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Here’s a piece for the gay community, though as we know, HIV is an issue for gays and straights. It introduced me to terms I hadn’t heard before—do you know what a pozzer is? Well, read and find out. But the sites listed offer a real service to an important and under served population.
HIV+ Dating Sites Offer an Alternative
by Ambrose Aban
EDGE Contributor
Friday Jun 27, 2008
“Poz-only” dating sites have finally arrived online. Their owners are hoping they help people infected with HIV meet others without the fear and exclusion they might encounter on other gay dating sites. Even more, they hope to foster a sense of belonging within a larger HIV-positive community.
The focus is one of being out and proud as an HIV-positive gay man--and away from the stigma of HIV. The sites also give the men a forum to talk about it. The hope is that, when the secrecy and shame of it is removed, HIV will lose some of its power over their lives.
The sites include BeOneCity, launched recently in Los Angeles, PositiveSingles, PozitiveLiving, PozMatch.com, PositivePersonals--all personals web sites for HIV+ people.
Angelenos Peter Brook and David Purdue created BeOneCity. Brooks says his site fills the void he found online when he seroconverted not so long ago. “We intend to expand our online services to provide a global HIV positive ’sister’ site within a year that will serve the heterosexual positive community,” Brook says.
BeOneCity isn’t your typical dating or meet-up site. For one thing, it offers relevant news. It also aims to be a forum for pozzers. But like the others, it is above all a relationship site catering to those living with the virus.
“We bridge the gap between the myriad non-profit and for-profit HIV organizations, all working against HIV,” Brook says. “We put a lot of effort into supporting other groups and partnering with them. This offers us a real-world focus for us and for our members, and gives us a community experience in the real world--something often neglected from our life with HIV.”
Why Self-Serosort?
The policy among many gay men remains “don’t ask, don’t tell” on dating sites. General gay sites like Manhunt also currently offers serosorting for its members as well. “We know being able to serosort is valuable to many of our HIV-positive members,” Manhunt’s new chief marketing officer told EDGE.
Robert Brandon Sandor founded Poz4Poz, a series of parties for pozzers a decade ago and the new HIV-UB2.Net (http://www.hiv-ub2.net). He has been a strong advocate for serosorting among gay men.
“Years ago, those who tested HIV-positive had few places to turn for support,” he says. “Fortunately, much has changed. We know more about HIV now. No one is going to be infected with HIV if they have sex with partners who are sharing the same serostatus.”
Many organizations and HIV experts have not embraced serosorting. Although serosorting is entirely based on the foundation of trust, it is still a good way to reduce (if not stop) the spread of HIV to negative men, Sandor argues.
The men who have developed these sites say they are driven by a strong social mission. They believe that their sites can be unifying places where they can mobilize together to help stop HIV. Part of the reason for such sites now is the movement away from HIV from an eventual death sentence to a far more manageable condition.
This is true for straight men living with HIV as well as gay men. Donald Johnson, who founded PositiveLiving.com in 1997 in Austin, Texas, shortly after he was diagnosed with HIV, created his site at a time when there was no way to meet other pozzers.
Like other most online dating sites, Johnson’s site lets users post statistics from height to education, as well a paragraph describing what they are looking for in a relationship. The site also includes advertisements from people looking for roommates or potential friends. If two people decide they want to meet, it is up to them to exchange phone numbers and addresses through e-mail. So far, the free Web service averages 100,000 unique visitors per month, many of them international users.
For Johnson, the success of the site is especially sweet because he met his new wife after she posted a personal ad.
A Safe Space
Chad Morrett, who created and runs PositivePersonals out of Seattle, said the Internet provides a safe, secure place to meet others living with a disease that can be difficult to discuss in person. “When I was diagnosed, I didn’t know anyone else who was HIV-positive,’’ Morrett told a Florida newspaper, recently. “It was a little frightening.’’
AIDS advocates say many people prefer to use online dating services because they provide a sense of control. Also, those on other dating sites might be scared off by the disease--or tell others, says Terje Anderson, director of the National Association of People With AIDS.
“If you do tell someone you’re HIV-positive and do it face to face in a small town, you don’t know what that person will do with the information,” adds Anderson. On these sites, they can put their HIV status out there with an ad, but still be anonymous.
PositivesDating, founded by best friends, Brandon Koechlin and Paul Graves, both 24, in Columbus, Ohio, in 2005, offers free and paid memberships. Visitors can log in to the site’s chat rooms and search through thousands of available member profiles. Paid memberships allow users to keep in contact via e-mail and see who’s been viewing their profiles.
The founders told Entrepreneur, that during the first four months, PositivesDating operated as a free site to build membership. They also sent out informational postcards to support groups all over the country, such as AIDS Project Los Angeles. PositivesDating has close to 2,500 paid members. Monthly memberships start around $14 a month.
As on dating sites like eHarmony, users can take a personality profile survey, after which they receive an analysis of their personality type and what kind of partner would best suit them. They also receive a list of possible member matches based on their characteristics and personality.
These sites tell you that testing positive is not the end of your life or the end of your chances at love. They certainly tell you that it is not the end of your great sex life. The sites are saying that testing positive is, while a tough thing to hear and a tough challenge to overcome, also offers a new beginning.
In fact, the sites’ growing popularity could lead to a battle against the non-serosorting sites like Manhunt and Adam4Adam.
The sites can make the claim to be fighting AIDS in other ways BeOneCity donates 20 percent of proceeds to charities, the American Foundation for AIDS Research and Keep a Child Alive.
Brooks considers it his mission to help educate people to the fact that HIV is not a death sentence. He became HIV positive fairly recently. Although he was gay, he was fairly naïve about the disease. He thought of HIV as a disease that would never happen to him.
“I was simply too smart and too careful to get it,” he says. “I realized my criteria for understanding HIV and indeed understanding myself, was quite lacking. Very quickly I realized that I was ’blessed’ to have contracted HIV in a new era when it is no longer aligned with death and decay; rather it is now a chronic and fairly manageable disease and thankfully, I can expect to live a long life.”
BeOneCity’s articles and links are selected to help people cope with HIV. “You Are Not Alone”, for example, was recently published for the newly diagnosed. Authors Jim Lewis and Michael Slocum, formerly of BodyPositive (http://www.bodypositive.com), discuss the difference between HIV and AIDS.
All the sites also share a common love of sharing and listening.
Finding out that you are infected can be overwhelming. Testing HIV-positive has led some people to quit their jobs, quickly write out their wills, and say goodbye to their friends and family, only to discover that they aren’t sick and will probably live for many years to come.
But one of the truths of joining these sites after you’ve been infected with HIV is that once you know, you can never not know again. Life will always be different. You may be experiencing great feelings of loss about this. You may feel that certain areas of your life are now in the hands of doctors, insurance companies, or symptoms. This can make you feel as though you have less control over your own life and may cause you incredible anxiety. And you’re far from alone: Today, over 1 million Americans are infected with HIV.
“A lot of people afflicted with HIV become social outcasts,” Brook says. Maybe that’s why BeOneCity and other sites have attracted members from as far away as India and Africa. Membership encompasses men and women gay and straight, aged 25 to 70 and from several ethnic backgrounds.
“There is no need for you to handle your loneliness and fear by yourself, and it is probably a mistake even to try to do it alone,” Brook says. “Just hearing how someone else has adjusted to living with the virus can be enough to help you realize that life is still good, that you can still have love and laughter.”
If there is one complaint, it comes from Sandor. Ever the activist, he believes that these sites should discuss serosorting itself. “There are three forms of serosorting,” he says, “and two involve safe sex--but none of the sites stress the importance of serosorting.”
“BeOneCity is a nice site and I understand its usefulness, but I really wish sites like these weren’t necessary,” says Nir Zilberman, the founder of Just One LA (http://www.justonela.com). “As gay men and women, we are all one community. I don’t understand why we need to divide ourselves into smaller segments”
Brook obviously disagrees: “We offer a safe place to unite together. At BeOneCity we can be ourselves, without the judgment or the stigma we often experience from the outside world because of our HIV status.”
