If you’ve ever wondered why guys forget birthdays or don’t call when they say they will then Man Chat: Answers To Your Burning Questions is a must read.

We wouldn’t be a dating site if we didn’t have an article or two about Valentine’s Day now would we? 10 Valentine Gift Ideas For Those New To The Zoo is perfect for those who have just started dating. 10 Gift Ideas For Your Sexy Valentine are for those who have a more, ahem, intimate knowledge of each other.

If you’re a parent, you know you get blamed for a lot. Fortunately when your kid grows up chances are pretty good he’ll thank you for teaching him right from wrong, and a whole lot more. Here’s one person’s take on the 20 Things I Wish My Parents Had Taught Me About Sex, Love And Life.

Football fans should take note of 12 Lessons About Football & Sex, and those in need of a vacation (myself included) will want to start packing once they’ve read Where The Mild Things Are: Mellow Vacation Locations.

That’s our wrap up of last week’s articles. More next Monday!

Valentine’s Day is coming soon! Don’t be left unprepared. Show your flair by making one of these 15 creative do it yourself gifts for Valentine’s Day.

Not everyone likes to follow the rules and some are just meant to be broken. When it comes to relationships these are the relationship rules to break.

Speaking of relationships, or the lack thereof, just what are the pros and cons of undefined relationships?

If you can’t figure out whether to ditch him or hold onto him, subtle signs that he’s a keeper might help you decide!

And if you decide to let him go, well It’s Your Party…Cry If You Want To (It’s Good For You!). Seriously, crying really IS good for your health.

Guys, if your man game needs a helping hand, you need Dude Food: Powerful Foods To Keep Your Man Game Up.

We all know that friends are important, but did you know about The 5 Types Of Friends You Absolutely Must Have?

Those are our articles from last week. We’ll have another summary for you next Monday!

We have all been in that position where you are going to watch a movie but know ahead of time that you may not be remembering much of the movie as your attention is… elsewhere. Here are the 5 best or worst movies to watch on a date.

With Haiti in crisis, here is a must read article before you donate irresponsibly called the world just doesn’t feel right as Haiti hurts.

Our article called the top 10 media darlings of 2009 is a nice break from the general dating articles, and focuses on ten popular people that broke headlines in 2009.

Here is an article for the men reading the blog called the secrets you need to know about Valentines day.

For those dating in their 20’s, you have to read twenty-something love why its the best and worst thing ever. We encourage you to comment on it if you agree or disagree and to state your points.

Last but not least is a flagship article about which questions to ask on a first date, an article that a lot of people are looking for and one that we hit the head on the nail with.

That sums it up for this week, stay tuned for more must reads next week here at Datepad.

If you’re into “The Bachelor” don’t miss our review of America’s Next Hot Bachelor!

From Bachelor to Cheatah, how did our favorite Tiger get this way?

Want to take things public? Click here for some helpful hints.

Just got dumped?  How to be a Classy Ex-Lover.

2009 sucked for a lot of us.  Kiss 2009 Goodbye!

Well the big news this week in the world of social networking and gaming was the Developer Garage hosted by none other than Facebook. If you have an application on Facebook this week was a tad stressful. The first problem was much like the swine flu; the media, in this case all of the tech blogs, went crazy.  In fact some called it D-Day for Facebook developers. There are many blogs that have already outlined exactly what the changes are and for my money Inside Facebook does a job of outlining what has happened and how it could affect you.

Here are the things we’re excited about and the changes we’re a pinch anxious about. You need to keep in mind however that none of this really matters until the changes go live and we get to see exactly what the changes look like and how they will impact us.

The Good

Emails - Facebook is now going to give all apps the ability to ask the user for their current email address. Some think this is a step back as email is an old and archaic way of communicating. What is good about this is that it gives the apps that work hard to generate users the comfort of knowing that they don’t need to rely on Facebook to connect with them.

Canvas – Another step forward is the ability for developers to create a canvas so users will feel more like they’re on the app’s page rather than one tucked inside Facebook. This, along with the email request, is a strong message from Facebook. It implies the user and his/her information isn’t owned solely by Facebook.  It also indicates that Facebook understands the importance of the Developer Network and the success it has brought both them and the companies using the network!

The Stream – Developers love the stream and while many hate the recent changes to the stream despite the blogs posts from earlier this week the stream shall for the most part remain, unchanged.

