eHarmony

Greg Waldorf has been with e-Harmony since it launched in 2000. He was one of the founding investors. By 2006 he was named e-Harmony's CEO. In the 3 years that Greg has become CEO, e-Harmony went from being a U.S. based company to offering services in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom (with more countries on the horizon). The interview at Electronic Retailer Magazine asks Greg several questions about himself and e-Harmony, these include:

• What was e-Harmony's past and future marketing plans.
• What type of modifications has happened with the compatibility test over the years?
• What makes e-Harmony stand out from all the other dating services?
• Have social networking sites hurt business?
• How has the dating site evolved with the technology over the last 9 years?
• What is e-Harmony doing different to weather the global recession?

A few interesting facts were also mentioned (quoted from article):

• e-Harmony's first known success couple was married on May 17, 2001.
• The oldest woman to find a spouse on e-Harmony is 85 years old, married November 13, 2007.
• The youngest woman to find a spouse on e-Harmony is 22 years old, married May 26, 2007.

Check out the February cover story on ElectronicRetailerMag.com for the complete interview and read our e-Harmony review for more information on this popular dating site.

Usually Perfectmatch gets all the sweet media deals in movies and TV's when it comes to online dating sites (Dancing with the Stars, Must Love Dogs, etc..).

According to the unofficial eHarmony Blog, eHarmony will be the company who is the main sponsor of the The Newlywed Game TV show which is set to premiere April 6, 2009 on the Game Show Network. It is hosted by Carnie Wilson (her father was in the famous group, the Beach Boys). There are 40 episodes in the series and with the new retooled show, comes a twist. The winning couple of each episode will have a bonus round at the end of the show were they go up against a Goldwed couple. This is a couple that has appeared in a previous episode of the show that ran off and on through the 1960's up to the 1990s.

For more information on this popular dating site, read our review of eHarmony.

eHarmony never wanted to open Compatible Partners but as specified in the terms of a settlement in November 2008, they must open a dating site for gay people by the end of this month. We have been told that the site will work like eHarmony's current site which involves a long profile questionnaire to help in the matching process. At eHarmony you do not search for other singles. All matches are given to you by the dating site. As far as we know there have been no plans to update eHarmony's matching algorithm to take into account the differences in a gay relationship for Compatible Partners.

It will be interesting to see how popular the new dating site will get. It has gotten a lot of media attention but delivering a product for this type of niche never was a goal for eHarmony. I don't see why a gay single would want to join?

When Compatible Partners goes live, we do plan on doing a review, so stay tune.

Update: Check our our new review of Compatible Partners.

I have to admit I didn't notice the change.

Back in 2007 eHarmony decided to stop using the TV commercial format that they have been using successfully for the previous 5 years. You know, the one where several couples are used to talk about dating and eHarmony in the same commercial. Greg Waldorf, the CEO of eHarmony though it was too superficial and decided to focus just on one couple per ad. This way the one couple could go more in-depth about what makes eHarmony a great dating site. The other ad format was very successful for eHarmony, but Greg wanted to see if the new formula would create even greater success. By March 2008 the new format commercials were created and the Canadian market was used as an initial test. The commercials were well received and instead of the new commercials airing in June 2008 for the US, it was pushed up one month, to May.

From the commercials I have seen, for the most part the new ads are still pretty similar to the old ads. You still have the white background and the same type of music. The couple speak like they are answering questions from an off camera person and in this way they provide information for the viewing audience. This is very similar to how the old commercials worked. The only thing different is when the camera switches shots, it just focuses on the same couple again to rely more information, instead of a different couple like the old commercials.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal. For more information on this popular dating service, read our eHarmony review.

This is a story from a couple of weeks ago that got lost in the shuffle. In December MyShape.com partnered with eHarmony. MyShape provides customers with a selection of clothes based on your bodies key measurements, along with your fashion tastes. Business has grown quickly for MyShape and since last year their customer base grew 5 times. Currently they have over 500,000 customers and in September repeat business was 50 percent. With these statistics in mind, eHarmony decided to add a date planner section to their eHarmony Advice website. MyShape's date planner role is to help people figure out what to wear on dates.

For more information on this popular dating site, read our eHarmony review.

Pasadena Weekly recently received a tour of the Pasadena-based dating website, eHarmony, and in particular eHarmony Labs were they develop the matching algorithm used by the dating site. eHarmony Labs is the research arm of the dating site. Here they:

are committed to investigating and understanding what makes relationships successful through rigorous scientific methodology.

Their mission is to conduct and support research on relationship processes using academic researchers and by gathering their findings through an established scientific process. Since eHarmony Labs has come into existence a number of studies from eHarmony's research has been submitted for peer review and has been published in such prestigious publications as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see APA Online).

As online dating has become more mainstream, dating sites have been under increased pressure to divulge how their match systems work. eHarmony has taken a bold step with eHarmony Labs. From here you can see what the Lab is currently up to, who works there and, what the current relationship studies are about. You can also take part in several online studies and even take part in research in person (if you are eligible). Some of these studies even allow you to make a bit of money. While they only tell you in broad strokes how the eHarmony matching system works (by matching personality traits, values, attitudes and interests), from eHarmony Labs you can tell the company is serious about figuring out what makes a successful relationship and by applying this research to matching singles together.

So, take the tour with Pasadena Weekly and find out more on how some of these relationship studies take place and about the researchers behind them. For more information about eHarmony, read our review.