Research shows positive guys want to date, hang out and hook-up with other positive guys. But Brook disagrees with Sandor’s straight-down-the-line position on serosorting.
“It takes the disclosure, the worry and any legal issues out of the equation and it provides us with the assurance that there is no chance for us to spread HIV,” Brook says. “We do not suggest that positive guys should not be with negative guys. I have had negative boyfriends myself, and you cannot stop love or lust with your serostatus--nor should you.”
Internet dating can work great if you are able-bodied and moderately attractive, but disabilities tend to push singles to the bottom of the list. One of my clients who is disabled has done very well on the site described below, after several unsuccessful years on the traditional dating sites. I didn’t know that the site was based in Israel. Good news for my client who is also Jewish!
Israeli dating site brings joy to the disabled
By Rachel Neiman June 04, 2008
Dean is from England and suffers from Spina Bifida. Amber from Montana was handicapped following a car accident. Despite these challenges, the two traveled thousands of miles to be together and are engaged to be married this summer.
Amber and Dean found each other from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean through a website called Dating4Disabled - D4D for short - a free online community and dating service founded in Israel especially for people with disabilities. The popular international website ranks first in Google searches for “disabled dating”, third in Yahoo! for “disabled services” and fourth in Google searches for “disabled” overall.
The growing community has become a global gathering place for the disabled with over 28,000 unique visitors each month. Currently D4D has members throughout the US and Canada, South Africa, England, Australia, South America, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, China, Japan, Bulgaria, Russia, Italy. Through forums, blogs, group chat and instant messaging, over 8,600 members share resources, make friends and create valuable social ties.
Although not specifically for Jews or Israelis, the key to D4D’s success lies as much in the age-old tradition of Jewish matchmaking as with the modern Israeli specialty of search engine optimization (SEO). D4D was developed in January 2006 by Interdate, an Israeli IT company that specializes in website building, online community portals and Internet marketing. In addition to corporate websites and portals, Interdate developed, manages and runs Shedate, the largest dating website for women in Israel.
Interdate’s founders, Yuval Katz and Daniel Brunicki, decided to focus on the disabled community out of both entrepreneurial and social concerns. “D4D was born out of our understanding that, although they surf a great deal on the Internet, the disabled population the world over was under-attended,” Brunicki explains to ISRAEL21c.
“On the other hand, we had advanced Internet capabilities. So we decided to do a good deed. We view the site as a community service, and beyond that, there’s also a business opportunity; there are 30 million disabled persons in the US alone. Our business model is ad-based - the site is free and we don’t intend to ever charge payment - but we do intend to attract ads that are relevant to the community: services, exhibitions, etc., with a special emphasis on the US market,” he adds.
The other key to D4D’s success is Merryl Kaplan, manager of Member Services and D4D’s unofficial matchmaker. “I’m pretty good at pulling people in,” says Kaplan, whose personal involvement is unusual in the cold cruel world of online dating.
“I get very close to people. I have a woman from California who’s an amputee. She met someone a month and a half ago on the site. Now she just met him in person and she called me. She had a wonderful time. Another woman wrote to tell me she just went to Sweden to meet her guy. Who knows what will happen, but it’s exciting!”
The Interdate team is also sensitive to the unique needs of the D4D community and the site was constructed specifically for special needs: it is easily accessible, easy to navigate and its simple format was designed for sight impaired reading software such as Zoom Text.
“A lot of disabled people are so overjoyed to find a site where they feel accepted,” Kaplan notes. “I get mail from people who used regular dating sites, and as soon as they made their disability known, they were dumped. The relief and sense of ease they have from finding a community where people understand is immense.”
She also provides dating dos and don’ts, as in D4D’s most recent newsletter: “I’ve been asked to pass on advice that many men are happy to be ‘courted’ by women; so ladies, e-mail that man you’ve noticed but hesitated to contact.”
On a more serious note, Kaplan is also responsible for the site’s Safety Rules section. “This is a vulnerable population and there are a lot of scammers, so much of my time is spent reviewing IP numbers and blocking suspicious ones. We block both automatically and manually. Part of my job is also teaching users to identify potential scammers - we do that through our newsletter, and write about it in our forums, so they won’t get stung.”
Brunicki adds that the site guarantees anonymity unless a member decides to “go public”. Also, as D4D is free of charge, it requires no credit card information, ID or social security numbers, phone numbers or addresses.
I got a request a few weeks back for comments about AshleyMadison.com and similar sites which are set up to help married folks who want to have extramarital affairs. One would wonder: Do these folks really need help? Well, yes, I think so, but not the kind of help these sites try to give. That said, I do have comments and wrote them back to the article’s author. Don’t know if or when my words will be in print (this has got to be a first for me, being quoted in a man’s mag), but I will let you know when and if the time comes.
Here are the writer’s questions (in red) and my response:
You’ve been critical of Ashley Madison and similar sites in the past. No sane person would “condone” infidelity, so beyond that, what’s your criticism? Do you not like how they do business? Do you find them dishonest? Do you think it allows people in unhappy relationships a too-easy way out?
I’m a Romance Coach now, working with singles to help them find a Sweetheart using online dating sites. So married people who use sites set up for singles to find love are a real problem. But also, I’ve been a psychotherapist for over 30 years, and my specialty as a therapist was helping married couples when one partner had had an affair. So I have seen the devastation that occurs with infidelity, way too many times.
Those prejudices aside, I am actually glad that these sites—like AshleyMadison, IllicitEncounters.com, AdultFriendFinder (not strictly promoting affairs, but certainly providing a venue for all sorts of fringe sexual behaviors), Philanderers.com (not a dating site but full of suggestions on how to successfully have an extramarital affair) – exist.
Married folks looking for sex outside their marriage (mostly men) have been a problem on the mainstream dating sites like Match.com and Yahoo! Personals. Speculation has been that as many as 30% of men listing were married (Jupiter Research reported 12% in 2005), though of course they stated otherwise. Sites springing up like AshleyMadison.com give these people a place to go and act out their fantasies without contaminating the pool of singles who are honestly and straightforwardly looking for a legitimate, above-board monogamous relationship. In the last couple of years, I have not heard as many complaints about married men on mainstream sites. I suspect that they have migrated to AshleyMadison and the like, either because the sites exist, or because of the fear of being found out, a real likelihood when profiles without pictures don’t get looked at. Good riddance.
That said, joining one of these sites is does not signify one of life’s high points. While the titillation of sex and “romance” are strong, just the premise of an affair – lying to and betraying one’s spouse – is the nadir of sleaze. And everyone there is of similar character quality. Yick.
If you find yourself tempted to patronize sites set up to allow you to misbehave, you need to look back at yourself and question how you got here in the first place. What does participating in lying and deceit say about you? Is that what you want, to be a liar and a cheat? Would you like to have people say, after you die, he was an enthusiastic player on infidelity websites? He (she) really screwed over his (her) wife (or husband)? That you were so self-absorbed and self-centered that you could justify all kinds of bad behavior to get what you wanted? Don’t delude yourself: People can and do find out. If this is what you have to do to get sex and a parody of romance, you need to do some character work, pronto.
P. S. Guys, your fantasy of finding a willing woman on one of these websites to have an affair with is probably destined for failure. Men FAR outnumber women on these sites.
While I don’t like OnlineBootyCall.com and their general premise (On their home page: “You have entered the most unique singles site on the net. Let’s face it; chances are you will never find your soul mate online. So don’t promise marriage just to get a date. Join OBC today for FREE!"), they do have a sense of humor and do not take themselves too seriously. What they do take seriously is having fun. See below the humor they get out of eHarmony’s latest booboo:
OnlineBootyCall.com: eHarmony Ends ‘One Night Stand’ With Walk of Shame
Thursday May 15, 8:00 am ET
SAN DIEGO, May 15 /PRNewswire/—Contradicting its marriage-oriented brand, eHarmony ventured into unfamiliar waters last week by releasing a newsletter titled “Navigating the One Night Stand.” The newsletter instructed singles how to engage in appropriate booty call etiquette, reminiscent of OnlineBootyCall.com’s playful advice in the Booty Call Commandments. The ensuing backlash from members forced eHarmony to take the proverbial “walk of shame” back to their community and issue an apology.
eHarmony’s misstep into the casual dating scene was a tacit recognition of the increasing influence of Americans who are opting to remain single and subscribe to non-traditional dating services. Despite eHarmony’s unwillingness to admit, people joining match making sites are not always looking for marriage. OnlineBootyCall.com, recognizing the special needs of this segment of the population, caters to proud singles who “enjoy being single.” “Let’s be honest, there’s a time in people’s life when they actively choose to be single. They want to enjoy that adventurous stage in their lives. Finding the right person isn’t a one shot, one kill process. You have to explore a bit,” added Moses (Mo) Brown, CEO and founder of OnlineBootyCall.com.
