Dating Sites Reviews

ChristianMingle has More than 2 Million Members

Congratulations to ChristianMingle, they recently announced that they had passed the 2 million member mark. This religious dating service was launched in 2001 and has grown into one of the largest niche Christian dating services on the internet with thousands of singles joining every day. Of course when you join, you wouldn't have access to 2 million singles actively looking for a date. This number reflects the total number of members who have joined since the dating site launched. What this number does illustrate is, ChristianMingle continues to grow and prosper. This makes it a good dating site for a person to join if they are looking for someone of a Christian Faith and/or who believes in Christian values.

A quick check on internet traffic analyzer website, Compete, shows that of all the niche Christian dating sites we have reviewed, ChristianMingle receives the most unique visitors, by far every month. Here is graph of their monthly traffic over the past year:
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eHarmony is Free this Independence Day Weekend

Not as much warning this time around, but we knew it was coming. It is official, eHarmony in Canada and the US are having a free communication weekend starting today, Thursday July 2nd, until Sunday, July 5th, 2009.

For those of you who haven't heard of eHarmony's free weekends, it means most features of the dating site are free to use for new and existing members. This includes not only getting to review your matches, you can communicate with them as well. The one thing not included is, Fast Tracking the communication process.

This is Free Communication Weekend number 18 for eHarmony. The last one was held on the Memorial Day weekend in May.

Read our ...

TinEye Image Search for Dating Photos

Do you think that dating profile picture is too good to be true? A poster in our forum name Drannik (see Post) recommends using TinEye Image Search Engine. With TinEye you can upload an image or paste a url location of the page or image and the reverse image search engine will attempt to find and return similar images on the internet. If the image is found in a number of different location on the internet then it is a pretty good chance that the dating profile you are viewing is not the person in the picture.

The image search works very well. In tests, the image search return 96 results when it searched for images similar to this test Will Smith picture I used.

Results incl...

A Website for the eHarmony Class Action Lawsuit

In April we looked at another federal lawsuit which claims eHarmony's matching system is not scientifically proven (see Story). The lawyers for the lawsuit (Lange & Koncius LLP) have now setup a website for people to get more information. You can find the website called eHarmony Class Action Litigation, here. Thanks to the unofficial eHarmony Blog for this information.

In my opinion, from all of the information I have read about dating sites, eHarmony probably has put the most effort into their matching system. They have a number of doctors on staff at eHarmony Labs who are experts in their fields of study and whose purpose is to research and improve the matching system. eHarmony spends over $3 million a year at this. While, they haven't released much scientifi...

People Media Launches More Dating Niche Sites

People Media announced a partnership with AOL Personals back in March to offer niche dating services to AOL's visitors (see AOL Personals and People Media Partner). Last Thursday at a dating industry conference called iDate 2009, they announced that they have launched 6 new niche dating sites for AOL and have also updated their existing sites with new matching and community features. The new upgrades include a smoother flowing registration process, more advance searching options and, new profile attributes and features.

Currently People Media has 27 niche dating sites which in total experience almost 4 million unique visitors per month. In April of this year, the People Media brand of dating sites had seen a 55 percent increase in traffic when compared to the same time last year. People Media's best known niche online dating sites are Black People Meet and Love and Seek.

For...

A look at matchTalk by Match.com

We talked briefly about matchTalk before in 2007 (see Story). I thought it was time for a closer look since I have seen a number of image ads lately on Match.com promoting the add-on service. The main idea behind matchTalk is to allow members to talk to each other on their own phones while keeping both phone numbers confidential. The service I believe is still powered by a well know VOIP and social messaging company called Jangl. Almost any phone can be used, including cell phones.

matchTalk works by generating a unique phone number for every member who signs up. Once you find a Match.com member who you like, you can request to add them to your matchTalk phonebook by a link on their profile. If they agree, you then can perform a matchTalk connection. You initiate the call to the person you are interested in from your matchTalk phonebook. Match.com acts like a dispatcher and then call...

eHarmony Canada Day Free Communication Weekend?

Last year eHarmony.ca had a free communication weekend, on the Canada Day long weekend (see Story - it ran from Sat. June 28 to Tues. July 1). Some of you were wondering if there is a free weekend coming up this year for Canada Day. As July 1st, 2009 falls on a Wednesday, right in the middle of the week and we have had no official word yet, I have a feeling if there is one, it will be combined with eHarmony.com and the U.S. Independence Day holiday on the July 4th long weekend.

Check back with this story Canada, and we will update it as soon as we get more information ab...

College Students are Using Dating Sites More

According to the Boston Globe young adults aged 18 to 22 are more likely to use dating sites than ever before. Some use dating sites because they are tired of the hook-up culture while others find it easier to meet people for dating than going to frat parties and bars. This group of young adults are also the first generation to grow up with social networking sites. They have probably already been using Facebook and/or MySpace for years and are familiar with how these types of sites work and how easy it is to search and find people. Dating sites like eHarmony are realizing the College age group is an untapped market for them. They recently lowered their minimum age for members from 21 to 18 (see Story).

Another popular dating site for singles in their twenties is Match.com. 13% of the over 5 million visitors of Match.com last month were from 18 to 24 years old (see ...

Kelly's Court Looks at the Match.com Lawsuit

A Fox News broadcast called Kelly's Court (clip below) looks at the case which we talked about earlier this month regarding Sean McGinn suing Match.com for what he alleges is deceptive practices. His beef with Match is mainly about them not informing members who has paid, and who has not (see Story).

Sean is the man pictured in the still of the video below and in his Match.com profile he describes himself as having a cuddly but toned bod, is down to earth, and can pull off the dishevelled bed head look. Apparently he also mentioned in emails his favorite movie is Cocktail, starring Tom Cruise. Kelly's Court must of got some inside information and/or received full access to the court documents as this information hasn't been reported anywhere else. Plus, an ext...

Legal Issues Date.com Reviewed with Virtual Gifts

Back in early February, 2009 Date.com started offering Virtual Gifts for sale to its members (see Story). Members could send virtual flowers, chocolates, etc.. to someone they wish to date on the site by purchasing tokens for $1 to $5.

The parent company of Date.com, Avalanche LLC wanted to make sure they met any legal obligations to their members when dealing with Virtual Gifts and tokens. No real laws have been made in regards to virtual gifts in most countries. The closest comparison in the real world they could find was gift cards. Lawyers for Date.com

ultimately concluded that the consumer laws pertaining to gift cards didn't apply.

Date.com decided to make purchasing of gifts as clear as possible in their Terms of Service. Specifically this mainly deals with what happens if a user doesn't use their tokens. Date.com's policy for members inacti...