According to EntertainmentWise, she’s gotten some advice on how to get back in the dating game from her pal Jennifer Aniston – by online dating! Sources say Aniston had used online dating to get her groove back after her very public break ups (with Brad Pitt and Vince Vaughn, we imagine), and suggested that Moore do the same. We’re sure that Moore would have a fantastic time using online dating and would have no problem getting the pick of the litter!

However, it may be unnecessary, as the mag also claims Demi might already be dating a California National Guard member named Blake Corl-Baietti. We’ll let you know if he hear any rumors of Demi joining the online dating game!

An interesting new player has arrived to the online dating game, and we could see this site being the “Millionaire Matchmaker” of the online dating world. According to the Huffington Post, Blackbook365 is a new dating site launched on November 15th, that the author calls “Match.com meets The Sartorialist meets Gilt Groupe meets a group of Yentas. It’s bespoke online dating with a side of highbrow editorial. Simple, innovative and filling a need in society,” which must mean it’s not for someone like me because I don’t understand 90% of that sentence.

The site, which take an upscale approach to online dating, has launched first in New York City and offers an interesting way to get yourself seen on the site.

 It costs about $340 to be featured for one day on the website (price will vary with location). When compared with the monthly subscription fees for other online dating sites, the price is actually quite reasonable. Considering the Blackbook365 team spends about an hour with each featured individual and a professional photo shoot is part of the deal, it’s quite the steal… especially if matches are made.

Of course, women can create a profile for free, and are able to send “calling cards” to the featured men they see on the page. Blackbook365 also plans to host coktail parties and other events soon, perhaps solidifying their position as the ultimate in elite online dating. Only time will tell!

What do you think? Does the Blackbook365 model appeal to you? Would you pay to have a professional level featured page on a dating site? Let us know in the comments!

Photo and story via HuffingtonPost

Of the dozens of podcasts, radio shows, and call in TV shows on the air today, it comes a surprise to me that no advice show has tackled the confusing world of online dating. Yet the first one (that I’ve heard of) is here in the form of an internet radio show by online dating site PlanetLoveMatch, who have begun to broadcast their new talk show PlanetLoveMatch Radio, from their website and LATalkLive.com every Thursday night from 7 to 9 pm.

The show features two hosts, Josh and Jen, who share their own dating stories and mishaps each week for their listeners, who will likely be young(ish) singles interested in the world of online dating. PlanetLoveMatch Radio will also regular guests, from comedians to actors and matchmakers who will share anecdotes and advice on love, sex, dating and relationships. While entertaining and light-hearted, the show also aims to advise its listeners on safety and privacy in online dating, two aspects that have been dangers to online daters in the past.

We wish PlanetLoveMatch radio luck, although we sure wish we’d thought of it first… ;)

Story via DigitalJournal

It is one of online dating’s biggest pitfalls that it is unable to 100% detect those heartless individuals who join dating sites for the sole purpose of scamming unsuspecting singles out of money. For the most part, dating site staff only have “warning signs” and “red flags” that help them weed out scammers, but of course, those aren’t fool proof. Especially as those scammers become smarter and more sneaky, patrolling becomes more and more difficult.

So brings us to the sad story (that we’ve heard so many times before), of a widow Esther Ortiz-Rodeghero, who joined an online dating site to try and find love after her husband passed away. She met a man who claimed to be named Wayne Jackson, a soldier and widower who was, like Esther, looking for a new love in a lonely world. The two e-mailed nearly every day and talked of spending their lives together. Then, things took a nosedive. Via ABC News:

 “Wayne” began asking for money – first, a few hundred dollars to help his son, then thousands to launch a business, one he said the two of them would share and run together.

Ortiz-Rodeghero complied, sending money all over the world, she told ABC.

She cleaned out her personal savings, her husband’s life insurance and 401K. When she ran out of cash, she took out loans.

It wasn’t until Ortiz-Rodeghero sent her online companion money for a plane ticket to come see her in Castle Rock, Colo., and he never showed up, that she realized she was the victim of a scam.

This sad story ended with Ortiz-Rodeghero out $500,000 and a newfound promise to never use online dating again. Unfortunately, had she been more careful – not let her emotions get in the way of common sense, she may have bypassed this scammer and found true love online. For those like Esther, we hope they will remember the cardinal rule of online dating: NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, give money to someone you’ve only met online (and be very discerning even if you’ve met in person). You don’t want to be left with nothing because you had stars in yours eyes.

For more tips for ensuring you don’t get scammed online, check out some tips here.

We all know that when making an online dating profile, or heck, even just making a Facebook profile, we tend to use the most attractive photos of ourselves we can find. Why wouldn’t we? However, according to a new study, men who do this with their dating profiles may be doing it in vain, because some research claims women can pick out an attractive man just based on how he describes himself in his written profile!

Psychologist and Villanova University Associate Professor Rebecca J. Brand asked 50 women to judge 100 online dating profiles for men between the ages of 22 and 25 from an online dating site. The catch? The women were shown the men’s photos and written profiles separately, then asked to judge the profile’s author or the man in the photo on traits like confidence, sense of humor, masculinity and overall attractiveness.

Interestingly, the women didn’t even need the photos to figure out who were the attractive guys! The researchers believe this has to do with the amount of confidence that attractive men have over average-looking guys. This confidence, the researchers say, may be the trait that draws women to them in the first place!