The New York Times(1) piece, “To Be Married Means to Be Outnumbered,” captured the crux of this issue, noting that “a growing number of adults are spending more of their lives single or living unmarried with partners.” US Census statistics also corroborate Brown’s statement, as major studies(2) show that the majority of households in the US are comprised of single, unmarried individuals.
With its usual tongue-in-cheek humor, OnlineBootyCall pokes more fun at eHarmony’s embarrassment by releasing its spoof of eHarmony’s marriage compatibility advertisements. The video parodies eHarmony’s compatibility speech, exposing the undertones of sexuality implicit in eHarmony’s coverage of the ‘one night stand.’
More humor from OnlineBootyCall:
Booty Call Commandments:
I. Thou shalt get out before the sun rises
II. Thou shouldest never ask “can we see each other from now on?”
III. Thou shalt refrain from referring to our activities as “love making.”
IV. Thou shalt not request advanced plans.
V. Thou shalt kiss anything except my mouth.
VI. Thou shalt scream my name often
VII. If someone cometh over whilst thou art here, thou art my cousin from out of town.
VIII. Thou shalt not ask me to walk thee to thy car. Don’t thou knoweth what it looketh like?
IX. There shall be no “pillow talk.”
X. There shall be no cuddling—ever!
One of the greatest things about Internet dating right from the start has been the inclusion of gays and lesbians on regular mainstream sites like Match.com and Yahoo! Personals. What a step forward to ending discrimination for sexual minorities. And how regressive it seems now when sites like eHarmony refuse to work with gays and lesbians. Now sites are cropping up for gays and lesbians specifically, and the regular sites are marketing to the gay population. Yea! Here’s an article that describes both:
Gay matchmaking sites find a growing market
Anastasia Ustinova, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Dale Bullock, a longtime matchmaker for lesbians and gay ...
Growing up, Bethtina Woodridge heard all kinds of advice about dating, finding a husband and getting married.
“You don’t have those tips about meeting women,” said Woodridge, 31. “How do I approach her, how do I know she is gay?”
For Woodridge, finding that special someone turned out to be easier online. Several months after signing up for dating service Chemistry.com, Woodridge was matched with her partner, who was “incredibly honest and sincere, and she stole my heart.”
After online giant eHarmony made headlines last year by saying its psychological research is based exclusively on heterosexual relationships, a growing number of rival online matchmakers are using their algorithms to find same-sex love as well.
“There are just not enough services for creating healthy relationships, and (it is) a major gap in the gay community,” said matchmaker Patrick Perrine, founder of San Francisco-based Mypartner.com, which caters to “sophisticated, cultured and relationship-oriented gay men” and has more than 50,000 clients across the nation. “There has been a long-held stereotype that gay people are only looking to hook up.”
But there’s disagreement over whether gay people fall in love the same way as straight people. Some matchmakers, including Chemistry.com, say the chemistry of love is the same whether you’re gay or straight. But matchmakers who dedicate their services exclusively to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community disagree, pointing out that little theory is available about gay relationships outside general psychology.
“When you are dealing with a Mars-Venus situation, it is one thing. When you are dealing with Mars-Mars, it’s different,” said Stuart McFaul, marketing director of the newly created Partnerforlife.com, which has created an algorithm based on years of founder Dale Bullock’s private matchmaking experience in the gay community.
Unlike adult hookup sites that allow users to browse profiles, online matchmakers offer lengthy personality tests, designed to match clients with a compatible partner. Though companies keep their algorithms secret and little scientific data is available about the effectiveness of the services, thousands of those looking for a soul mate are willing to pay up to $40 per month to try them out.
Advertised as gay-owned-and-operated businesses, sites such as Partnerforlife.com and Mypartner.com ask their members to answer questions that assess their personalities as well as cover different aspects of a modern gay man’s life, including sexuality, HIV and parenting. Offline services such as relationship counseling and seminars are also available.
“Differences between gays and others have nothing to do with the fundamentals, but with day-to-day living,” said Bullock. “The prime goal is to create a community support structure for our couples to grow closer together and to develop a standard model for their relationship.”
The matchmakers claim “you can actually find people who are compatible, and this is a major advance that is going to keep the industry alive for the upcoming 50 years,” said Mark Brooks, an Internet dating and social networking consultant.
Matchmakers like Chemistry.com, which estimates that about 10 percent of its 3.7 million clients are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, say all love is equal, straight or gay. Last year, the company launched a TV campaign criticizing eHarmony for rejecting applicants it deems undesirable, including those looking for same-sex partners.
Chemistry.com is using a single algorithm created by Helen Fisher, a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, who has identified four personality types based on chemicals in the brain that tend to be associated with different types: the explorer, the builder, the director and the negotiator.
The explorer, for example, has high levels of dopamine, a chemical that tends to make a person curious, creative, spontaneous and irreverent. The explorer’s perfect match is the serotonin-driven builder, who is calm, cautious and detail-oriented.
People are usually drawn to the partners who complement their type, Fisher said, and that rule of attraction goes beyond their sexual orientation.
“We are not measuring what your appetite is for your sex partner; we are measuring basic human characteristics,” Fisher said. “Who you choose to love is one thing, how you feel when you are in love is another, so I am operating under the assumption that gays are going to fall in love and have absolutely the same experience and choose the partners in the same way straight people do.”
While matchmakers scramble to tap the booming industry, academic researchers say they hope the growing competition pushes companies to post their research for peer review.
“And unlike those (companies), most scientists don’t have good resources to collect data,” said Eli Finkel, a psychology professor who studies dating at Northwestern University’s Relationships Lab. “Until we have actually seen their data, we would not be able to know” how effective the sites are.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to counter the stereotype that gay men are not looking for serious commitment, Partnerforlife.com’s ads feature ordinary-looking couples doing everyday activities with tongue-in-cheek slogans such as “One-nighters are great ... 365 are better.”
“This is what attracts people the most - so gay men and lesbians can look at each and say, ‘We can have ordinary lives just like everybody else,’ “ McFaul said. “Our ads are a celebration that we have arrived.”
Here you go, rich ladies and gorgeous men, a dating site just for you. PocketChange.com hosts a speed dating section: Men 35 and under can apply, based solely on appearance. They must submit 5 photos for judgment. Women must be over 35 can apply,and must qualify (solely based on wealth) in one of four ways: Must make more than $500K, have liquid assets, entrusted assets, or a divorce settlement of $4MM+. (I’ll show my ignorance: How much is $4MM? I guess if I don’t know, I haven’t got it.)
I love it. The Internet has something for everyone, even greenies. Be aware however, that these niche-type sites tend to have very small memberships. Online dating is a numbers game, so the more the merrier.
How To Find Love In A Greener World
Olivia Zaleski
In today’s age of inconvenient truths, unearthing a mindful mate has never been easier. According to such green-living authorities as Treehugger.com, Grist.com and eco-chick.com, the growth of the green movement has spurred a surge in eco-themed dating sites, matchmaking services and networking events. Sustainably-sensitive singles no longer need move to Vermont, Colorado or the nearest hippie commune to find love. Instead, just hit up the following:
Green Drinks:
No doubt treehuggers like to party. You can find them at your average bar, nightclub, rowdy disco or rave. Yet beer goggles and vibrating strobe lights make any hippie tough to spot in the crowd. Add an automatic smoke machine and you might as well be playing “Where’s Waldo?”
