Online dating sites, always innovating

You read about the new online dating site, What’s Your Price, where you can essentially buy a date. Well, the march of progress continues. Here are three more new online dating sites to consider:

Site: Clique
Summary: Here
Innovation: Leverages your existing social networks (Facebook, twitter, etc). Limits your potential dating connections to friends of friends, i.e., 2-degrees of separation.
Availability: only in NYC
Cost: Free for now
My take: Sounds interesting. This is the way people usually meet organically. The problem with most new online dating innovations is that it takes time to broaden the user base past the critical mass that makes it work. This site gets past that by integrating your existing networks. Hopefully it’s discreet. That’s the biggest barrier to most online dating sites integrating with Facebook. No one wants a Facebook update that says, “I just joined an online dating site.”

Site: Date My School
Summary: Here
Innovation: Exclusively for college students
Availability: A select number of schools and expanding
Cost: ??
My take: Again, this is how a lot of people meet -- in class/at school -- so why not take it online. At least you know the people there (a) are in a similar age group, (b) live very close by, and (c) are not total losers (at least they’re pursuing a college degree). But to me, it seems too narrow a focus. What do I do after I’ve looked through the 20 or so people at my school who meet my criteria for major, interests, etc and haven’t found anyone I want to date?

Site: Sugar Daddy for Me
Summary: The name says it all
My take: This site faces the same issues as What’s Your Price. In fact, this site might be in a less secure legal position. A California D.A. is currently hot on its trail. Let me help to answer the question of whether or not this is prostitution. Yes, it is. But so is marriage… almost all dates… and most romantic interactions between men and women.

Your online hijinks can and will be held against you

I’ve written about the crazy stuff that happens on Facebook] before. And we all know the stories of politicians done in by indiscreet e-behavior. But most of us aren't important enough to have anyone care about one or two misguided tweets... unless we’re married.

More and more, lawyers are combing the internet for evidence to use in divorce and child custody cases. That’s right, the stuff you post online might find its way into the body of evidence in family court.

In one child custody case, a woman’s lawyers used “a YouTube video of her former spouse partying on a 60-foot yacht in the Bahamas with multiple women” to persuade the judge that he was a bad parent.

In another example...

Chicago divorce attorney Dean Dussias had a client who was concerned his wife was cheating on him with someone over the Internet. After conducting searches and finding alias names in emails, Dussias discovered she was performing sexual acts and streaming the video on the Web for money.

Awesome. But if that doesn't make you cringe at the prospect of divorce proceedings, check out this even wilder story...

Wow, just wow.

Oh the wonders this 21^st century phenomenon we call social networking!

I read this status update from a Facebook friend today:

Thank you all for the Birthday wishes! Unfortunately I have been preoccupied since November 4th when I was on my wife's phone and saw many email exchanges with a guy she was running with after work. It included photo exchanges. Her attempts at reconciliation were not sincere so it's now a matter for the lawyers. It will be a while before I'm back online with any frequency.

Amazing to find such personal details candidly broadcast in a Facebook post, to say the least.  Here’s my take: