Category: eHarmony

Modern Matchmaking, with the Old Prejudices

Posted on June 4, 2007

Chemistry HERALD NET — June 4 — Last month Chemistry.com took on eHarmony with ads featuring men and women wondering why their applications were rejected by eHarmony. The ads note that eHarmony has rejected more than 1 million people who are "looking for love." eHarmony tried to get the commercials pulled. eHarmony acknowledges that it has, in fact, rejected 1 million people. Marrieds, under 21s, inconsistent answerers, those under 60 who’ve been married more than four times, and anyone who might suffer from severe depression. And, gay people are turned away. Now, a Northern California woman sued the dating service, alleging it discriminates against gays. The site must either serve everyone, or quit pretending that it does.

Mark Brooks: Here’s the links to the Chemistry.com vids…, Dear John, Small Things, Still Gay, Five for Free, How Happy

eHarmony Accused of Excluding Gays

Posted on June 1, 2007

Eharmony_6REUTERS — June 1 — eHarmony (founded 2000, 12m users) was sued yesterday for refusing to offer its services to gays, lesbians and bisexuals. A lawsuit alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of Linda Carlson, who was denied access to eHarmony because she is gay. Lawyers bringing the action said they believed it was the first lawsuit of its kind against eHarmony, which has long rankled the gay community with its failure to offer a "men seeking men" or "women seeking women" option. They were seeking to make it a class action lawsuit on behalf of gays and lesbians denied access to the dating service.

The full article was originally published at Gulf Times, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Match.com's ad program for Chemistry.com sure sparked a fire. I wonder how far it will burn. Patrick is welcoming eHarmony gay member-denials with open arms at myPartnerPerfect.com.

Which Dating Sites Affiliate Programs Convert the Best?

Posted on May 28, 2007

OPW — May 28 — These are the conversions for the affiliate programs that Online Personals Watch makes money from. The period is for March 21st 2006 through March 21st 2007. I only list the affiliate programs from which Online Personals Watch generated more than 1000 unique click throughs for. Here are the top converting programs ranked by the earnings per unique. Affiliate links for these sites appear in the left bar in the form of industry rankings, and from links from posts on OPW.

  Dating site Affiliate
System		 Total Commission Total Uniques Income per Unique
#1 SexSearch In House   $1,200 3018    40c
#2 TRUE Primary Ads   $1,926 5368    36c
#3 Yahoo Personals Commission Junction   $1,430 5303    27c
#4 PerfectMatch Commission Junction   $267 1221    22c
#5 eHarmony Commission Junction   $465 2678    17c
#6 AdultFriendFinder In House   $1,017 10271    10c
#7 Match Link Share   $464 6113    8c
#8 AmericanSingles Commission Junction   $200 2912    7c

 

eHarmony Labs Offers Free Relationship Check-Up

Posted on May 25, 2007

Eharmony_6PR NEWSWIRE — May 24 — The new relationship tool helps couples identify the strengths and weaknesses of their relationship while providing them with personalized tips on how to improve those areas of their relationship that will bring them closer together. Available at http://www.eharmonylabs.com. The Relationship Check-Up was specifically designed for couples in a serious relationship, 3 months or longer. Each partner answers a 60-item questionnaire and then receives instant access to their assessment results and relationship advice. eHarmony Labs is led by a team of five Ph.D.s with expertise in the fields of psychology, sociology and human relations. eHarmony Labs Advisory Board includes: Thomas Bradbury, Ph.D. (UCLA), John Cacioppo, Ph.D. (University of Chicago), David Kenny, Ph.D. (University of Connecticut), Bruce McEwen, Ph.D. (Rockefeller University), and Linda Waite, Ph.D. (University of Chicago).

The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.

eHarmony’s Launches Premium Personality Profile

Posted on May 18, 2007

Eharmony_6_2PR NEWSWIRE — May 16 — eHarmony now offers an expanded version of the free profile providing members with a greater understanding of how their personality facets impact personal relationships. The Premium Personality Profile provides an individual with analysis of 15 additional aspects of personality not found in the basic profile such as social awareness, inquisitiveness, and adventure and is available for $9.99 for subscribers. The Premium Personality Profile was developed by eHarmony Labs and is based on a study of ~ 10,000 people.