Save yourself the reconnaissance mission and opt for a room full of greenies at Green Drinks, a not-for-profit green networking event that meets monthly in over 300 cities ranging from Sri Lanka to Stillwater, Oklahoma. For a Green Drinks near you visit greendrinks.org.
Outdoor Club:
If you prefer avoiding beer goggles all together, opt for a sober search in the great outdoors. Most cities boast hiking, biking or canoeing networks. Join one of your city’s outdoor interest groups and you’re bound to meet a bounty of thrill-seeking eco-holics. Bonding over a tough climb or pristine mountain view will heighten the connection and nothing gets the blood pumping--quite literally--like biking or hiking outside.
Volunteer Project:
Get your hands dirty. Volunteer at your local oil spill, conservation site or community-garden project. It’s fun and you’ll feel good for lifting a finger. Plus you may meet a burly young eco-hunk and nothing breaks the ice like sweaty tree planting.
There are endless volunteer opportunities to choose from. Find a mission that mirrors your level of activism (be it mulching or saving the whales) at volunteermatch.org.
Eco-Dating Site:
Though some may consider it taboo, internet dating is a fully acceptable form of meeting like-minded members of the opposite (or same) sex--several eco-dating sites to choose from and many feature gay and lesbian options. If you’re eager to find love consider hitting up some eco-singles networks such as GreenSingles.com, earthwisesingles.com, Greenfriends.com or greenpassions.com.
After filling out a profile and answering a few simple questions (favorite food, color and Sade song), you’ll get matched with a single you won’t have to debate on the validity of climate change.
Here’s an article about Jewish dating sites, particularly JDate, which gets some bad press here. I’ve put in bold a paragraph that is also true of many other dating sites, the problem with paid vs. unpaid members. Here’s a blurb about my article that addresses it, and how to order:
Internet Dating’s Dirty Little Secret: The Single Biggest Reason They Don’t Answer Your Emails
If you are like most of my single clients looking for love, one of your very first questions to me will be “Why don’t they answer my emails?” Much as the dating sites may try to convince you that it’s because of something you are doing – or not doing – at least 90% of unanswered emails don’t have anything to do with you at all. I figured it out, and now you can know too. Get the answer to “Why don’t they answer my emails?” right here, right now.
Sex, Romance Fades At JDate As World Of Jewish Fine Tunes Dating
Reported revenue for Jdate in the second quarter of 2007 was
$7 million. But how many members can actually make contact?
By Carole Rubinstein
Israel News Agency
Jerusalem ----August 17 ....... Talk about sex appeal, then talk about the World of Jewish. Talk about boredom and tired formulas, then talk JDate.
There was a time when Jewish singles looking for a match through the Internet went straight to JDate, the largest Internet based Jewish dating service. The idea was simple, fill in a short questionnaire based on your dating preferences and the JDate search engine would return a listing of all those of the opposite sex that answer to your criteria. If you saw someone in the listing, you paid JDate a good sum of money to be in touch by email with your potential match.
For a yearly fee approaching a couple of hundred dollars, you could search JDate’s listings and be in touch with whomever you desired. Now, when you think of it, a couple of hundred of dollars a year may not sound like so much, especially with this virtual smorgasbord of potential Jewish dating mates at your fingertips. It is a lot cheaper than going on a string of blind dates. So, people paid; well, not all people – only those that could afford it. Still, business was good – JDate has made millions of dollars every year from Jewish singles encompassing the Internet Jewish dating scene.
In seducing the Jewish dating market, Jdate is not honest. JDate featured ads of porn models from Europe posing as Jdate members. According to an article in the Israel daily Haaretz newspaper, JDate banner ads featured photos of porn models. For example, the Jdate Jewish dating ad banner showed a girl who was supposedly 22 and single and Jewish, but she is actually Kari Gold, an 18 year old porn model. The ad shows blonde-haired, 22-year-old Hila from Tel Aviv who’s “looking for a single Jewish guy.” Another shows 26-year-old Sharon who’s looking for a Jewish husband.
But as it turns out, there is no Hila from Tel Aviv. The woman in the Jewish dating picture is actually Hungarian porn star Kari Gold. She has told the media that she has a boyfriend and is not in fact looking for “a Jewish husband from a good family.” And Sharon? She’s really Devon Sweet, a bisexual model from the United States. Neither Kari Gold nor Devon Sweet are affiliated in any way with JDate. Their pictures were just randomly collected on the Internet. I guess this is another shocking reminder that advertisers sometimes bend (or completely disregard) the truth. Talk about deceptive advertising!
Is Kari Gold a Jdate member looking for a nice Jewish boy or in reality an European porn star looking for ...
We cropped the above photo of Kari, you can imagine the rest of the photograph or perform a Google Image search for Kari.
But the story thickens. Try performing a search now on Google for “Jdate Ads Haaretz”. What you will find is that Haaretz has partly removed the story from the Net and replaced it with Jdate ads and Jdate advertising revenue. Can money now buy censorship at Haaretz?
Current JDate rules that only allow paying members to reply to messages, if you buy a membership on JDate, only 3.5% of the people you send messages to will be able to reply or acknowledge your message in any way. See, JDate gives you no indication whether or not a profile you are interested in belongs to a paying member capable of replying. That kind of sucks. Imagine sending out 100 messages to 100 “active” members and only 3 (and a half) of them are capable of replying, let alone willing to reply!
Then, like mushrooms after a forest rain, all kind of JDate Jewish dating wannabes sprouted up – many of them also becoming quite lucrative. Jewish singles from Israel, the United States and Canada all know Blind-Date, Frumster, JMatch, Jewish Cafe’ and a host of other sites that offer basically the exact same thing as JDate, a monolithic wish list that costs money a good amount of money. Frumster, 2become1 and DosiDate offer their services to the more religiously inclined rather than to the general Jewish populace, but in none of these services is there really a significant difference between what they offer and what JDate offers, which is the opportunity for sex and maybe partnership – all for those that pay their dues.
The model that these Jewish dating services offer is quite problematic. First of all, not every Jewish single can afford full membership in these sites. But beyond the economic constraints, there exist moral problems as well. Many people tend to lie about the particulars they list on their personal profiles. Perhaps they are not really 38, but rather 44. Maybe they do not really have a six figure income currently, although they hope they some day will; further, if they do not send in their pictures for others to see, can it really be believed that they have such an outstandingly athletic figure as they say they do?
And even if they do send in their pictures, are these the Jewish guys you will meet in real life on that hoped for date?
Perhaps most disturbing, are they really single and looking to get married, or just married guys looking out for an evening of, well, whatever.
“For us, Jewish dating is important as is Jewish sex, something which can be openly discussed at the World of Jewish, but the stress here is to find companionship that does not lead to hurt”
- Social networking professional David Trombka
Numerous Internet blogs, such as JDaters anonymous, have sprung up over time with thousands of negative stories about the JDate experience. It is a kind of cultural joke, part of the Jewish singles ritual; but in reality the great majority of the Jewish dating site users remain, with or without the hilarious anecdotes or even the frequent horror story, decidedly single and fully departed from hundreds of dollars in registration fees.
Enter the fearless Davids that, with time, will eliminate the Goliaths.
JDate, JMatch, Jkarma and the whole host of univalent Jewish dating sites, while not yet being a thing of the past, are on their way out. There is a new generation of Jewish sites out there in virtual land for Jewish singles, consisting of lean and serious players like Shmooze, Koolanoo and perhaps the most interesting of them all, the World of Jewish.
These Jewish social networking sites have sex appeal, depth, purpose and punch, something lacking in the older but still mighty Goliaths of the earlier generation. Jewish dating will never be the same and can never go back to the JDate paradigm. It is simply a thing of the boring and expensive past.
What makes these new sites ‘sexier’ than the traditional dating sites? There are many features, especially the fact that they are free Jewish dating sites; these new players understand well the changing face of the Internet and they know that today the users rule, not like the time a little over a decade ago when start ups like Cupid and JDate pretty much held the user in their custody.
Most importantly, these new guys on the Jewish dating block are networking sites, multivalent offspring of the single minded dating sites. These sites offer their users the ability to find friends, not just partners, according to interest. Their search engines take into account the intricacies of Jewish life in a way that JDate or the other dating sites are just not equipped to deal with.
