Online Dating Insider

Suppose you use one of these online dating services to find a date. What do you do next? Traditional advice is to "just be yourself."

Featured in an article at MSNBC today is a company by the name of First Impressions. You pay them $195, and you get to go on a simulated date with one of their trained psychologists.

“We’ve researched carefully what behaviors are more widely appealing to others,” [First Impressions co-founder Ann] Demarais said. “I could say, ‘Look, you might be quirky and off from the norm, and I like that,’ and so I give you a positive rating. But that wouldn't be as valuable than to say, for example, that this [behavior] is more universally appealing and you're not doing that all the time — are you aware of that? Is that the image you want to project?”

So if you're tired of just being yourself, First Impressions will help you to act like somebody else.

The MSNBC article also features other "quirky matchmaking services."

Google's new email service, Gmail, will pay for itself by displaying context sensitive ads along with your email. But it is reported by Jim Hedger at Webpro news that certain categories of ads will not be shown, including online dating ads. [link]

In reaction to our increasingly prurient culture, Google has announced several sectors that will not be allowed to target GMail recipients. GMails with words relating to sex, guns, drugs, online dating, and other topics that might offend "family values" will not have advertisements displayed in them.

I can see why ads for "sex" or "drugs" might offend family values, but I'm surprised that online dating is including in the group.

This is the question asked by reporter Katie Lietz of Purdue University's The Exponent. [link]

When professional journalists want to get an opinion about online dating, they usually call up one of the online dating services such as Match.com and speak to someone in media relations. But this college reporter took a different route, and talked to college professors.

Ximena Arriaga, associate professor of psychological sciences, said that sites like these often set people up for disappointment.

"Anyone who promises a scientific formula for finding true love is overstating," she said.

Another professor had the following to say:

Margaret Keiley, associate professor of child development and family studies, was slightly more skeptical.

"I think it’s a waste of money. It’s a way people have found to make money off other vulnerable people," she said.

Kudos to Ms. Leitz for some excellent reporting.

Associated Press reporter Rachel Konrad investigates eHarmony's patented system for matching people. [link] Yes, in May, eHarmony was awarded U.S. Patent No. 6,735,568.

Not surprisingly, critics and competitors trash eHarmony's process as overly scientific--some dismissing the "love patent" as a gimmicky marketing ploy.

Ms. Konrad talked to the author of a dating book:

"In the long run, I can certainly see the merit in a questionnaire that helps you make choices about who you date," said Robin Gorman Newman, a Great Neck, N.Y.-based dating coach and author of "How to Meet a Mensch in New York."

"But it still comes down to attraction as the first step. It sometimes just takes simple chemistry to know when you've found Mr. or Ms. Right," she added.

And finally, she gets the opinion from Match.com:

"EHarmony makes claims that their system is the most scientific approach," said Tim Sullivan, president of Richardson, Texas-based Match.com, the largest online dating service, with 12 million profiles and 1 million subscribers who pay $25 per month. "But we find these claims to be ... ridiculous at best."