Industry Watchdog Challenges Marketing Notion that Marriages Define Online Dating Service Success

PR Log (Press Release) – Jun 13, 2007 – (June 13, 2007) Online dating sites and relationship services that define success by the number of members getting married may be misleading the public, according to Online Dating Magazine (http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com), an independent publication covering the online dating industry.

James Houran, Ph.D., a compatibility testing expert and a feature columnist and spokesperson for Online Dating Magazine says that the popular marketing trend for dating services to emphasize marriage and marriage sustenance are promoting unrealistic expectations in consumers and sending the wrong message to online daters.

“Online dating is a great innovation,” says Dr. Houran. “But, some online dating sites actively encourage the particular mindset that happiness is only defined by a marriage, and I believe this promotes premature marriages in an already divorce-saturated society. The one question never answered by online dating sites is ‘How many divorces are associated with your site?’”

Dr. Houran recently wrote a controversial editorial tackling the subject titled “Marriages From Online Dating Services… Enough Already!” The editorial can be accessed at http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com/columns/2007editoria ... .

“The prevailing thought has always been that marriages define success and we’re saying that’s not the case,” says Joe Tracy, publisher of Online Dating Magazine. “Think of it this way… if a dating service that matches American men to Russian women has a higher percentage of members getting married than say, Match.com, then does that make them better than Match.com? Of course not!”

Dr. Houran believes that the growth of unsubstantiated compatibility tests and matching systems is harming the industry because online daters are led to believe that the tests scientifically work.

According to Houran, “Soul mate relationships are made through hard work; they are not born.  Encouraging people to rely solely on the results of unsubstantiated compatibility tests is a disservice, since it motivates people not to take responsibility for that hard work. Instead, some online dating sites make it seem very easy to find a perfect partner.”

Online Dating Magazine believes that there is not a solo factor in determining the success of an online dating service. This is because every relationship that develops from online dating is different. The quality of each relationship is more important than the quantity in determining its success, albeit the marketing machines of online dating sites tend to emphasize the number of marriages made through the sites. And the quality of a relationship is determined by both long-term satisfaction and stability, something about which online dating services do not have credible data on their members and success stories.


Note to Media
To arrange an interview with Dr. James Houran on this topic, please call Online Dating Magazine’s publisher, Joe Tracy, at 503-315-2466.