The World of Jewish leads the pack of newcomers with its almost total, creative coverage of the Jewish experience. It is for sure sexier, but in the sense of being kosher and sexier. Beyond the real time news and Kabala broadcasts, the World of Jewish offers its users employment jobs opportunity searches, a Jewish Yellow Pages, real estate ads, a Jewish travel section and a host of other innovative features that leave JDate and their other Jewish dating cronies light years behind.
“On Jdate only 3.5% of the people you send messages to will be able to reply or acknowledge your message in any way.”
While newcomer Koolanoo has made quite a splash with its expensive, creative and humorous viral marketing video advertisements on YouTube, it has many critics that see these broadcasts as cheapening Judaism and the Jewish experience. And now that Koolanoo is about to spend millions in the China social networking market, many believe that the Jewish site was nothing more than a turn key project for investors in China. The World of Jewish, on the other hand, aims at the highest common denominator and regards bagel and lox Judaism as a trend that is on its way out.
World of Jewish creator and founder, David Trombka, states: “People are looking for substance, not only in dating, but in their entire world outlook. Our site allows people to find others interested in Jewish education, or Jewish politics or philosophy, or a host of other interests, according to specific issues.
A woman may find a guy on the site that is interested not only in dating, but also in Jewish cuisine or Jewish mysticism and their relationship may start by exchanging recipes or thoughts about Kabala. It is really a far safer place than the single issue dating sites. In those sites, people can lie about their personal status, but it is much harder to lie about common interests as well, such as American Jewish literature or what they think about the role of Jewish tradition in their relationships.”
Trombka adds: “Our site and the other Jewish networking dating sites explore the fuller person and allow for a more truthful presentation to the other users. Jewish singles now have a home for expressing themselves in ways that never existed before – and all for free. Our site even has a women only section for women to discuss between themselves issues that affect their daily lives. With all due respect to JDate, it is passe’. The trend in the Internet industry in general is to restore to the users their rights without shaking down their wallets. The World of Jewish allows the users to be exactly who they really are, without putting a hole in their bank accounts and without the sometimes awkward sexual tensions that are practically automatic on JDate or the other sites because of their single issue orientation. This gives the users a far greater chance of finding true companionship, or even just like minded friends in a more relaxed and honest atmosphere.”
“For us, Jewish dating is important as is Jewish sex, something which can be openly discussed at the World of Jewish, but the stress here is to find companionship that does not lead to hurt,” says Trombka.
“I have it on inside information that the other sites know fully well that they are about selling sex and little more. They may put on a Jewish fac,ade, but that is not really their strong point. We are not against sex, not in the least. After all, our tradition considers sex a holy thing. We just don’t want that to be the sole focus. We believe that proper sensuality means not jumping straight to the bottom line, but rather taking a little more time to get to know the potential partner. I remember my roommate at college told me that the only way really to enjoy life is to make sure you do not hurt others. Sex and companionship are great litmus tests for that theory. We hope to push things in the proper direction.”
Of course, it will take some time before the entire Jewish singles dating reality switches in mass from the pay for use single dimensionally of JDate to the free for use multiple uses of such sites as World of Jewish. But word is getting out that Goliath does not stand a chance; at least, not if people are looking for honest and kosher sex.
Isn’t the Internet wonderful? I love being able to go to Google, type in just about any shred of data, and find pertinent information. What did we do before Google? It wasn’t even that long ago that we had to do without it, and we didn’t even know what we were missing.
Likewise with dating sites: There are the biggies, Yahoo! Personals, Match.com, and eHarmony, but more and more, these sites are for “normal” folks with few if any flaws. What if you have a big flaw, as far as dating goes, not just a few extra pounds or too few little inches in height, but lots of pounds or very few inches? Or a sexually transmitted disease, or surgically altered genitals, or a genuine disability like deafness or paraplegia? Presto! The Internet is coming up with sites just for you.
Here’s an article below listing lots of sites for the out of the ordinary. Some may be understandable and welcome, like DateaLittle.com for very short-statured people, but you may wonder about others like DailyDiapers.com. Then again, it’s like sites for married folks looking for affairs: It’s just as well that these folks have their own place to go so that they aren’t lurking around the mainstream sites looking for unsuspecting victims.
If you are “out of the mainstream” and looking for a date, you may find a resource in the article below. Or if not, go to Google and type in your defining term (Like dwarf or transgendered) and then +"dating site”. And see what you get. Good luck!
Deaf and single? There’s a dating Web site for you
By MEGAN SCOTT
Associated Press
Paraplegics need love too. So do cross-dressers, dwarfs, addicts and burn victims.
Oh, and we can’t forget the impotent, diabetic and irritable-bowel sufferers.
How do they find true love on Match.com, eHarmony and Yahoo! Personals?
Dating went digital a long time ago, but the options these days are dizzying. Web sites cater to people with HIV and herpes, people who are tall or short, who are “married but looking,” who love pets, wine, tennis, scuba diving and golf.
There are niche dating sites for every political affiliation, religion and ethnic group. There are ones for Trekkies (TrekPassions.com) and lonely Ayn Rand fans (atlasphere.com).
Of course, none of these niche dating sites can boast the huge memberships of a Match.com.
But some people find them more appealing than sifting through thousands of profiles. If a quadriplegic wants to date another quadriplegic, why waste time on eHarmony?
“You have a few gigantic general dating sites that have so many members. Most people are going with them,” said Lisa Daily, a relationships expert and author of Stop Getting Dumped! “But what’s happening is a lot of people don’t want to date in the general public. Relationships are based on shared experiences. If you come into it already with something like herpes, that can be a help.”
What are some of the most specialized sites?
• 18wheelsingles.com: “Where single truckers meet significant others.” SWF looking for a truck driver for companionship and to ride the open road. Also check: truckerpassions.com.
• Airtroductions.com: Who hasn’t dreamed of meeting someone on a plane? Create a profile, enter your flight information (flight number, airports, date and time) and select a match.
• Cisforcupid.com: Breast cancer survivor searching for prostate cancer survivor for companionship and emotional support? Cancer survivors founded this site earlier this year.
• DailyDiapers.com: Wear Depends? Or Pampers? This site is described as a community for adult babies, diaper lovers, big kids, mommies and daddies.
• DateALittle.com: This dating site caters to people with dwarfism and others of short stature; men under 5 feet 6 inches tall and women under 5 feet tall. Also check out LittlePeopleMeet.com.
• Datingpro.com: For those with no luck finding a perfect match. Design your own professional dating site.
• Deafs.com: “Where deaf friends and singles feel at home!” Partially deaf man seeks woman for intimate conversation. Must not mind speaking up. Sign language knowledge a plus. Also check out: deafpassions.com, deafsinglesconnection.com and soulmatesource.com/deafpeoplemeet.html.
• Disabledpassions.com: For the quadriplegic searching for that special someone. This site caters to people with disabilities, ranging from visual impairment and deafness to people who use wheelchairs. Some others: disabled-world.com, whispers4u.com.
• Hairfetishpersonals.com: Men, get rid of that toupee. Women stop hiding that bald head under a wig. The singles on this site love the bald look, whether it’s on a man or a woman.
• IrritatedBeingSingle.com: This site is for sufferers of irritable-bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease because, “there is no better feeling than being with someone who understands exactly what you are going through.”
• Kizmeet.com: Helps you find those missed connections. (You danced with a hottie at the club last night but never got his name.) Search postings within specific locations, such as bar, club, coffee shop, in 17 cities.
• Marry-an-ugly-millionaire-online-dating-agency.com: Beautiful woman searching for ugly millionaire to shower her with diamonds. This dating site matches the poor with the filthy rich.
• MeetAnOstoMate.com: Wearing a colostomy bag? A dating site designed for ostomates.
• NoLongerLonely.com: A dating site for people with mental illess. Also check out: bipolarparty.com.
• Poormatch.com: Bills itself as the worst dating site in the world.
“Over one million people have had lukewarm romantic encounters since joining Poormatch.com.”
Prescription4Love.com: P4L is for singles who suffer from an array of health conditions, including burn victims, arthritis, infertility or impotence, deafness, HIV and lupus.
