Online Dating

The well-known dating websites PlentyofFish.com and True.com are being sued for using someone’s image in the marketing messages used to promote their sites without permission. Although the practice of using images belonging to others with their consent takes place every day on the Internet, it’s the context here that has turned with issue into a PR nightmare for these leading dating brands. The image they used in their promotional material was that of Army Lt. Peter Burks, who was killed in Iraq in 2007.

The photo used was taken from the non-profit website, the Unsung Hero Fund, created by the family of Lt. Burks. The charity was started soon after Peter Burks’ death and sends care packages to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Allegedly the dating sites had an advertisement that displayed Lt. Burks’s photo with the headline “military man searching for love.” Both sites stated that they have taken action to deal with the matter.

While I’m sure this issue will blow over and will not hurt either brand in the long run, I believe there’s something to be learned from this incident. Many dating sites use photos in their promotional messaging to show potential customers a ‘sampling’ of the types of singles they can meet on their sites. From a marketing standpoint, this seems like a logical technique since people want to know who they can expect to meet once they sign up for a dating site subscription. But as a customer, once I see a photo of someone that catches my eye who I can meet on a particular dating site, I might be inclined to sign up and search for that person. So if marketers place photos of people that are not real customers and are nowhere to be found on their sites, it’s deceptive to consumers. The fact that in the case of Lt. Burks it was allegedly done with a fallen war hero obviously makes it all that much worse. But either way, it’s wrong.

I hope all the dating sites out there learned a lesson from this incident and will check to make sure that images of users they claim are their members are indeed active members. But as consumers we must be aware that deceptive advertising is alive and well, so let’s all exercise a bit of caution when responding to marketing messages.

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and while some of us may be floating on air, others are dreading the pressure of buying the perfect gift or watching while everyone else receives one.

I hereby apologize to those consumers out there searching for the perfect gift for the picky significant other in your life: We just can’t help you. Try searching the internet and you’ll find loads of recommendations and advice about picking the perfect Valentine’s Day gift and I don’t need to repeat them. Anyway, with the weekend almost here, your shopping time may be running out. Most importantly though, getting the right gift is about showing how well you know your valentine and (as great as our research can be) we just can’t do that for you.

Instead, we’re giving some tips to the singles out there. The blog on chemistry.com is providing some great ideas for how to pamper yourself on Valentine’s Day, because there’s no reason you should miss out on the fun!

Just think about the kind of things you would do for someone else on Valentine’s Day, and then turn the tables. For example, breakfast in bed is a classic romantic idea but chemistry.com suggests getting yourself a fancy cupcake and having dessert for breakfast. Fresh flowers can brighten up your home no matter who buys them. Try lighting some candles, picking up your favorite book and lounging in a bubble bath. As the blog’s author points out, there’s a lot more space to stretch out without having to share.  It’s also a great opportunity to go on any outings you’ve been dreaming of, like taking a spa day or signing up for a class which can be done on your own or with a group of friends.

That brings me to another idea. Remember in kindergarten when you made Valentine’s cards in school to bring home to your mother? I think it’s time to go back to that tradition. Let Valentine’s Day be a time to appreciate the special people in our lives, even if there’s no romantic attachment. Surprise your best friend with a delivery of balloons, cook a special dinner for your roommates, or regroup with a sibling by trying out a new restaurant together.

Valentine’s Day can be special no matter who you spend it with, so don’t let the holiday pressure you into anything impulsive. There’s plenty of time until Valentine’s Day 2013, so spend the year finding new ways to meet people,  choose the best online dating site for you, and be smart about making the most of this Valentine’s Day and next year’s!

If you’ve been following our blog, you know that even the Department of Homeland Security is involved in online dating safety. Now lawmakers are getting involved. Illinois may be following in the footsteps of Texas and New Jersey with new legislation that would require online dating sites to publicize clearly on their site whether or not they do background checks and if members who are found to have a police record may be in the dating pool. They would also be required to prominently post safety warnins and tips, reminding users not to give out financial information or home addresses and to use caution despite the use of background checks. Companies that provide misleading information or not enough information about their practices could be fined up to $50,000.

A number of the major online dating sites already perform background checks, including eHarmony and Match.com. If the bill passes, eHarmony will simply add the text that is required to the pages seen by members from Illinois zip-codes. The information is already included on their Terms & Conditions page anyway.

