Features

It seems there’s a new online dating site every time I turn on my computer. And why not? It’s a billion-dollar-a-year industry and growing, especially now that most sites are adding mobile capabilities, which are growing at an even faster rate.

So to make an entrance at this point with the saturation of the market, you really have to come in with an interesting idea. And DreamCliq has high expectations – dubbing itself as “the Pinterest of online dating.”

Users of online dating sites sometimes get frustrated and overwhelmed with all the lengthy profiles and messaging back and forth before they ever get to a date with a potential match. A simple solution: why not test the chemistry first by video chatting with each other before meeting for drinks or coffee?

Enter a new crop of online dating apps focused on video interaction. Among those making headlines in this growing field are Date.fm, Flikdate, Video Date and two new apps launched last fall -- View N Me and Instamour.

Developers of these apps saw an opportunity when they noticed how Skype and Facetime are fast becoming typical platforms for people to communicate. They figured singles would want to see if there's chemistry before spending the time and money and effort to meet a date in person. And why not do that from your laptop or mobile phone?

While it sounds great to meet a potential date through a video chat, some people aren't so convinced. Not everyone is a movie director or cinematographer who can figure out good lighting to highlight someone's most attractive features. All too often, poor lighting and strange camera angles can interfere with making a good first impression. View N Me offers tips for looking your best on video to address this problem.

Safety is another concern, and different app developers deal with it in different ways. For example, Video Date does not use phone numbers or e-mails for people to communicate through the service, and messages delete after 24 hours. View N Me offers a strict no tolerance policy for any type of inappropriate behavior on its site. Once someone is reported they conduct a review and terminate the subscription if the user's behavior is deemed inappropriate.

But the most important question for daters is: how easy is the service to use?

Date.fm works a bit like a video-enabled Tinder app. It is simple to use - the service provides general information like age and location along with photos of matches, and you can like or dislike them. If you both like each other, you are sent a notification and then can start video chatting from within the app. FlikDate touts itself as "the fastest date in the world." You simply connect with your Facebook account and play a type of video roulette, where you can chat with someone instantly, see if you click, and accept or reject your match on the spot.

It's no surprise that video dating is becoming more and more popular. People are looking for quick ways to get to know each other. But the real test for love still takes time and effort.

In an expansion to reinvent itself as a lifestyle media network, HowAboutWe announced the acquisition of long time dating site Nerve.com.

HowAboutWe caters to both singles and those in relationships with separate subscription-based memberships, one for meeting singles and dating and one that is more of a date-planning service for couples.

The addition of Nerve.com means HowAboutWe is acquiring Nerve Dating and a database of singles who had already been using the service. Members will be automatically rolled in to the HowAboutWe for singles service, and offered a free sixth-month membership to try it out.

Nerve.com's main attraction was not its dating site, but the edgy content of its online magazine, with articles that discuss all things sexual and offbeat. HowAboutWe will be doing a redesign and relaunch of Nerve.com, though they haven't announced what that would include or how much (if at all) the content focus will change. The strength and appeal of Nerve is the brand itself, which has been around since 1997 and was one of the first web-only magazines.

HowAboutWe is focused on becoming a media powerhouse as well as an online dating service. Its roster of online magazines also includes Swimmingly.com for couples and Famously.com for celebrity news and gossip, both of which were launched the last week of January. Also under the HowAboutWe media banner is TheDateReport, which centers around dating and the single life and will also get a fresh redesign by HowAboutWe.

Brian Moylan, a former Gawker writer who has been editing TheDateReport, is now editor-in-chief of the new HowAboutWe Media, which includes all four sites.

The founders of HowAboutWe are purposeful in their media pursuits: they recognize the competition in the online dating industry, where IAC owns the majority of branded dating sites such as Match.com, OkCupid, and a number of niche sites like BlackPeopleMeet and OurTime. But these dating sites are specifically geared towards singles looking for dates. They want HowAboutWe to be a destination for people not only to meet each other, but for singles and couples to get news, advice, and also ideas about what to do together and how to nurture their relationships.

With the new sites and new content, HowAboutWe is also hoping to cash in on new advertising revenue, instead of just relying on subscriptions.

"Every lifestyle publication is speaking, in one way or another, to people and their love lives," HowAboutWe co-founder and co-CEO Brian Schechter told Observer.com. "We think that there's actually a huge opportunity to address that consumer demand as opposed to just circling around it."

You might have heard by now that eHarmony has added a new personal service to their dating website membership options called eHarmony+. For a mere $5,000 per year, you can get the added benefit of personalized counseling with a real-life love counselor (who is also a professional therapist).

What prompted this move by eHarmony is another interesting story. According to a recent interview the website conducted with actor/ producer Ben Stiller, his new movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty may have something to do with it.

Producers worked closely with eHarmony while developing the movie, since the dating service plays a large role in the storyline. One of the characters written into the story is an eHarmony relationship counselor who helps Mitty with his online dating profile. The movie depicts a counselor who seems to be on call around the clock for Mitty (to answer such urgent questions as "should I send her a wink?" in the middle of the night).

