LA TIMES – May 14 - Some psychologists and sociologists who have studied usage habits on Twitter, Facebook and dating sites say there's little correlation between how people act on the Internet and how they are in person. "I don't think that you could have any type of accurate personality analysis based on what people are writing in their Twitter streams. Probably the same case goes for Facebook statuses as well," said John Grohol, an online mental health expert and founder of PsychCentral.com. "It could be the opposite. It could be that the shyest person is the person who tweets the most," Grohol said. Online, people tend to exaggerate their personas because they have much more time to revise and calculate the content they present than in spontaneous face-to-face interactions. FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES
Category: Outlets – LA Times
Matchmakers Thrive Despite EHarmony, Match.com
LA TIMES – Feb 14 – "Matchmaking should have been dead by now," said Mark Brooks of Online Personals Watch, a site that's been tracking Internet dating since 2004. Instead, the opposite has happened, he said. Matchmakers not only have survived but are thriving, having been aided and legitimized by the entity that was supposed to have killed them off — the Internet. Like social networking, which had many dating industry experts inaccurately predicting the demise of paid Internet dating sites, Internet dating hasn't killed matchmaking, but fed it. In fact, the three go hand in hand, leading relationship-minded singles to ever higher levels of paid service. Though social networking sites such as Facebook may bring people together and do it for free, there's no guarantee that those brought-together people are available and looking for a relationship. Matchmakers charge $1,000 to $100,000, depending on the exclusivity of the service, the number of matches and how willing they are to go the extra mile.
"You're the therapist, the mother, the best friend, the sister, the nonsexual girlfriend. You have to be everything," said Patti Stanger, star of the TV series "The Millionaire Matchmaker" and proprietor of the L.A.-based Millionaire's Club matchmaking service. Stanger charges men $25k+ a year and female "millionairesses" $55k for 28 months of unlimited introductions. (She finds her female clients take longer to match.)' "
Increasingly, Internet dating is bringing in a matchmaking component. Match's Daily 5 delivers "five matches based on our prediction of which two people would most want to engage in a conversation together," said Match CEO Greg Blatt. Another matchmaking feature called Singled Out, is for "when we have a match with a stronger likelihood of connecting and want to highlight that to our users," Blatt said. "A lot of people put their relationships on the wrong course because they select the wrong people," said Gian Gonzaga, senior director of R&Dfor eHarmony. "A lot of the things that are powerful forces for initial attraction are different from what makes a relationship successful."
"Women are very attracted to the [matchmaking] concept because it's private. They can't be browsed," said Julie Ferman, founder of Cupid's Coach in Westlake Village, a matchmaking service that charges $2,500 to $25,000 annually for an average of 2.2 introductions per month and takes both women and men as paying clients. Matchmaking is strongest among thirty-, forty- and fiftysomethings, according to Ferman. Her average client splits the difference at a median age of 46 and makes at least $50,000. There's thousands of singles using hundreds of matchmakers — eLove, It's Just Lunch, the Millionaire's Club.
It's worth dropping $5k to $10k on a matchmaker if you've got the cash and are looking for a serious relationship, but online sites that charge or have extensive questionnaires can also be a good option, Brooks said. Nonetheless, matchmakers may not have many prospective dates for men in their 20s or women in their 60s, he added.
"The Internet dating services are flawed because they lack service — they have great price, great choice, but not a lot of service," Brooks said. "The matchmaker services are severely flawed because they lack choice."
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Make It Personal, Keep It Real – Experts Share Advice
LA TIMES – Feb 14 – "Keep profiles brief and specific. Leave the novel at home. Don't put pictures of you and your pets or children. Don't post party photos."
— Julie Spira, author of Cyber-DatingExpert.com and the book "The Perils of Cyber-Dating"
"It's great when people put five or 10 pictures of themselves that depict things they love to do, pictures that communicate your personality. It's about making it personal [with] adjectives, interests, descriptions and honesty."
— Bob Holden, EHarmony's VP North America
"You should always have one close-up to the face. Post three to five photos. Also run 50 or so through HotorNot.com [and let people vote] for which ones score the best."
— Mark Brooks, editor at OnlinePersonalsWatch.com
"Get a friend to help you write it. Be honest about who you are and what you're looking for."
— Greg Liberman, president and COO, Spark Networks
"If you start on a date with a picture from 10 years ago and you've gained 10 pounds or if you have a lot less hair now, you're starting on false assumptions. Your profile should be three paragraphs. It should be a conversation piece."
— Whitney Casey, Match.com's relationship expert and author of the book "The Man Plan."
"The more someone knows about you, the less they want to date you. If you write a massive essay, they're going to find something to dislike about that person. If you don't know something, everyone assumes you're the same as them. Let everything else come out during the dates."
— Markus Frind, founder/CEO of PlentyofFish.com.
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Finding The Right Online Dating Service
LA TIMES – Feb 14 – Piper Jaffray Investment Research predicted U.S. spending on online dating would reach $1.7 billion annually by 2013, and $1.2 billion was spent in 2008. The Internet is essentially the world's largest bar, explains Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch. The first step is figuring out which nightspot is for you: There are those with no cover charges, PlentyofFish and OKCupid, and hookup spots Fling.com and OnlineBootyCall.com. There are "theme nights" geared toward particular interests, such as BikerPlanet.com, and "neighborhood watering holes" based on religion or culture, such as JDate or AsiaFriendFinder. There's comfort in name recognition from eHarmony and Match. Or get a yenta through eLove.com.
