Gawker: valleywag, eharmony

Gays now entitled to inept online dating

Owen Thomas — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:40:00 EST

eHarmony does not hate gay people. It is merely ignorant of them. That is the dating site's excuse for excluding same-sex customers — a practice that led a gay New Jersey man, Eric McKinley, to file a complaint with New Jersey's attorney general which eHarmony has just settled, paying a $50,000 fine to the state and $5,000 to McKinley. eHarmony was founded in 2000 by Neil Clark Warren, an evangelical Christian and a psychologist; he is still the company's chairman.

To settle the complaint, eHarmony is also launching Compatible Partners, a gay dating site. But the Compatible site, as proposed is not just separate; it's also unequal.

eHarmony executives have long insisted that they didn't want to serve gay daters because their site used an algorithm based on long-term studies of straight couples. Compatible Partners, which must launch by March, will use the same questionnaire as eHarmony — but the company admits it has no idea if it will work to find good matches. Compatible Partners users will see a warning to this effect: "The statement lets customers know that eHarmony, Inc. has not conducted research on same-sex couples so that they have the information they need to decide whether to use our service."

If anyone shows up that is; eHarmony will give away 10,000 free accounts, but it's hard to think that a dating service chaired by a conservative Christian will prove much more popular than, say, Manhunt, the gay personals site whose chairman donated to John McCain's campaign.

The politics of sex aside, the website's clearly going to suck. This should sound so familiar to people who build websites for a living: A poorly thought-out product, based on insufficient research, rushed out on an artificial deadline. But in this case, it's the government, not inept managers, who are ordering it up. They're from the government, and they're here to help your dating life! If gays can't get married in California, don't they at least deserve the benefit of their own pseudoscientifically valid hookups?

(Photo via Magicmud.com)

Guy who can't buy a date gets free eHarmony account

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:33:19 EST

You remember Brett Petersel. He's the self-promoting Silicon Alley tech-meetup organizer who ~~opened~~ widened himself to public ridicule by posting a Facebook note offering $25 to anyone who'd set him up on a date. Maybe you felt bad for him. Don't. So far the Lodwickesque exhibitionism is paying off. Petersel says his Facebook inbox is jammed full and yes, gay-hating dating site eHarmony gave him a free membership. But then came Petersel's really bad idea.

Petersel told me he and fellow wantrepreneur Oz Sultan plan to launch a dating-advice widget for Facebook. That's kind of like ExxonMobil opening a resort on Prince William Sound. Here's a better idea, Brett. See if BrettandJulia.com is still available to register.

The 5 worst websites (according to Time)

Tim Faulkner — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:06:17 EDT

Time has deigned to inform the public of the 5 Worst Websites on the Internet. Yes, the same magazine that named YOU the Person of the Year in 2006 is telling you the five sites to avoid. But first, we'll add a sixth to the list: Time.com, for wasting so many expensively edited words on five websites that clearly don't deserve them. After the jump, we read Time's list so you don't have to.

Dating site eHarmony. The review starts scathing ("its power to cause utter despair") and ends ominous ("The site also discriminates against gays.") Sounds like a Time writer has been watching rival Chemistry.com's advertising copy.
Evite. The site design is dated and clumsy — just like Time's analysis of why it sucks, plainly cribbed from Valleywag.
Meez. We never heard of this personal avatar creation tool, and we wish we hadn't. Thanks, Time
MySpace. Last year, it was one of Time's "50 Coolest Web Sites." Looks like Time Warner is cutting back on the Lexis-Nexis budget for clip searches.
Second Life. Again, slavishly following Valleywag, Time disses the corporate world's embrace of Second Life as "a case of some CEOs trying too hard to be hip." Just like some venerable glossies we know.

Craig has a very nice girlfriend, thank you

ndouglas — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 15:43:04 EST

eHarmony wants Craig "'s List" Newmark to find true love — so badly that they failed to delete the account that he didn't even sign up for, after promising twice to do so. Craig tell us that he's "committed and happy, thx," but can we really blame eHarmony for assuming the casually geeky Craig needs some love in his life?

eHarmony spam update [Craigblog]