General News

Lavalife is in the midst of testing their new site for older and senior singles called Lavallife Prime. Officially to launch on May 23, 2007, Lavalife Prime looks to combine social networking (friends and interest groups) and online dating. They plan to offer people the freedom to add to your profile any life experiences, goals and interests you have along with any audio, pictures and videos that go with it. An interesting idea, most social networking sites are geared towards the younger generation, I wonder if this will be the one for the older?

Currently you can only create a profile on Lavalife Prime. You will have to wait to May 23rd to be able to log in and try it out.

According to this article on BrandWeek True.com has caught over 25,000 sex offenders and felons who have tried to registered. I've always wondered how many people their system has caught. I was never able to find a number about this on True's web site. I've always liked this feature of True and it is a first good step in having a safer online dating environment. I am surprised that the other major dating services have never offered something similar.

Read more about True on our review.

I Just saw my first TV ad for Chemistry last night. I was expecting a commercial that just explains the merits of Chemistry's dating service. I was surprised to find that they also mention some negative points regarding eHarmony, such as there policy against accepting gay members. I must admit, I have always viewed this gay member policy of eHarmony in a negative light. I realize eHarmony is a Christian based dating service but some Christian faiths have excepted gay people for who they are. People who are offended by someone's sexual preference wouldn't even know about there existence on eHarmony since, eHarmony only shows you members who are your match. Members are not allowed to search for other members.

Online dating competition with the major players is definitely getting much more furious this year. I wonder what will be next and if eHarmony will respond.

Lavalife released a Press Release yesterday, regarding their 20th Anniversary. Way back in 1987 Lavalife got its start as a company called Teleclassifieds started by 5 young Toronto based entrepreneurs. I didn't realize that Lavalife had been around for so long (mind you in other forms) but I must send out a congrats to these fellow Canadians. It says something about the service Lavalife offers and their ability to stay in the top ten of dating sites for a better part of 20 years.

For more information regarding Lavalife read our review.

As discussed in our forum topic here, True.com has for a while now, been auto generating winks for their members. When signing up for True you can disable this feature but it is enabled by default. The selection box is located near the Terms of Service check box on True's sign up page.

Is this a good idea? Does it help get people interacting on the site or is it a ploy to just get non-paying members to sign up? I personally don't like it, and it definitely should not be enabled by default. This "feature" probably costs True more in bad press than it provides with new paying members.

While I was over at Chemistry checking out some review information I notice that they have revamped their home page. It looks like they have added a new dating blog called The Great Mate Debate where Chemistry relationship experts can blog away about online dating, relationships and of course Chemistry! After looking over the blog I found it to be well laid out, with some interesting articles. Most important their Experts actually have half decent resumes that deal with relationships and advice. A lot of so called relationship experts on other blogs are experts just because they put the word expert after there name.

Of course Chemistry isn't the first be any means to add a relationship blog. Relationship blogs has been popular for a while with other dating sites and some have taken the form of more a online magazine than a blog. What's the difference? The main difference really is the style of writing. Blogs usually have a more journal like feel to it's writing. Blogs also tend to allow users to comment on their articles more than the online magazines do.

Here is a list of some blogs and magazines from other popular dating sites:

• Date.info
• eHarmony Labs
• FriendFinder Magazine
• True U