, Chemistry.com survey.

I saw a TV ad for eHarmony last night advertising a Free Communication weekend for all new members to celebrate Valentines Day. This promotion is for singles both in Canada and the US. It starts Friday February 15th 2008 and goes to Monday February 18th, 2008. To receive this promotion all you have to do is sign up as a member (no special promo codes).

eHarmony usually doesn't have many free communication weekends but within the last few months they have had two already (the last one being during the [story: News-eHarmony-Free-Trial-2008 New Years Eve Weekend]). Remember this promotion is for new members only so if you have signed up already to eHarmony, you probably are out of luck.

For more information, please read our eHarmony Review.