Here I sit, with Dave, about to enter the stratosphere: blogging. Why? Because two years ago Match.com came to me to design a new dating site, Chemistry.com. You fall in love for many reasons, but among them is certainly chemistry. And today 91% of American women and 86% of American men would not marry someone unless they are “in love” with them–even if this person had every single trait they were looking for in a mate. The Zulu and the Eskimos agree with us. Around the world people want what the Chinese call “free love,” they want to pick their partner for themselves.

As an anthropologist, using what I know about you, and me, and all the rest of us, I have designed a site that matches you not only by the standard means of similarity in background and good looks, but also by your chemistry. I believe I can help you spark that madness– and if the chemistry is right, keep that euphoria percolating for years. But as Mae West said, “its better to be looked over than overlooked.” You have to get out there. Come see me at Chemistry.com. As has been said, “love wins; love always wins. ”

chemistry.com, Dating Site, Dr Helen Fisher, guest+ editor

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When you're starting Online Dating Business you plan to profit from it in most of the cases. There are several ways to earn: users' membership and advertising.

The first variantis the most common and includes prices for various levels of memberships depending on permissions list. Average prices are about 10- 15 USD and they are higher with a larger set of permissions.

Some Dating Site administrators take payments monthly, others yearly (or choose some other periods). Sometimes the amount differs only in the time period of being a member. Anyway, to make people interested in such system type site administrators should provide security, flexibility, user- friendly interface and attractive communicative features like Chat, messengers and others. I don't even mentionsearch optionsas initially people come to a Dating Site to find a sweetheart or so. The larger database you have the better.

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Singles starting the New Year with the resolve to find love may have to be wary of the false-hearted. One quarter of singles believe it's acceptable to tell a little white lie when dating online, according to a recent survey by Engage.com, the Internet's first online relationship site where singles connect naturally by inviting their community of family and friends to Play Matchmaker(TM) for them.

The Engage.com "Manners and Behavior" survey of more than 600 single adults shows that 24 percent of respondents believe it's all right to lie when dating online; more men than women (30 percent versus 19 percent) of the total respondents think untruths are suitable.

According to survey respondents,income (21 percent) is the chief topic that singles say it's ok to tell a little white lie aboutin an online dating profile, followed by weight/body type (16 percent); and age (14 percent). The stated desire for a relationship and height was equally cited by 12 percent of singles.

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Jessica Mintz at Businessweek shines a spotlight on online dating.

Yahoo, ranked the number one site, declined 14 percent in November compared with the previous year. Match.com had 12 percent fewer visitors in November, year-over-year.

Match made $80 million last quarter, mostly by raising fees.

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A new Online Dating Toolbar has been released which online dating news via RSS feeds, pulls in some coupons and provides links to dating sites. There are a lot of features not related to dating, but thats what you get when you build on top of Conduit, a free community toolbar builder. Supposedly works with Firefox/Mac, but I couldn’t get it installed. I like the idea of a dedicated toolbar for dating, but it’s missing the obvious multi-site search. There is a ton of stuff you could do with a toolbar, like link it to your dating profile, search other toolbar users, enhanced search on dating sites, etc.

innovation, online+dating+toolbar, Technology

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Today I have met a very interesting piece of advice at one of the news portals. It conserns Online Dating and first online contacts. The author Erick Shipmon covers the sphere of Dating Questions from the point of security. Sure, if you know many details about a person it's easier to make your opinion on his ir her personality.

But very often we're lost at making such good questions to cover all the spheres of our partner's life. So here are the questions Erick offers to use for daters:

• What is the biggest mistake people make when first dating? (This will give you an idea as to how the other person really feels about the opposite sex.)

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A new international dating & matchmaking site called Hot Profiles was launched recently, to help singles of all races, ages (18+) and lifestyles, that do not want to limit our service to just a certain niche group, region or country. Hot Profilesgoalis to provide the best online place for singles from around the world.

When joining Hot Profiles, then you will find a 100% free site, where you will never will be asked to pay for anything, because the authors feel that a single person shall not pay any price in life for finding the perfect partner in life.

They have built the site so it is very fast and easy to navigate. There are profiles to browse through. Anyone can see who’s online, receive and reply to emails from other members and if interested it’s possible to signal other members with a kiss without sending an email and also possible to chat live on the built in messenger system and much more.

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Bad news, I have a scheduling conflict with iDate and won’t be attending this year. Thanks to all of you who have written to see if I was going or speaking. Alas, the powers that be at iDate once again don’t seem to think I have anything to contribute to the conversation. Isn’t that what blogs are for?

iDate is all about making personal connections with the people that run the online dating industry. I was going to attend to meet with existing clients, hallway/pool chats with old friends and do some networking and catch some rays. Paying $950 for two-day conference with 1/2 the exhibitors from last year and a decided lack of focus just doesn’t make sense.

I do 98% of my new business development from this blog and my experiment has worked out pretty well over the last four years. I would be more apt to attend events like iDate if they cross-polinated with the web 2.0 crowd, which is mostly left-coast and much more social than dating-oriented. To that end, I’m confused about what iDate is morphing into. Is it dating or social networking, or both? If it’s social, why is there such a lack of social networking sessions?

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As I previously mentioned, Yahoo Personals has rolled out a few enhancements to the service. Have you seen the overview of the new customizable profile? Very nice. I like the idea of being able to customize the quick view, displaying the traits you feel most important right at the top of the page. Some of the changes are very similar to Match.com in terms of layout and features. I’m liking what I see happening at Y! Personals. We’ll see how it affects signups.

Yahoo! Personals has a blog as well as gift certificates at $24.95 for a month.

Features, innovation, Promotions, yahoo+personals

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Earlier this year I worked closely with a startup that wanted to address the issues of marrieds and couples over 40. Clearly there was a need for some sort of online component to keeping married people happy, when I was talking with them they were trying to figure out what the services would look like. It looks like eHarmony beat them to market.

eHarmony Marriage is a personalized, interactive, online marriage counseling program (what eHarmony calls marriage wellness) designed to help couples make their marriages stronger and happier. Now, in just 20 minutes per week and in the privacy of their own home, couples can discover practical and positive ways to experience deeper joy and passion in their marriage.

Dr. Les Parrott, co-creator of eHarmony Marriage:

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