General News

This months National Geographic Magazine (Feb, 2007) has an interesting statistics page on Singles in America. According to the article (and the U.S. Census Bureau) depending on what side of the Mississippi River you live on will increase your chance of finding a mate. Western urban areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles tend to have many more males than females. Females tend to out number males in eastern cities like New York (185,000 more), Washington, Chicago and Miami.

One reason for this is that 58% of college students are female, and a large portion of these colleges tend to be in the east. Once graduated more females tend to join the white collar workforce in big cities, while men tend to rely more on agriculture or cities with booming construction sectors like Las Vegas.

The Valentines Day promotions have started. Date.com is now offering singles 1 month free when you sign up as a new member. Just click the coupon on the left to visit Date.com to start searching for singles today. As always, a free basic membership is offered that allows you to check out the service and search for matches first, before paying for a full membership

For more information on this dating service read our Date Review (Date.com), which also includes reviews and ratings by other singles.

Update: March 26, 2007, The above mentioned promotion is now over. Date.com's current promotion is a limited time, Free full membership, where you can try all features, including communicating with other members for 7 days at no cost.

Well I have added CAPTCHA functionality here at Dating Sites Reviews. This means when you create a new user or add a comment or forum post (just as anonymous user) you will be presented with a graphical representation of some numbers and letters. You will need to type this sequence in correctly before you will be able to submit your post or user information.

Unfortunately I had to do this since I was getting over 30 SPAM comments and forum messages a day (people where trying to sell everything). All this SPAM was not helping the forums since those where the messages most visitors were seeing the most (since they where the newest posts). It also started to get time consuming for me logging in every few hours to delete 4 or 5 messages.

Hopefully things now can get back to normal.

Thanks

Admin

Match has completely updated their site with a new modern look for 2007 along with launching a new dating ad campaign to match. They have also added several new features which will help the online dater in their quest to find their partner. These features include Email Read Notification (an excellent idea), matchWords (a type of keyword description search tool), and a Portrait Tool Kit designed to help singles create stunning photos and get better results. To get more information please read our Match Review (match.com).

Spark Networks, one of the leading providers of dating services such as AmericanSingles.com and Date.ca have upgraded their Chatting and Messaging tools last month to include live and anonymous calling. "Anonymous calling gives singles an additional channel for communication, while games allow our members to get to know one another in a fun, low pressure way." stated Greg Liberman, President and Chief Operating Officer of Spark Networks. These online communication tools are part of Userplane WebChat applications, the technology behind AOL Messenger.

Adding web games to the mix seems like an interesting idea, especially if you have voice communication while playing the games. I'll have to check this out in more detail soon. I'll update the American Singles Review (AmericanSingles.com) and Date.ca Review (Date) with my findings.

Here's an interesting twist from eHarmony,

eHarmony Marriage

This online service is almost a year old and is designed to help couples achieve stronger, healthier and happier marriages. It is built around the idea of marriage wellness, every marriage needs a small amount of ongoing care to thrive and grow. Underscoring its commitment to building happy and lasting relationships, this marriage wellness service helps marriages flourish by empowering couples with the knowledge and tools to build a deepened sense of understanding, appreciation and connectedness.

There are a couple of programs to choose from. The first one called Couple Marriage Profile offers a customized marriage report based on a questionnaire you fill out as well as a positive, non critical assessment on how to improve your marriage. The second program called Couple Marriage Complete offers more, such as a guide book and online videos. There is a free trial and eHarmony does offer a 30 day money back guarantee if you don't see any improvements.

I haven't tried these programs so I can't personally recommend them but eHarmony has helped countless singles in the online world so I am sure they are on the right track with eHarmony Marriage. You can get more information on this service at eHarmony Marriage. For more information on eHarmony Dating see are eHarmony Review.