Before the movie's release, eHarmony offered only traditional online dating services where people create their own profiles, fill out questionnaires and are matched by computer algorithms as opposed to actual people. But as eHarmony staff worked with producers on the script, they decided to make changes to the actual service, so that it provided customized help like it does in the movie (making it a more accurate depiction).

eHarmony's vice-president of customer experience, Grant Langston, tells The Hollywood Reporter, "As I read the script, I realized it couldn't be accurate because that's not the way we model our service. EHarmony is a self-serve model." So, they decided to make changes in time for the movie's release so that premium members can now receive one-on-one counseling.

Interestingly, this wasn't a paid advertising opportunity for eHarmony. In fact, Langston says on eHarmony's website that they paid no money to be part of the film, that writers included it as part of the script from the beginning. Instead, they were on the receiving end - asked by producers whether the script depicted the service accurately. Because it wasn't a true depiction, instead of changing the script, Langston saw an opportunity to create an eHarmony that was more like the one in the movie, that provided members real human counseling.

"We discussed internally asking them to change the film to suit the real eHarmony user experience - people take the relationship questionnaire, get matches, go through guided communication, etc.," Lagston says on eHarmony's blog. "But where's the drama in that? Would it be interesting to watch Ben Stiller quietly answer questions and communicate with matches? It would not."

Langston says, "I was asked to lead the effort to build this new product and once we started to discuss it, I began to understand Walter's attraction to this version of eHarmony. You're talking to a human being who cares about your success. That's nice. This person is reaching out to you and listening to your feedback. Who wouldn't love that?"

To learn more about this service you can read our eHarmony review.

Think Tinder is only about hooking up? Not so much. The app is now venturing outside of being a dating app and into the friend zone.

The latest version of Tinder (on the iPhone) keeps the same basic functionality of choosing each potential date based on a photo and a few bits of information gleaned from Facebook. But this time, you aren't just rating a date, but a potential friend - also with one swipe. Once you and your platonic interest have selected each other as friends, you can add each other to your "friend" list and be able to chat via Tinder. (I'm guessing you can swap notes on people you are hooking up with.)

The list feature in the latest version of the app allows users to customize according to how they want to categorize the people they've approved/ met over Tinder. Maybe according to city where they live, hair color, or height? If you are spending a lot of time meeting people on Tinder, it's a good way to keep everyone straight.

Another addition to 3.0 is the ability to add up to six profile photos, so you don't have to rely on just one to prove how hot you might be. (All photos are visible at the same time, so you don't have to worry about which one potential matches will see first.) Tinder has also improved its algorithms so that you end up with more accurate potential matches.

Founder Sean Rad told website TechCrunch that "eventually, Tinder will create automatic, dynamic lists for users, based on its relevancy algorithm and user preferences, location and interests." In other words, Tinder will notice where you are and who you are interested in (and for what purpose - dating, friendship, work, etc.) and become smarter about sending you matches based on your past swiping preferences.

But the ability to distinguish your Tinder contacts into categories that suit your life - dating, work, or friendship - is a huge breakthrough according to Rad.

"You have certain co-workers, acquaintances, and whatnot, and it would be socially awkward if you added them on Facebook," Rad says in TechCrunch. For instance, if you were to come across a co-worker or colleague on Tinder, you could swipe right and be added to each other's business contact or friends list. It replaces the Facebook dilemna of whether or not to add someone when there isn't much of a personal connection - and perhaps there are some things you post that you don't want them to see. "That's the breakthrough with Tinder," he adds. "That signal has been gone until now."

It turns out Oscar Wilde was right when he wrote "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life." At least, he was right about eHarmony, a century before the dating service even existed. Believe it or not, eHarmony's newest matching service, eH+, was inspired by Hollywood.

In 2012, Grant Langston, eHarmony's Vice President of Content and Customer Experience, was given the script to a new film called The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He'd been given the script because 20th Century Fox had written eHarmony into the story, and wanted the company's cooperation in making its fictionalized service as accurate as possible.

Langston found that the eHarmony portrayed in the movie was nothing like the eHarmony he knew in real life. Once he discovered that Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig would take on the starring roles, he knew something had to be done. He couldn't let such major movie stars, who were bound to draw a large audience, promote an incorrect version of the website. Instead, he saw the film as an opportunity to launch a premium service within eHarmony and make the real-life dating service match up with the one that moviegoers would see on screen.

So eHarmony set out to build the service that was written in the script. In the film, Ben Stiller's Walter Mitty character speaks on the phone with his "eHarmony counselor," who guides him through the process by helping him to build a great profile and coaching him when he hits stumbling blocks. It didn't take long for Langston to see the value in offering a similar service on the real site.

"I began to understand Walter's attraction to this version of eHarmony," he wrote on the company blog. "You're talking to a human being who cares about your success. That's nice. This person is reaching out to you and listening to your feedback. Who wouldn't love that? Your counselor is helping you avoid the pitfalls that are common problems for many people. It's like having a guardian angel!"

The new service was christened eH+ and ideas quickly began flowing. "What if eH+ users were FREE from having to log onto the computer? FREE!" Langston continued. "What if eH+ users could avoid rejection? WHAT?! That's like fat-free bacon. What if eH+ users had a level of privacy virtually unknown in the online dating world?" They may not be things Walter Mitty needed in the film, but they were certainly things that real-life users would love.

And now, when moviegoers leave the theater after seeing The Secret Life of Walter Mitty this winter, they will be able to sign on to eHarmony and receive the same exclusive service as Ben Stiller himself.