Mark Brooks: eHarmony is facing more competition from Chemistry.com and need to squeeze more revenue out of their existing userbase. Add-on sales are more important to the industry these days. Just take a look at Match.com’s sign up process now. You can buy Dr Phil’s MindFindBind guidance service ($7.99/mo, $22.32 for 3 months), MatchTalk ($5.99/mo, $17.18 for 3 months), Email Read Notifications ($3.99/mo, $11.44 for 3 months), and a Highlighted Portrait ($2.84/mo, $8.15 for 3 months). On top of that Match has a few coregistration partners that they are earning a buck or two per registrant from.

Does eHarmony Offer Same-sex Matching?

Posted on May 18, 2007

Eharmony_6 EHARMONY BLOG — May 17 —

  • No ‘eHarmony’ for gays, by C. Seely, Southern Voice, Dec. 19, 2003
    The matchmaking site doesn’t allow same-sex couplings because some members could be “turned off” by references to “MSM [men seeking men]” or “WSW” on the site, according to Dr. Steve Carter, director of research and product development. “A lot of the core audience for the service are the Christian religious conservatives who would be turned off.”  The “phenomenon” of gay singles who want to find long-lasting relationships through the site is “relatively recent” since the site’s inception in 2000, Carter said.
  • Love Machines, by Jennifer Hahn, LA CityBeat, Feb. 23, 2005
    … Marylyn Warren denies that eHarmony’s exclusion of gays and lesbians has anything to do with its founder’s religious principles. “We just don’t want to be involved in something we don’t know anything about. Our goal is to create good heterosexual families, I guess.”
  • eHarmony: Heart and soul, by J. Kornblum, USA Today, May 18, 2005
    Warren says eHarmony promotes heterosexual marriage, about which he has done extensive research. He says he does not know enough about gay and lesbian relationships to do same-sex matching. It “calls for some very careful thinking. Very careful research.” He adds that same-sex marriage is illegal in most states. “We don’t really want to participate in something that’s illegal.”
  • My date with Mr. eHarmony, by R. Traister, SALON, June 10, 2005
    “First, we’re into marriage,” Warren said, pointing out that gay unions remain illegal in almost every state. “Where Focus on the Family and a lot of these other places come from is that there are six places in the Bible that say homosexuality is wrong,” he said. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. But then he continued: “On the other hand, in the Old Testament if you work on the Sabbath day and you’re guilty then you should be shot.” I was surprised to hear him play out his internal debate so openly. Warren brought up his best friend’s daughter, a lesbian who has two children with her partner. “She’s a dear person to us, and a very strong spiritual person,” he said. “And when I start seeing things like that, I think we’ve got to start to think about that maybe this can work.”

The full article was originally published at eHarmony blog, but is no longer available.

Chemistry.com in Spat With eHarmony.com

Posted on May 17, 2007

Chemistry THE WASHINGTON POST — May 16 — A name-calling catfight, complete with accusations and counter-accusations, has broken out between eHarmony.com (13 million registrants since 2000) and an offshoot of Match.com over a subject familiar to any luckless dater. Rejection. Chemistry's (2 million registrants since 2006) TV commercials and magazine ads feature young men and women wondering why their applications to join eHarmony were turned down. No fair, says eHarmony, concerned that its rival's ads suggest that eHarmony is being arbitrary or discriminatory in turning people away. It wants Chemistry.com's ads changed or dropped. eHarmony’s legal counsel, Lanny Davis (who spun the media for President Bill Clinton during his “relationship problems” with Monica Lewinsky), last week asked NBC and People magazine to stop running Chemistry.com's current ads, or at least insist on some fine-print qualifiers about what “1 million rejected” really means. (As of Friday, NBC hadn't responded to Davis; People magazine said that it wasn't taking sides in the feud and that it would continue running the ads.) eHarmony turns people away for controversial reasons. One is being gay. CEO, Greg Waldorf says eHarmony's matching system is based on psychological research about heterosexual relationships. Because it doesn't have similar data on gay people, he says, the company isn't confident that it can offer successful matches to same-sex couples. “I'm not saying anything precludes us from going into the same-sex market in the future,” he says, “but it's not a service we offer now.” Firing back, eHarmony accuses Chemistry's parent company of hypocrisy. It notes that IAC made formal overtures to buy eHarmony in 2004, but a deal never came off.