The Bad (Heck given our glass is half full mentality, I will actually call this – The Stuff we are a tad concerned about) – Notifications, this is the one that most developers are nervous about. First off notices are going to disappear; developers won’t have the ability to communicate using this method anymore. To replace it users will have a dashboard that will appear to the left of the stream, it should work better for the user which is great, honestly! What concerns developers is if the user doesn’t have their app book marked it will/may be difficult for the user to see these messages.  Worst case scenario is that the user will outright ignore them. This really is one of those things that could work out well for developers or could dramatically make things worse.

User to user communication – This doesn’t affect Datepad because our users communicate through the site/application. Today apps that allow user to user communication use the notification box and going forward they will be placed within the inbox. This is something that most gaming apps are very concerned with.

I have only touched on a handful of the major changes coming in the next 6 months. Most of them are good for both users and developers and some well, we’ll have to wait and see. As always Datepad is looking forward to working with Facebook and more importantly creating a great user experience for our members!

We’ve been busy here at Datepad developing a new and even more user friendly version of Datepad.com, our Facebook App and the launch of Facebook Connect. The goal of these monumental tasks was to make all three areas of our business as seamless as possible. Users want to be able to join an internet dating site as quickly as possible or take advantage of the service while using their favorite social network. These were the fundamental criteria that were used for this update.

Whether you come directly to Datepad.com or find us through our Facebook App we’ve made the process of joining as simple as possible. It literally takes seconds to join Datepad.

We encourage all of you to check out the new site and do let us know what you think. We’ve added a new thread in our forums to discuss the new site. Be candid, good or bad we want to hear it!

Now that this is done we’re busy building more tools and features for our members. Be sure to check back in the coming weeks as we have a ton of cool things we’re working on!

Thanks from all of us at Datepad!

One of the biggest issues facing search engines is their ability to deliver good results. In the end relevant search results is all that really matters. Another area search engines have to be careful with is tailoring the search results to benefit their needs. Being open is a good long term strategy rather than making money in the short.

Well AOL, a company that has had numerous issues over the years has done something so ridiculously short citied. They have a dating website personals.aol.com, nothing new here. What’s new are their search results. If you take any dating keyword, online dating, internet dating, free online dating, literally any dating keyword they appear #1. Their search engine is powered or as they say enhanced by Google, well Google isn’t doing this.

I hope anyone reading this will stop using AOL search, given these and other shady business practices I am not sure too many are!

In the past we’ve written articles on Datepad about taking a good picture. At the end of the day standing out on a dating site with millions of members isn’t easy and having a lousy picture only makes things worse. In these articles we’ve made mention of the fact that many of us have decided to take a picture of ourselves rather than having a friend do so. Why? Maybe embarrassed to say where the picture is going to be posted or maybe it’s all about convenience.

Well today there is a camera that could be designed specifically for this crowd.

The Samsung ST500 has a screen not only on the back of the camera which is traditional, they have also placed one on the front of the camera so you can see what you are shooting (which is most likely you!).

For more info Techcrunch has done a nice little writeup about this new product.

Disclaimer: Most of us have at least one friend that annoyingly takes photos everywhere you go.  While annoying, this same person is probably quite good at taking a great photo of you.  Save the money on the camera and get them to do the hard work. Maybe they even know how to work Photoshop?

To the best of our knowledge Datepad has become the first Dating Application on Facebook to receive Verified status. What does this mean? The folks over at Facebook have a list of requirements, some of them we now know and some of them we’re still not too clear about!. Depending on how your application works this process can be a tad arduous; for Datepad it wasn’t too bad.

Facebook is  trying to make the application network a better place. One of their major concerns is spam; they don’t want apps sending more notices and friend requests than need be. Many apps that have been successful on the network simply won’t qualify. Sadly these spammy practices are the main reasons many applications have done so well.

During the verification process Facebook was also concerned about the look and feel of the application; they don’t want users to think the apps are created by Facebook. Many developers have made their applications practically mimic the exact look and feel of a Facebook page. For the average none tech savvy user this could come across as misleading so I understand why Facebook is doing this.

The big question is was it worth it? It’s too early to tell and this might be tough to measure regardless. Facebook has added special areas within the application directory to highlight Verified apps, so in theory this should drive more traffic. Truth be told most applications growth is through the news feed and through friend requests. What I do know as a user is that if I were faced with two similar applications, one being verified and the other not,  I would be inclined to go the verified route. Building credibility in any market is tough and in the online world, whether it is a social network or a dating site, one could argue it is even tougher.