Of course, this would not be foolproof.  A man recently accused of sexually assaulting two women he met on a dating site has no criminal record and would still have been allowed on the site without any problems. In fact, some members of the Illinois legislature said that they would not support the law unless it required sites to use the most thorough background checks available and others are concerned that the new measures would allow people to drop their guard.

So the message seems to be fairly clear- no matter whether or not the law passes (if you live in Illinois), be cautious. This kind of legislation can help to make dating sites into safe environments, but it’s up to the users themselves to keep their eyes open and use common sense.

What do you think is the most unlikely organization to show at an online dating conference?

Alright, the Department of Homeland Security may not be the most unlikely but it’s definitely at the top of the list. The information was announced by Ticonderoga Ventures Inc., a sponsor of the iDate Super-Conference. Tom Miller, chief of communications for the DHS United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) will be speaking about deceptive dating tactics in a panel discussion on January 24^th. The session is meant for the operators of dating sites to help them prevent fraud.

Mr. Miller is an expert and this appearance is just part of a larger campaign called “Stop. Think. Connect” meant to promote online security.

I for one, find it encouraging. It is nice to know that dating security is in the hands of such authorities on online safety. As it is, dating is an experience to make even the most confident person feel vulnerable and it is comforting to know that someone else is providing protection from fraud. All online daters have to worry about is finding Mr./Ms. Right.

Of course, even with the help of experts like Mr. Miller, it’s worth doing some research yourself. Check online for warnings and safety tips and don’t be shy about reporting anything suspicious to the site’s operators. They all offer some form of personal support and can give you advice if you’re not sure how to proceed.

This is also a place where Consumer-Rankings.com online dating privacy and security reviews can come in handy. There we list the measures that each of the top sites lets you take to protect your privacy, including hiding your profile and location, blocking members and contacting other members from hidden numbers.

Read up on each one before making your choice and between your own precautions and the efforts from experts, online dating can easily be both safe and fun!

What time of year do you think that online dating profiles skyrocket? If you guessed Valentine’s Day then you were close, but wrong. The correct answer is in between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The numbers aren’t in for this year yet, but last year Match.com Canadian membership jumped by 50% on the day after Christmas alone and Plentyoffish.com has already reported a 15% increase.

A lot of experts in the field have given their researched opinions on why this is true, but we’ve decided to give you our un-researched guesses.  The following is what we came up with, and we’d be happy to hear your ideas.

1. Mistletoe
2. That midnight kiss on New Year’s Eve
3. Time spent with smug married siblings
4. Parents who want grandchildren
5. Time off from work, leaving too much time to revel in loneliness
6. “It’s a Wonderful Life” and similar movies, leaving us with a void of warm-fuzziness
7. Cold winter nights
8. The prospect of no date for the office holiday party
9. The view of Valentine’s Day on the horizon
10. Promotional prices from online dating sites taking advantage of people already vulnerable due to reasons 1-9

That’s a lot of pressure to join the wave of online daters but don’t let the holiday season rush you. The experts we mentioned early also point out that if you don’t have a date for December 31^st by now, it may be better to take the opportunity to meet new people, rather than spend New Year’s Eve with someone you only have lukewarm feelings for. So take your time, check out Consumer-Rankings reviews of dating sites and do things the right way. The mistletoe is coming down any day now, so don’t let the pressure get to you.

When a friend offers to set up a blind date, the question is always how much you trust this person’s judgment. We all know people who equate loud with friendly and sarcastic with smart, so it can be hard to accept other people’s impressions.

But would you accept a computer’s?

Linguistics researchers at places like Columbia and Stanford are developing computer programs that may be better at reading people than even other people. Dr. Julia Hirschberg of Columbia is programming computers to break down speech to find signs of lying, while a professor at the University of Southern California is teaching them to recognize anger.

Ok, so the computers will probably never be able to help men understand women and vice versa, but they still could help clear up some of those interactions too. Dr. Dan Jurafsky, of Stanford has been analyzing the language used by speed daters. He’s working on identifying qualities like friendliness and flirtatiousness.

Dr. Jurafsky says that the goal is to build systems that can understand emotions from speech. But some people are suggesting that this type of research may have practical uses. For example, an online dating site could recommend a potential match as friendly or not, based on recorded sample conversations.

In an ideal world, maybe this would work and even be helpful. But I don’t think that most of us would be able to trust it. The same friend who thinks loud equals friendly might think “This person’s not friendly! Just look at how quiet he/she is!” and give up on trusting the computer for good.

We all have some strange definition for a quality that we admire and look for in a date and most of us probably have no idea what it is. What I see as defining friendliness, kindness, intelligence or humor may not be how the rest of the world, or a computer, define them.

Online dating services sometimes cater to very specific niche markets. And I understand that this is very important for people looking for a partner who shares a meaningful value or lifestyle: religion, political activism, or even something like vegetarianism. But recently, a new site has opened up called The Big and The Beautiful, which caters to “curvy” women.

Its founder, Whitney Thompson, is a plus-size model and was the 2008 winner on America’s Next Top Model. She says that she saw the need for a site like this through her own online dating experience, when she could describe herself as a model and see men’s disappointment when they met her or call herself a plus-size model and not get dates in the first place.

The appeal is understandable. We tend to assume that men see big as a bad thing but this site allows women to celebrate their larger size and expect the men they meet to be celebrating it too.

But it’s those same men who I would be worried about. Thompson claims that the company carefully sifts through profiles to make sure that they are not simply men with fetishes for large women. But I’m not sure that’s really the problem.

We’ve all heard “If he can’t see how wonderful you are then he doesn’t deserve you” and there’s truth in that. It hurts to be ignored because of your physical appearance. Men who do it miss out on a lot of smart, fun, kind women. And who wants to date a guy who’s willing to forego that stuff anyway? If a man is limiting himself to plus-size women, he’s just as much choosing a body type over a personality type.

However, I could be starting with a false premise: That the goal of being on a dating site is to find a long-term relationship. The Big and The Beautiful does allow users to specify if they’re looking for that or just a fling. If the relationship you’re looking for is purely physical, then there’s no problem with a guy who really appreciates your individual style of outer beauty. So I guess this is a great opportunity to let loose and appreciate curves for their own sake.

When subscribers to online dating sites become satisfied customers, they tend turn into brand evangelists for whichever site helped them find their partner. This is naturally understandable since meeting a life partner for the mere cost of a dating site subscription, around $20 a month, seems like such a great deal that satisfied customers are often overwhelmed by feelings of gratitude towards the site that made it happen. That’s why it’s somewhat surprising that results of a recent survey conducted by SeekingArrangement.com suggest that some happy customers are unwilling to share their experiences with friends and family. These findings were much to the chagrin of SeekingArrangement.com CEO, Brandon Wad, who awkwardly labeled the problem as “customer selfishness.”

Of the 500 satisfied customers they polled, 38% stated that they would keep their positive experience with this dating site a secret. That 38% is broken down to into those that are embarrassed of using a sugar daddy site (18%), and those that want to keep their success a secret from their friends so that they do not end up competing with them on the site (20%). When first hearing of this, I was puzzled since the larger dating sites have numerous satisfied customers vouching for them publicly.

Then it occurred to me that I missed a very obvious point. This poll was taken of “satisfied customers.” If that’s the case, then why in the world would someone that has found a match be worried about competing with other subscribers of this dating site? Once one of these “satisfied customers” ends up in a relationship, one would think they would close their online dating subscription. The fact that after they have already met someone, 20% of these customers claim that they do not want to compete with other singles on this site is indicative of the type of members often found on sugar daddy sites like SeekingArrangement.com. Many of the subscribers on these types of sites are specifically looking for short-term flings. What separates the sugar daddy niche of online dating from the adult dating niche is that sugar daddy members prefer relationships primarily based on money to those based solely on intimacy.

While I don’t judge sugar daddy sites or their users, I do question how Mr. Wad did not see this coming. A site dedicated to connecting people that want to use each other should anticipate that a large segment of its customers may have selfish tendencies.

You sit down, join an online dating service and are now faced with a myriad of personal questions that you need to answer. How will you properly represent yourself without seeming boring or going on for too long? Let’s face it; it’s a fast paced world out there. Few people have the patience or the time to sit and read endless paragraphs about your personality. In order to maximize the amount of appropriate visitors that contact you through online dating services, follow these 7 steps below.

Be Informative:
Think about this scenario; a guy/girl sits down at the computer, signs on to their online dating service and searches for certain criterion that bring up your name. He/she then clicks through to your profile only to find that your age and location are missing. It’s extremely important that you fill out the entire questionnaire and answer the questions as thoroughly as possible. This way it’s easier for people to determine if your profile meets what they are looking for.

Add a Photograph:
Research has shown that putting a photograph in your profile increases the number of replies you’ll receive by 10 times. If you have more than one photo it’s even better. Wouldn’t YOU rather see what you’re date looks like before saying yes? Also, remember to upload a recent photo, and even update the photo every couple of months so there are no surprises when you meet in person. Try and give the same consideration to others as you would yourself.

Skip the Checklist:
Everyone has a checklist of things they would love their partner to have. However when writing a profile, try and skip this list. It’s nearly impossible to find someone with all the qualities you are looking for, and having this checklist may serve as a turnoff to someone reading it. After a few dates with a person, you can easily determine most of things on your checklist anyway. Why lessen your chances before you’ve even had a first date.

Don’t be Aggressive:
Sometimes you can’t tell the tone of a message when its text based. Even if you meant to be funny and cute, you should try and save the sarcasm and aggressiveness for your face to face interactions.

Be Truthful:
No one likes a liar; and it’s definitely not in your best interest to start off your relationship with a lie. Even if not all your attributes are positive there are ways to show yourself in a better light without lying. For example, say you would describe yourself as a neurotic person but you’d rather not publish that. It’s better to write you are an ‘overachiever’ than writing you are a relaxed person when indeed you are not. The person sitting at the other end of the table will be able to figure that out soon enough on their own. However, writing the word ‘overachiever’ puts your neuroses in a good light while maintaining your truthfulness.

Respond in a Timely Fashion:
If you are someone that is truly interested in dating then there is a cardinal rule you should know about. RESPOND QUICKLY! If someone contacts you, and you are not interested, you should give them the courtesy to know so they can move on to someone else.

Be Positive:
The more you project a positive attitude, the more people will be attracted to you. Make sure to smile in your photo and respond to replies in a cheerful way. Remember, sometimes getting a date takes some time, but if you stay positive everyone will benefit!

Writing a well thought out profile is something you’ll have to do if you want to successfully enter the world of online dating. It can be tedious and difficult, but if you follow the steps above, it will make the process more enjoyable and increase your chances of getting replies. Finding someone special takes times but once you find the ‘one’ you’ll say it was worth the effort!

If you’re starting to panic because Valentine’s Day is only a month away, you’re not alone.  You may feel isolated, but there are actually thousands (and probably millions) of single people out there, just waiting to be found.  That thought in itself might be overwhelming…but I digress.  With a month to go, you’ve still got PLENTY of time to find some great to spend this romantic day with – and perhaps to spend the rest of your life with.  Here are five ways to kick your love life into gear in time for Valentine’s Day.

Try out a new online dating site. Haven’t been successful with the online dating site you’ve been using thus far?  Now’s the time to try a new one!  If you’ve been using traditional online dating sites unsuccessfully, trying a personality-matching site may be just what you need.  Or, if technology hasn’t yet sent you the mate of your dreams, why not take matters into your own hands?  If you’re skeptical about investing more money into internet dating sites, read reviews or start with a free trial.

Volunteer.  Volunteering will make you feel good about yourself, which will make you more attractive to potential partners.  And, while you’re serving food to the poor or visiting sick people, you may just expand your social circles and meet someone equally benevolent that you can spend Valentine’s Day with.

Try blind dates – again. If Jenny McCarthy’s recent admission on The Ellen DeGeneres Show is any indication, blind dates are back in, and they can be successful.  If you haven’t let a friend set you up in a while, now might be the right time to try again.  With a month to go, ask four friends to set you up on blind dates.  Then hope that one of them might be a winner!

Go shopping.  While shopping with friends definitely offers some social value, the benefits stretch far beyond a few hours of chitchat.  When you have new clothing, you just feel better about yourself, and this confidence can work wonders for someone who is depressed before Valentine’s Day.  Plus, this will give you something new to wear on the plethora of blind dates that might be coming your way.

Engage in self-introspection. If you’re having trouble understanding why your past relationships have failed, it may be time for some self-introspection.  Whether you’re hoping that true love will come via online dating site or while you’re waiting online at the grocery store, you’ll have better chances of success if you’re truly in-tune with who you are as a person and what type of partner you’re looking for.

If you open your mind and your options you may find your soul mate before Valentine’s Day.  But even if you don’t, chances are good that you can find a partner to share the holiday with, and one that may eventually become the long-term companion you’ve been dreaming of.