General News

Online Dating Insider got the scoop on the news regarding the improved search features of Yahoo Personals. Some of the new search and matching features include:

• One Click, We Match - Displays singles who meet your matching criteria as well as you meeting their matching criteria.
• One Click, I Match - Displays singles who are looking for someone whom you match with but not necessary fit your matching preferences.
• Search Filters - Available on the top of search results which allow you to further refine the search based on such characteristics as how new the profile is and when the last time the Yahoo member was online.
• New Search Results Interface - A two column display is now available which allows for an increase number of profiles visible per results page.

Dating sites at their core are about matching people. These new features of Yahoo Personals will make it easier but still keep the complexity to a minimum for the user. As reported [story: News-Yahoo-Personals-updates-service before], I am glad that Yahoo has gone ahead with continuing to update their dating service. For more information on Yahoo Personals, read our review.

TechCrunch have posted a rumor from what they call a reliable source that the FriendFinder Network of sites has been acquired for $1 Billion. In an update to this rumor the buyer is reported to be Penthouse Media Group. The FriendFinder Network of dating sites includes AdultFriendFInder, Passion, Senior FriendFinder and over 15 other different types of dating services. The article further reports that rumored revenues for the Network is over $300 million a year which makes this acquisition worth about 3 years of revenue.

Is this a good deal for Penthouse? Could be, the FriendFinder dating sites have always done well financially and they don't seem to be slowing down. At a cost of 3 years worth of revenue seems a little on the low end to me but most likely there is more too this deal than we know about (if it actually is true!).

The online dating site ChristianCafe.com have added some security and preference features to their Edit Profile page. Members can now disable new mail notifications, prevent singles from sending you winks and from seeing your city in your profile. This Christian dating service also allows you to disable certain hot lists statistics like hiding the fact you have viewed a members profile or preventing friends from knowing you have added them.

For more information, read our Christian Cafe Review (ChristianCafe.com).

Seattlepi.com did a piece on a facial recognition from ActiveSymbols called Eyealike. This technology is able to gather the properties of a face from a picture. Such facial traits would include hair color, location and spacing of eyes, and skin tone. Company President Greg Heuss hopes this technology would be used for online dating to allow singles to search for a match by just a picture alone. He also sees applications in homeland security and video copyright protection.

While I find this type of technology neat I feel its use is very limited in online dating. It's much easier and faster to get the member to fill out the physical attributes of his or her profile than to try and get them to upload a photo that meet the necessary requirements for the software to be able to gather the information. This technology works best when the photo is something like a passport photo, which is fine for the software but usually is not very flattering for someone trying to find a date.

Try out a beta version of Eyealike and find your Dream Date or Celeb Match.

We have just annouced our first Award in this years Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards. The award which is announced is our Editor's Top Pick Over All dating service. This is the Editor's highest award. In the coming days and weeks we will be releasing the names of our other award winners in some dating categories along with the top award (which is decided by you by the poll on our home page), the Single's Choice Award.

For more information on this award, who won and the reason why, read 2007 Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards - Over All.

Update - More Awards have now been announced, check our Awards topic for more information.

Spark Networks just released their third quarter financial results. Spark Networks owns AmericanSingles.com (there flagship dating service), Date.ca (for Canadians), JDate.com (Jewish Dating) and a fair number other specific niche oriented dating services. With most of their dating services membership numbers holding steady, JDate.com saw an increase in paid members by 3% for a total of 74,078. This shows well for the service in this increasingly more competitive niche market. Overall Spark Networks have a healthy bottom line and will continue to be one of the driving forces in internet dating.

For more information on the dating services which Spark Networks owns, see our reviews of AmericanSingles.com, JDate.com, and Date.ca.