Mark Brooks: These days the best kind of advertising spawns press, word-of-mouth, and riles up the competition. Match.com has kicked off on every level with their campaign. This year we should surely see a free version of eharmony startup. Perhaps the fresh faced (new) Mary.com or LTR.com, or the current dominant free dating market leader PlentyofFish.com. Beyond that, MyPartnerPerfect.com is due to launch shortly as the quality, long term focused, personality profiling, all gay matchmaking site, headed by the young Patrick H.Perrine.

Love at First Site

Posted on May 9, 2007

Lovescience_openSUN JOURNAL — May 6 — "Imagine if we could lower the divorce rate by 1 percent, all the lives that would be impacted by that," said Galen Buckwalter, a former professor of psychology who is eHarmony's VP R&D. It may take a generation to figure out whether any of the Web sites will succeed, but in the meantime they are collectively engaging in a social experiment of gargantuan size. Ultimately, they may prove whether or not science has a role in the most unscientific realm of all – love. Anthropologist Helen Fisher, scientific adviser to Chemistry.com, said psychologists have understood for years which relationships work and which ones don't. People who share culture, economic status, education and religion fare much better than people who are different. Fisher, a professor at Rutgers, thinks it's genetics. Genes for dopamine are associated with motivation and curiosity, genes for serotonin are linked to stability. Testosterone is related to drive and spatial abilities. She theorized that people have different levels of those body chemicals that put them into four broad personality types. The profile on Chemistry.com is designed to assign people to one of those four. PerfectMatch relies on a combination of similar and complementary traits to predict long-term compatibility, but not instant attraction. The Duet Compatibility Profiler focuses on eight personality characteristics, including romantic impulsivity, energy and outlook. Compatible couples should match on four of them. eHarmony based its matching system on what 5,000 happily married couples had to say about why their relationships withstood the test of time. eHarmony's system does not identify what he called "the click," the spark that leads to romance instead of friendship. They're working on it.

The full article was originally published at Sun Journal, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: A top 10 dating site will be launching a personality profiling system to rival Chemistry, PerfectMatch and eHarmony shortly. Email me at mark@onlinepersonalswatch.com for first notification. The announcement is on embargo.

Dating Site Takes On eHarmony Discrimination

Posted on May 3, 2007

QUEERTY — May 3 — Believe it or not, gay men and women actually find longterm lovers via the web. eHarmony refuses to help them. Founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren claims that since eHarmony's a "marriage" based-site, they can't cater to the homos. Homos, of course, can't legally marry and eHarmony goes by the book: The Bible. Now another dating site's looking to fill that gaping hole. 

The full article was originally published at Queerty, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Actually, from a matchmaking perspective, eHarmony has a good point. Gay matchmaking requires a gay perspective and a profiling system more tailored towards gay relationships. Enter Chemistry.com and the more targetted gay-only, MyPartnerPerfect.com. Founder/CEO Patrick Perrine personally offers matchmaking services to complement the sites standard matchmaking.

Dating Site Takes On eHarmony Discrimination

Posted on May 3, 2007

QUEERTY — May 3 — Believe it or not, gay men and women actually find longterm lovers via the web. eHarmony refuses to help them. Founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren claims that since eHarmony's a "marriage" based-site, they can't cater to the homos. Homos, of course, can't legally marry and eHarmony goes by the book: The Bible. Now another dating site's looking to fill that gaping hole. 

The full article was originally published at Queerty, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Actually, from a matchmaking perspective, eHarmony has a good point. Gay matchmaking requires a gay perspective and a profiling system more tailored towards gay relationships. Enter Chemistry.com and the more targetted gay-only, MyPartnerPerfect.com. Founder/CEO Patrick Perrine personally offers matchmaking services to complement the sites standard matchmaking.