"One of our more popular sites as of late is DateaCougar.com," says Stephen Ventura, VP of First Beat Media, which owns GothScene.com, BikerPlanet.com, FitnessDates.com and others. Want a dash of romance with your social networking? Brooks says to look to Zoosk. It syncs with a users' Facebook's profile page. Spark's Kizmeet is attempting something similar. Still, Brooks says it's unlikely that social networking sites will kill the online dating market. "If people are anonymous, people tend to be more aggressive and more outspoken," he says. "On an Internet dating site, if you want to cut somebody off, you can easily. When you're on a social network, you have to be [polite] because their friends are watching."
Match.com's mobile members alone grew 250% from 2008 to 2009, says Whitney Casey, Match's relationship expert. Industry experts Brooks and CyberDatingExpert.com's, Julie Spira also praise GPS-based mobile applications like Skout and Foursquare. "I'm looking forward to people using Internet dating on the iPad," Brooks adds. "You can look up a profile very easily on that format. The iPhone is still a phone." Spira says to look to webcam dating sites, Speeddate.com or WooMe.com. Hitwise reports that visits to free dating sites like PlentyofFish rose 19% over the previous year.
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eHarmony Launches Gay Matchmaking Service
LA TIMES — Mar 30 — eHarmony agreed in November to start the dating service as part of a settlement with the New Jersey attorney general in the wake of a discrimination suit. Dating site consultant Mark Brooks says Compatible Partners will be watched closely. "This will be one of the most scrutinized products in Internet dating," said Brooks. "They will have to introduce an A1 product." It's not a comfortable fit for eHarmony's founder, Neil Clark Warren. "I never had a gay couple." Brooks thinks Compatible Partners could be a winner. "Niche products are proving to be very effective," he said. "People are more likely to connect with a brand that serves it, specifically." FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES
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Ashley Madison’s Secret Success
LA TIMES — Jan 10 — Ashley Madison caters to people wanting to have an affair and claims 3.2m members. Noel Biderman, self-described happily married father of two, started the company in 2001. Biderman explained that in hard economic times, a lot of people who've been planning a divorce suddenly cannot afford one. He believes that hearing about the service in a commercial is not going to persuade anyone to have an affair. "It's a decision they've come to already. All I'm saying is, don't do it in the workplace where it could result in someone losing their job, don't go to a singles dating service and lie about your status, and don't hire a prostitute. FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES
Marriage Matchmaking Going Strong Online
LA TIMES — Jan 3 — Biodata is used primarily by South Asians in arranged marriages and emphasizes compatibility, education and family history, including caste. There are also physical factors such as complexion and blood type. Although biodata is associated primarily with arranged marriages, the increasing popularity of matrimonial Web sites, such as matrimonials.com and southasiancupid.com, has prompted some singles to post their own information. Serving as their own matchmaker may carry a whiff of desperation. Parents often post matrimonial ads.
The full article was originally published at Seattle Times, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: BharatMatrimony and Shaadi are the big Indian matrimonials sites.
The Dangers Of Romantic Comedies
LA TIMES — Dec 29 — A Scottish university issued an alarming news release warning that romantic comedies "may actually damage your love life" by raising unrealistic romantic expectations and setting them up for a lifetime of disappointment. In the movies, new relationships are portrayed both as exciting, as most tend to be, and offering the intimacy that usually takes years to develop in real life. Past transgressions are easily forgiven. (You cheated on me with the mailman? Big deal! I still love you; let's live happily ever after!) And finally, older, more committed relationships are frequently portrayed in a negative light, with couples bickering and backbiting. More often than not, married couples are depicted as long-suffering. FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES
Mark Brooks: Internet dating sites can help the cause by educating users, resetting expectations and making better matches. There are a host of dating sites offering up personality and compatibility profiling tests now. They use a range of sciences to do so. eHarmony is led by a clinical psychologist, PerfectMatch by a sociologist, Chemistry by an anthropologist and even Plentyoffish.com has jumped on the bandwagon and has recently started having all new users go through a page of profiling questions. (Full Disclosure: POF is a client of Courtland Brooks)
No Recession For Online Dating Sites
LA TIMES — Dec 28 — Online personals websites are experiencing a major boost. Craigslist personals postings and eHarmony.com registrations have each seen 20% increases in 2008. Match.com's memberships were 22% higher in Dec than they were in Dec '07. Both eHarmony and Match.com reported especially high traffic on days when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted. Money worries are even making them more picky. While Match.com reported a 50% increase in profile views from Nov to Dec, a recent survey of 1,500 members found that 84% of them were "being more selective about first dates." Wendy Rice, a 33-year-old chef from Hollywood, said she'd also experienced an unusually high frequency of daters playing "chicken" with the bill. FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES
eHarmony Agrees To Provide Same-sex Matches
LA TIMES — Nov 19 – eHarmony will begin providing same-sex matches under as part of a settlement with New Jersey's Civil Rights Division. Under terms of the settlement, the company can create a new or differently named Web site for same-sex singles. In addition, eHarmony will pay the division $50,000 to cover administrative costs. It will pay McKinley $5,000 and give him a free one-year membership to its new service.
The full article was originally published at LA Times, but is no longer available.