Top Dating News in October

AnastasiaWeb Introduce video Ads
Leading russian-american introduction service AnastasiaWeb.com announced that they launched VIDEO Profiles and Additional photos — our newest features. These services are designed to help our customers to get to know more about the ladies on the website, their interests, lifestyle, and even hear their voices. For a limited time only Video Profiles are available free of charge for all new registered members (membership is free). We hope this feature will allow you to have a very enjoyable experience with Anastasiaweb and facilitate your communication with ladies. To find video profiles please register and check “Show only ladies who have video” checkbox on the search form.

Top Dating Sites in November
The new Hitwise USA online dating rankings are in. TRUE holds onto their #1 spot. I keep seeing them everywhere. They're doing a lot of ad buys. The sexy ads are working. They're differentiating against the likes of eHarmony for sure. Sex sells. eHarmony moves down one spot to take 6th place and PlentyofFish jives on up 5th place. LoveAccess moves up three places to take 12th spot. Nelson (the CEO) has been very busy working on a new spin for LoveAccess for the last several months - premium matchmaking services. Now they're finding time to drive new ad buys. Hotornot moves down two spots to 14th and Adam4Adam moves down one spot to 15th position. Visit Mark Brooks blog to view all information on this topic.

Beliefnet.com and Yahoo! Personals Create Largest Online Community
Beliefnet, Inc., the leading multi-faith, spirituality media company and online community, and Yahoo! Personals, the leading online dating service(a), today announced a relationship that will create the largest and most active community of spiritual online daters. Beliefnet has selected Yahoo! Personals to power its popular Soulmatch dating site, providing existing Soulmatch customers with the ability to search the entire Yahoo! Personals database and sort matches by religious or spirituality preferences. Yahoo! Personals will also add Beliefnet spiritual relationship content to its site to form an online spiritual center, creating a meeting ground for daters who prioritize spirituality and faith-based compatibility.

Match.com to Use Anonymous Voice Chat
Online dating services may be convenient, but they're not the most personable way to meet a potential mate. What's been lacking, Match CEO Jim Safka believes, is a way for would-be couples to hear each other talk. Free for basic subscribers beginning Thursday, matchTalk will let users go online and signal if they're interested in speaking to each other anonymously, and securely, over their telephones. The system uses new computer-based phone technology that allows each person to call in to a central conference call of sorts, Safka said. The matchTalk system assigns the couple a unique number that they can use to talk to each other without fear of giving away their real telephone number or other personal details. Safka said such features are important to the future growth of Internet dating services. "Voice is really critical in determining whether you have chemistry with someone."

ElenasModels.com Releases the Latest Demographics on Russian Women
Elena's Models, the Internet's only licensed Russian brides agency featuring pre-screened women of model quality, released the latest data on demographics of Russian and Eastern European women seeking marriage to western men via Internet. Russian girls using the agency are predominantly white, college educated, non-smoking slim women living in large cities.

PlentyofFish Becomes #1 Ranked Internet Dating Site in Canada
PlentyofFish is now the 23rd most popular site overall in Canada according to the popular internet site ranking service Alexa, which is owned by Amazon. In comparison MySpace ranks #7 in the Canadian Alexa rankings, Amazon is #17 and Facebook ranks behind PlentyofFish at #27.. AlexaRadar uses Alexa data for growth rankings and shows PlentyofFish as the 2nd fastest growing website in Canada. See . Beyond Canada, PlentyofFish currently holds top ten internet dating rankings in the U.S.A. and, more recently, in the U.K.

Law on Overseas Brides Is Keeping Couples Apart
In June, the federal immigration service froze 10,000 visa applications for foreign fiancées because they did not conform with a law that went into effect in March. Imbra (International Marriage Broker Regulation Act) is intended to give foreign women and the American government more information about the men who seek so-called mail-order brides. Under Imbra, dating agencies that specialize in matching American men with women overseas must first obtain information about a man's criminal record and marital history, relay it to the woman and then get her consent before disclosing her contact information. Men must also provide this information to the government when applying for a fiancée visa. The immigration service said 37,500 women entered the country last year on fiancée visas or temporary visas for spouses of American citizens. Up 50% from 2002 and a fourfold increase over 1998. One-third to one-half of these visas were for women who had met their American partners through matchmaking brokers.

Free Online Dating Site Launched at Datopia.com
The Heart2Heart Network, a leading provider of targeted online dating services, today announced the launch of its free, all-access dating community, Datopia (http://www.datopia.com/). Datopia.com is destined to become one of the most popular singles sites online, offering users the advanced functionality of the Web’s most popular dating sites at no cost.

TRUE Teams up With Friendster
The multi-year agreement with Friendster allows TRUE to offer Friendster members online dating. The Friendster Web site will now host a co-branded "Love" page, with content provided by TRUE that includes member profiles, and dating tips and advice. Friendster also will integrate TRUE profiles in its People Section and its People Search result pages.

Lavalife Launches New Online Magazine Exclusively for Singles
Lavalife Magazine charts dating, relationships, sex, life and style among urban singles, featuring regular lifestyle stories, advice columns, pop culture digressions and opinion pieces infused with humor and common sense. Editor, Kim Hughes is a widely published writer and editor whose work has appeared in NOW, The Globe & Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, Report On Business, Salon, Amazon.com and Billboard. Features include "A History of Sex Toys," "Dating after the Death of a Partner" and "How to Avoid Dating a Jerk."