Recoveringmates.com: For people recovering from an addiction, such as alcohol or drugs. This dating site boasts the largest database of sober singles.
Sugardaddie.com: Boasts that it has the “most attractive, wealthy and desirable people in online dating.”
Talldates.com: M4M (men for men) dating site because “ordinary gay sites seem to exclude guys who get off on height differences.” Also check out: Tallmentogether.com.
Transpassions.com: MTF pre-op searching for FTM pre-op for a real relationship. NO GAMES. A dating Web site for cross dressers, transgenders and transsexual singles. Some others: tgconnect.com and tg.matchopolis.com.
I guess this is news, but I’m not sure if it is good news for anybody. But at least these sites are siphoning off the business of people who are just looking for sex from the mainline sites like Match and Yahoo! Personals.
Brothels take spanking from dating sites
THE sex industry is taking a spanking from online dating websites providing “adult” contacts with minimal costs to customers, according to business analysts.
Adult dating sites such as adultmatchmaker.com.au allow people to find sexual partners without the “moral difficulties” of visiting a brothel, said analysts IBISWorld.
“Internet sites promoting sexual rendezvous between strangers with no exchange of funds have seen strong growth in recent years,” said IBISWorld general manager Jason Baker.
“These negate the need to pay for sexual gratification and sidestep many of the moral difficulties posed by soliciting prostitutes, making them a popular alternative.”
But while the industry’s traditional customers – young men – were spending more time hooking up online, Mr Baker said the number of female clients was set to grow.
“Given the increasingly sexual liberalisation of society, and particularly the sexual freedom of women, we anticipate the female customer segment will grow,” he said.
“We predict an increase in the number of women not only paying for sexual services, but visiting strip clubs and accessing sexual material via the telephone, internet, pay TV and DVD.”
High-end escort agencies were expected to be buffered from the impact of online dating, as they offered a more glamourous alternative than internet sites.
Dr Houran’s Interview With Patrick Perrine Of myPartnerPerfect
ONLINE DATING MAGAZINE—Aug 8—Patrick Perrine is the President of the newly-launched gay site myPartnerPerfect.
Dr. Jim: Congratulations on your launch, Patrick. Tell us, why did it take so long for someone to establish a site that catered to gays?
Patrick: Thank you. I don’t know why it has taken so long for the industry to identify this tremendous opportunity. It was partially because of the eHarmony policy and other relationship sites’ lack of service to the gay segment that I founded myPartnerPerfect. For far too long the industry has neglected the gay community and their pursuit of life-partners. Instead, the dating service industry has been flooded with gay sites that only promote hook-ups and short-term encounters. I don’t object to sites with that goal, but a very large segment of the gay community is looking for something deeper, that can last a lifetime. That’s exactly what the myPartnerPerfect system was designed to do.
Dr. Jim: Do you think all of the recent, negative press around eHarmony is fair, or are these just cheap shots from competitors and a few dissatisfied customers?
Patrick: I think the larger issue being drawn out in the press isn’t with the focus of eHarmony’s services, but the underlying premise of that focus. Sites like eHarmony will always have a place in the world of online dating and relationships, but it is my hope that myPartnerPerfect can help fill the void in the market and foster many happy and healthy relationships for gay men.
Dr. Jim: What’s the difference between a niche site that caters to a specific audience versus a site that is accused of being discriminatory?
Patrick: Wikipedia describes a niche market as “a focused, targetable portion (subset) of a market sector. By definition, then, a business that focuses on a niche market is addressing a need for a product or service that is not being addressed by mainstream providers.” eHarmony, in my opinion, essentially started out as a niche site for marriage-oriented heterosexual Christians. Dr. Warren himself attributes much of eHarmony’s success to its ties to Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian community. It was only recently that Dr. Warren and eHarmony began distancing themselves from that “niche” market as the site began growing rapidly and they began positioning themselves for the masses. myPartnerPerfect is completely forthwith about the segmented “niche” market we cater to due to the demand in the market that is not being met.
Dr. Jim: In what ways does the culture of your service and site differ significantly from large sites, like Match or Yahoo! Personals, which try to address the dating needs of everyone?
Patrick: myPartnerPerfect is an exclusively gay site that has been designed to cater to gay men. Much like any other niche site, myPartnerPerfect addresses the areas of partner selection that are not only important to our community, but unique to our community. Although there are many similarities between heterosexual and homosexual relationships, there are also many differences in partner selection. Our Partner Perfect Compatibility™ matching system was designed because of the many differences of gay partner selection in the areas of relationship styling, characteristics of partner selection, partner qualities and personalities, and above all else, cultural and sexual lifestyle considerations.
Dr. Jim: From your experience and research, are gays more interested in compatibility testing (and perhaps long-term relationships) than other groups? If so, why might this be?
Patrick: I wouldn’t say that gay men are more interested or less interested in compatibility testing than the general population. I think that gay men are a very discerning population of consumers and demand the very “best of breed” of anything they patron and that’s why myPartnerPerfect has developed the Partner Perfect Compatibility™ matching system.
Dr. Jim: What does a customer really get for his money at your site—what are the compelling features that can’t be found elsewhere?
Patrick: In addition to the unique Partner Perfect matches presented to the user by our matching system, members can search the database with 5 different customized browsing tools (including our Deal Breaker Search, our Partner Perfect Search, and our Custom Search). We also have unique profile customization tools, a monthly gay-relationship eNewsletter, private matchmaking services, anonymous phone calling, our myProfilePartner™ personal profile advice and review services, monthly socials and singles mixers, weDate!™ group dinners, and our a la carte menu to select the features that are most important to the user who is not yet ready to commit to a full Premium Membership.
FULL ARTICLE @ ONLINE DATING MAGAZINE
Articles like the one below about how Internet dating is “in” have been popping up all over everywhere lately. While they are similar in tone and get repetitious, I find them so welcoming after what I have seen over the years. Five years ago when I was just getting started as a Romance Coach, searches yielded practically nothing, and what did show up tended to be scary. Not so with articles like this. Yea!
The Many Faces of Online Dating
By Erika Morphy
“Match.com is not for everybody,” says Todd Creager, a licensed clinical social worker and coauthor of Finding Life’s Passions. “There are those that thrive on generalized dating sites, but typically those are people who ‘show well’—whether it is due to looks, an extroverted style of writing, a natural sense of humor, social confidence or some combination of these qualities.”
Shoshanna Berman, an intern in New York City, is happily dating her ideal future husband: a nice, young—and tall—Orthodox Jewish man who is also outgoing and easygoing.
On date two, they bonded while scalping tickets at a Knicks game. Date ten, she remembers, was an all-night drive to Philadelphia.
“I would have married him if he asked me after the first date,” Berman tells TechNewsWorld, “but it took him a few months to realize the truth.” Now they are unofficially engaged.
Take away a few details here and there, and this could be anyone’s “how we met” story—including the fact that Berman met her beau at SawYouAtSinai.com, a dating Web site.
“My friend met her husband there, so I thought I would give it a try,” Berman says.
These days, anyone who scoffs at online dating is either married or in the priesthood. The U.S. online dating market—typified by such Web sites as Match.com and Yahoo Personals—will reach US$932 million in 2011, according to figures from JupiterResearch.
Soul Mate Search
More than 20 million Internet users visited such a site last December, reported comScore. The top destinations were Yahoo Personals, Match.com, True.com, Spark Networks and Singlesnet.com. In short, from 18-year-olds in college (where there should be no dearth of potential suitors) to senior citizens, multitudes are logging on in search of love or companionship.
To be sure, not everyone who goes online finds a happy ending. Horror stories abound from the horrifying—stalking incidents and worse have befallen many online daters—to the annoying. (Hint: Using photos more than a year or so old always backfires.)
Sometimes it just takes a little patience to find your soul mate, says Robert Schwartz, author of Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth? Schwartz met his partner at JDate, another popular Jewish dating site. Several years ago, he posted a profile there but nothing came of it. Recently, though, in the most serendipitous manner possible, he connected with a woman, and they’re about to move in together.