However, it leads me to wonder which came first: the confidence or the looks? Are women drawn to looks that inspire confidence, or vice versa? The most likely answer is that our society values looks over any other personality trait and therefore those who are good-looking find it easier to be confident in themselves, but I do wonder if it’s possible to have enough confidence that women are, erm… “tricked” into believing you are better looking than you are!

What do you think? Are attractive people just more confident, naturally? Or can enough confidence be the attractive trait in itself?

via shutterstock

I don’t know about you, but I am one of those people who gets a little, erm, irritated when my dinner or night-out companions are constantly on their phones. It makes me feel like I’m watching someone with so little attention span or patience that they can’t wait to get home to take care of internet business. However, the amount of people that feel such a connection to their smart phones is growing, as a recent poll showed that 80% of singles prefer using mobile dating apps over websites.

The 50,000 person poll by SnapInteractive (the minds behind AreYouInterested.com) showed that 4 out of 5 singles prefer mobile apps over strictly-computer based sites like eHarmony or Match.com. Pioneered by the gay hook-up app Grindr, many other companies are making the jump from online platforms to mobile apps.

Via DigitalTrends:

According to a recent article in the New York Times, mobile dating is becoming the preferred method to meeting potential dates among young people because the speed at which meetings occur is much faster than a traditional online dating site. Location is also used when finding a potential match and users of mobile dating applications are often scanning through multiple profiles to locate someone that’s both attractive and nearby

Luckily, most mobile dating apps are taking into consideration both the privacy and safety of this users, by blocking phone numbers and allowing members to message anonymously until both parties agree to meet. Although we were a bit apprehensive during the birth of mobile dating apps, we only hope that it brings more singles into the world of online dating… in a safe, healthy, and private way.

What do you think? Would you prefer to use a mobile dating app over a traditional dating site? Or do you feel that the older way is safer and more reliable?

Contrary to the belief that online daters are just losers incapable of meeting a mate in the real world, Dancing With the Stars judge and ex-fly girl dancer Carrie Ann Inaba says that she met her fiance, Jesse Sloan, on the popular dating site eHarmony.com. From ABC.com:

“I met him on eHarmony,” she said. “I was dating all these younger guys. I was like, ‘Maybe I need to change it up a little.’”

Inaba, 43, explained that she didn’t post a picture or offer any clues to her profession to make sure Sloan really was interested in her, not her fame.

“In his picture, I felt like I already knew him,” she told “Access.” “He took a risk because he didn’t know what I looked like or anything.”

The couple, who has been engaged since March, are in no hurry to get married, although Carrie Ann says they are trying for a baby.

“My age, at 43, I have to get moving on the baby,” she said. “The wedding can come later.”

If this beautiful, classy, and talented woman had troubles finding a guy at a bar, but had fantastic luck on a dating site, then shouldn’t we all be open to online dating? Here’s to hoping that Carrie Ann’s openness and honesty about her dating habits will inspire others to try a less popular dating method than just sitting at a bar, waiting for someone to pick up on you!

What do you think? Will online dating become totally mainstream soon?

So it’s with a bit of a sigh that I announce Jack Black’s recent venture: an NBC sitcom about online dating. Now, I’d like to hope that it will be honest, funny, and realistic in its handling of a very new subject matter, but my hopes aren’t super high for this one. The synopsis:

The show, which sounds a bit like Dharma & Greg redux, revolves around two sweet but colossally unfit young people who meet online and fall into a sudden, uncontrollable bout of true love, much to the disapproval of most everyone in their lives.

Eh? Maybe? POSSIBLY? It could be amazing and totally blow my expectations out of the water. I’ll let you know when it hits the small screen. Until then, DON’T MESS THIS UP, JACK BLACK. This could be the show that leads millions of singles to the online dating world. Don’t ruin this for us.

Image and story via TVology

Hermione Way at TheNextWeb says that “[DuoDater] caters towards double dates, and only makes its website’s services accessible to pairs or groups rather than just the individual.” Interesting tactic in theory, but does it work in practice? She brought a, um… “friend” along to try out the idea with the creators of DuoDater themselves, and shared the experience on video.

What do you think? Does DuoDater have potential after merely setting up a first date? Would you use a dating service that is only accessible to pairs or groups? Let us know in the comments!

Enter Meexo to answer this question with a resounding yes – the mobile dating app debuted at TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF convention earlier this year and definitely appears to be a big winner in the tough race to be successful in the online dating world. Via TechCrunch:

So what’s it like interacting with this mobile-centric dating app? Meexo is like Pandora for dating, as you interact with the application, it learns about you, and becomes more relevant as you go. If you use Foursquare and Facebook, Meexo pulls in that data to learn more about who you are and what you like.

It also protects your privacy by allowing potential dates to contact your phone via a private number, so you don’t have to go around handing our your precious cell number to strangers. It also allows you to block your profile from anyone you’re connected to on social networking platforms, to ensure your profile doesn’t accidentally pop up to your single uncle or that creepy kid from your Psych 101 class. Even better:

Meexo is distinguishing itself from the pack by game-ifying dating. When a user joins Meexo, they receive virtual currency, which users pay out when they message other people, forcing daters to be more discerning in their selections. Obviously, in this way, Meexo is attempting to avoid the spamming that has become so endemic to dating sites.

In a world full of big misses, Meexo seems like it could be a hit… but will daters approve of the mobile-only application? We’ll just have to wait and see!

Check out Meexo for yourself right here.