“I had been living in Oregon but thinking about moving home to Cleveland to look after my father, who was needing assistance,” he tells TechNewsWorld. Idly, he perused the profiles in Cleveland and immediately gravitated toward the woman who would become his partner. “What I loved about her profile is that I could tell immediately she is spiritually aware. That is very important to me.”
Fast-forward over several months of phone calls and visits. Schwartz is now moving to Cleveland.
Specialized Sites
It may be no accident that both Schwartz and Berman met partners on specialized dating sites. Mainstream dating site memberships are stagnating—or, in some cases, shrinking. The proportion of paying customers has stayed the same—5 percent—over the last five years, according to Jupiter.
Another Jupiter metric that suggests interest is beginning to decline: Only 10 percent of Internet users visited an online dating site in 2006—a decrease from 16 percent in 2005 and 21 percent in 2002.
One way the online dating industry is counteracting these trends is by introducing specialized Web sites that focus on commonalities that would-be daters hope to find. Many focus on religion; some focus on hobbies or professions.
Sparks Network, currently one of the top online destinations, operates over 30 online personals—all but one of which is targeted toward a specific religious, ethnic or special interest group. JDate, launched in 1997, was its first site.
It makes sense, some say.
“Match.com is not for everybody,” Todd Creager, a licensed clinical social worker and coauthor of Finding Life’s Passions, tells TechNewsWorld. “There are those that thrive on generalized dating sites, but typically those are people who ‘show well’—whether it is due to looks, an extroverted style of writing, a natural sense of humor, social confidence, or some combination of these qualities.”
Singles who do not make great first impressions end up feeling frustrated, he continues. “On a specialized dating site, one attraction may be the similarity of interests, vocation, religion, life challenges and so on.”
Next Evolutionary Step
Specialized sites are the way to go for today’s daters, says Steve Monas, author of several books about online dating and social networking, including Chemistry and Numbers: The Online Dating Guide.
“When I used JDate, there was already a feeling of comfortability, knowing that there will be some commonality moving forward,” he tells TechNewsWorld.
However, the specialized sites may follow the path of the generic dating Web sites, he cautioned—unless they evolve once again.
“Dating Web sites are now trying to get appealing features that will compete with free social networking sites such as MySpace.com and Plentyoffish.com,” Monas notes. These sites, after all, are de facto meeting places and have come to compete with some of the larger, specialized dating sites.
Revenue from major sites will have to come from more personalized services—such as selecting and contacting potential matches on behalf of members, he suggests.
Indeed, some of the newer specialized sites are focusing on what happens once you get past the third or so date and become a couple. eHarmony, a dating Web site known for its hour-long application—and, more controversially, for not matching gay people—has launched a Web site aimed at married couples who want to strengthen their relationship.
On the other end of the spectrum—the far end—is HoochyMail, a service that “brings couples closer together by safely and securely allowing them to create and share their mutual fantasies,” according to site spokesperson Rob Frankle.
Basically, HoochyMail allows each couple to compose and e-mail Email Marketing Software - Free Demo fantasies customized with their own details. There are about 35 different occasions—from Christmas to Thanksgiving to basketball playoffs—in the system Manage remotely with one interface—the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server..
Thus far, the site has been very successful, judging by almost every metric, Frankle says, including opt-in numbers and click-through advertising rates. “Plus, we have never received even one hate mail.”
In the online dating world, that’s as good as it gets.
Here’s an interesting “massaging of the stats” I found by dating coaches Dan and Jennifer. I can’t say whether or not their conclusions about the patrons and matrons of the way sexy site AdultFriendFinder.com are true, but there is some interesting speculation to be done for sure.
Sinners in the Bible Belt? Sex, Swingers, and Religion...
Dan and Jennifer
August 2, 2007
Who would have thought that Texas, the conservative Republican state, is 2nd In the Nation on Sex Seeking Enthusiasts?
While Texas may be perceived as a highly religious and conservative stronghold, deep in the heart of the Bible Belt, it’s beat out only by California, and Florida is a close 3rd in the number of adults actively looking for sex on the internet.
Are we making this up? Now way!
These revealing numbers are reported by one of the largest adult web sites on the internet. The numbers will really surprise you…
If you don’t already know, Adult Friend Finder is the largest sex and swinger personals web site on the internet today with 22,319,717 members. That’s almost identical to the population of Texas which is 23,507,783. Hmmm… That’s a lot of people on just this one website.
What is a sex and swinger personals web site? Well, it’s basically a dating site for singles and couples looking for sex. What many people don’t realize is that Adult Friend Finder gets more visitors every day than Match.com and eHarmony put together!
That’s no big surprise. But what IS a surprise is that Texas is ranked #2 in the number of subscribers to this web site.
Here is the state by state breakdown of the top sex enthusiasts in the U.S., according to Adult Friend Finder:
* California - 1.2 million (That’s 3.3% of the state population)
* Texas - 800,000 (That’s 3.4% of the state population)
* Florida - 743,000 (That’s 4.1% of the state population)
* New York - 660,000 (That’s 3.4% of the state population)
* Illinois - 429,000 (That’s 3.3% of the state population)
Wow, what’s truly amazing here is that Texas - the heart of the Bible Belt - is #2 in all of the U.S. with a larger percentage of the population subscribing than California!
Is Texas shedding it’s ultra conservative facade? Or will the truth remain buried behind closed doors with faceless pictures on the top sex personals sites like Adult Friend Finder?
Here are some more interesting facts about sex on the internet
While it’s difficult to identify the exact number of internet users, ComScore Media Metrix reports 4% of all Web traffic and 2% of all time spent Web surfing involved an adult site.
* According to a recent study by Google, adult content is the most sought after content by users with cellphones. Google’s team found that 20 percent of searches on cellphones were for adult content, while only 5 percent of searches on PDAs were for it. The researchers sifted through 1 million searches by users of their mobile search software to come up with these numbers.
* The AVN Annual Survey of the Adult Industry 2006 asserts that the adult entertainment industry is nearly a $13 billion business in 2006, mostly in the form of adult videos. But the delivery mechanism is changing… Internet sales of adult content, which includes images, live-chat and live-streaming video, has now become the second largest adult entertainment segment, with 22 percent of the market or $2.8 billion in sales.
So, are more than 23 million people wrong? Or are the rules and social stigmas against sex and enjoying our sexuality outdated remnants of the Victorian age?
Obviously the demand is there, but so are the ultra conservative religious extremists and the lawmakers that they keep in their pockets. Which explains why prostitution is still illegal in most states and certain sexual acts between consenting adults are illegal in the privacy of their own homes. The fact that consenting adults cannot do whatever they choose in the privacy of their own homes, without causing harm to anyone, is outrageous!
This is also why Janet Jackson was persecuted for her wardrobe malfunction during the Superbowl a few years back (the most replayed moment in TiVo history) and Chicago TV reporter, Amy Jacobson, was persecuted for doing an interview in her swimsuit. Exactly what is wrong with a breast and a belly button anyway? Really… Stop and think about that for just a moment.
When will we say enough is enough?
Wait. Visit http://www.AskDanAndJennifer.com today.
Dating, Relationships, and Sex. Tips, Advice, Articles, and Videos.
Copyright 2007, http://www.AskDanAndJennifer.com. All rights reserved.
This just further convinces me that there is someone out there for everyone. You just have to know where to look. Go Geeks!
Geeks take back online dating
Website aims to help those lonely Han Solos find their own Princess Leias
By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | July 11, 2007
Joyce Dales went through 30 guys on Match.com before she found her Jedi Knight in shining armor.
“I was either too strange or they weren’t strange enough,” she said.
Eventually, she found and married Jeff Dales, a “recovering lawyer” from Nottingham, N.H., who was geek enough to sprinkle Star Wars references into his first flirtatious e-mails.
But the long list of rejections, from teachers and lawyers and other professionals scattered among the millions of profiles she encountered on popular dating sites, showed Dales that people like her had a problem: Online dating—once the domain of geeks—had gone completely mainstream.
“It’s like the playground all over again. We’re not the cool kids,” said Joyce, 35, who last summer launched SweetOnGeeks.com, a safe haven where the socially awkward can find that special someone who shares their dream of building a Hobbit Hole or love of jousting.
The Dales cofounded Sweet on Geeks with James Crosby, Joyce’s 37-year-old brother—a self-identified history geek who said he was rejected when he tried to fill out a profile for eHarmony.com.
“I think if you get a little extreme in your answers, they deny you,” said Crosby, who compares the big dating websites to walking into a nightclub with The Killers playing—a nightmare for a guy whose idea of a good time involves vinyl records and a Renaissance Faire.
Sweet on Geeks is a place where throwing out a reference to a person’s “midichlorian count”—a way of measuring how strong the Force is in Star Wars—wouldn’t end a conversation the way it did when Joyce was seeking a mate on Match.com.
Users choose names such as “AlphaGeek,” or “entropy73.” For first impressions, they offer descriptions such as “Nintendo fanboy” or “shy and soft-spoken” and mention Nikola Tesla and Leonardo Da Vinci as their heroes.
There are other geek dating websites out there, ranging from gk2gk.com to Trek Passions, but the geeks behind Sweet on Geeks hope their website, which incorporates some of the features people have come to expect on other social-networking websites and now has 4,000 users, will become a go-to spot for Trekkies, gamers, and others.
“We’re trying to escape that one-geek stereotype of a guy sitting in a lab coat or playing games,” said Crosby.
Every aspect of the site is vetted by the three founders—“two out of three geeks must approve,” Joyce says. New features are developed in a collaborative process in which the team experiments with new ideas—on their Macs, of course—thinking of things that make them laugh.
For the first two weeks, membership is free for users; after that, it costs $5 a month. But eventually the founders would like to make the whole website ad-supported, sponsored by geek-friendly banner ads like the Dungeons & Dragons banner that already appears on the site.
“You have to market to your audience, and we have a pretty good demographic,” said Jeff Dales, 41, with a user base that likes gadgets, games, and spends a lot of time online.
But the geekiness isn’t just part of the profiles; it’s built into the very base of interactions on Sweet on Geeks.
When a user “winks” at another person to get the banter going, for instance, they have the option of sending any number of virtual objects—the greek letter Pi, a unicorn, a floppy disk, a crop circle, or a dilithium crystal used to power the warp drive on Star Trek. And they can choose to inform the recipient of the reason for their wink; whether it’s courtly love ("as a token of my esteem") or the nerdish version of making a move ("as a spontaneous display of reckless flirtation").
“Our site is very thoughtfully created so a person can be who they are. It’s OK to be smart. There’s a lot of pressure in online dating to come off as something in your profile picture,” Joyce said. “We created a comfortable place to geek out a conversation, a bully-free zone.”
That’s something the users seem to appreciate. Alex Riviere, a 21-year-old theater geek from Atlanta, joined the site last year and posted a picture of himself with a solved Rubik’s cube. He took the screen name Fimion—that’s elvish for slim man.
Riviere, who dresses as a pirate “as often as I possibly can,” said the website offers something a bit more genuine than what he found browsing more conventional dating sites.
“It’s for people who know that society wants to shun them. But we’re really proud of the fact that we’re geeks so it just takes itself very lightly,” Riviere said. “Anything I put on Sweet on Geeks is going to be true and honest; on, like, a normal dating website I’d give it a little more consideration.”
That is just the reaction the founders are hoping for as their site grows into a place where geeks meet, mingle, and maybe even marry.
But behind the bigger dream, there’s a smaller one.
Crosby, wearing glasses with blue octagonal lenses and a shirt saying “I’m not dead yet,” is still single.
Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at .
Married folks lurking around on dating sites and trying to snag the unexpected has been a concern for online dating singles. I haven’t heard so much aobut this being a problem lately, and maybe it’s because of sites like this one and AshleyMadison.com Yeesh. Talk about yucky—sites that enable extramarital affairs. Well, at least they may be doing a service and giving these folks a place to go rather that the mainline dating sites. We should be thankful.
Best, Kathryn
100,000th member looks for an extra marital affair....
IllicitEncounters.com, the world’s biggest extra marital dating website, has signed up its 100,000th UK member . A site spokesman told us “With membership soaring by a couple of thousand a week, IllicitEncounters.com is a clear indication that the 34% of married people having an affair - now choose to look for one online”. There are now more than 10,000 members in Scotland, 6,000 in Wales, 2,500 in Northern Ireland, 500 in Southern Ireland, 2,500 non-UK and the remaining 78,500 are in England.
One of the negatives about Internet dating is that because there seems to be so many singles out there, poeple can get into the endless search for perfection. Anyone who has a “defect” has a more diffidult time of the search. Sites for disabled people provide a huge service. I’ve had several clients who have used similar sites with good luck.
Hello stranger, are you sick enough for me?
Sun-Herald | Monday, 25 June 2007
Lonely hearts with health conditions such as cancer, herpes, irritable bowel syndrome and allergies are turning to a specialised online dating service in their quest to find love.
The website Prescription4Love (http://www.prescription4love.com) is the brainchild of American Ricky Durham, 46, who was inspired by his late brother Keith’s struggle to meet new people while he suffered from Crohn’s disease. Keith died in 2004.
“It was hard for him to disclose his disease to anyone, but it was really hard for him to tell someone he had a colostomy bag,” Mr Durham said.
“When do you tell someone that you have a colostomy bag? The first time you meet? The first date? The second? So I thought if he met someone at a website where everyone had the same condition, there would be nothing to disclose.”
The free site is one of a growing number of dating and friendship services specialising in health conditions, with sexually transmitted infections now leading the way.
US-based websites such as Positive Singles (http://www.positivesingles.com) and Antopia, a herpes group (http://www.mpwh.net) claim to have tens of thousands of infected members and boast hundreds of “success stories”.
Mr Durham, from Atlanta, Georgia, said he began Prescription4Love for sufferers of 11 conditions, including cancer, obesity, deafness, herpes, HIV, diabetes, Crohn’s disease and allergies. At the request of clients, he has recently expanded the site to include those with less common conditions such as epilepsy, paraplegia and human papillomavirus, which causes genital warts and cervical cancer, as well as transplant patients and burns victims.
The site has about 1000 members mostly in the US, but Mr Durham said people from Australia, Canada, Britain and Israel had also joined up.
Clients include “Sweet Lady”, 24, from Oklahoma, who’s deaf and “looking for a date or making friends” and Kelvin, 45, from Pennsylvania, a recovering alcoholic with diabetes “looking for love”.
Mr Durham, who had no previous experience in IT said honesty was important in a relationship, but finding an opportune time and situation to raise such subjects as medical conditions, particularly embarrassing ones, could be difficult.
“By using Prescription4Love.com, you can be honest in advance,” he said.
Lija Jarvis from mainstream Australian online dating website RSVP said that, while it doesn’t have any services catering for disabled people, this has been identified as a potential need.
She said the feature might be built into sub sites in the future.
RSVP is owned by Fairfax Media, publisher of smh.com.au and theage.com.au.
Is it about love or money? Well, at least sites like SeekingArrangement.com make it absolutely clear, that on this site at least, it’s about money. Here’s what the site says about itself: “SeekingArrangement is the premier Sugar Daddy Dating site. We are a matchmaking website for wealthy benefactors, and attractive guys & gals.” And “An Arrangement is short for “Mutually Beneficial Relationship” between two people. Such a relationship is usually between an older and wealthy individual who gives a young person expensive gifts or financial assistance in return for friendship, intimacy or sex.”
This site is certainly a step or so beyond the already obnoxious millionaire matching sites I have already written about.
Okay, in some ways I can see how this can be good. Another route to get those who are not serious about looking for a long term, faithful, equal and honest relationship can go. And it is surely capitalistic: if you’ve got the money, flaunt it and buy what you want.
One of the most popular postings on my blog comment-wise is a short one about sugar mamas I have one guy after another (and at least one woman) who would love to find a woman to support them.
It is hard to believe. But look at the evidence.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Somebody over at OnlineBootyCall has such a sense of humor. We here at Find-a-Sweetheart are very grateful for laughs, and OnlineBootyCall has provided a few: See my earlier blog entries August 11, 2006 and |
