The matchmaking site eHarmony just collected a cool $110 million in venture funding from Sequoia and other top tier investors.

eHarmony is positioned differently than most of the other dating sites. The goal is to find a partner for marriage as opposed to just finding a partner for the next 20-25 minutes. Participants are required to answer a 436 item questionanaire in order to find others with similar interests and wants. I was married before the service launched. Does anyone know if there is a section of questions about HD Tivo, online poker, hydrogenated oil-friendly zones, non-medicinal marijuana, late night overeating, and his and her Powerbooks? Just wondering.

One key angle to focus on when it comes to this and many of the other dating sites that are making a lot of dough is the social networking play. It looks like some of the general social networking sites are on the wane whereas social networking with a purpose is on the rise.

Look for the vertical social networks to emerge big time in 2005.

A couple of weeks ago, Google fixed a security flaw in their desktop search tool that could have enabled outsiders to get a glimpse of some of your personal information. The security hole was found by Professor Dan Wallach and a couple of grad students doing a research project at Rice University.

Two key points arise out of the finding and fixing of the security flaw. First, Google and everyone else got a very stark reminder of the potential dangers one finds when entering the waters of internet enabled desktop apps, especially ones that have the potential to be wildly popular and are therefore likely to become the targets of hackers.

Second, we see once again that outsiders with no direct connection to a brand or its software managed to find a flaw (before the bad guys did) and notify the company about it. Google quickly patched the hole and explained: “We were very thankful to Mr. Wallach and his team for working on it.”

This was a small flaw that likely would never have been found (other than by hackers) if the testing and research had been limited to those directly connected to Google. The crowd protected itself and the company and its customers benefited.

We’ve seen this countless times when it comes to software. In light of the recent discoveries about Celebrex, Vioxx and other prescription drugs, it will be interesting to watch as the the broader population begins to use the internet as a vehicle to share information about products and services outside of the realm of technology.

We create demand. We assess needs. We find flaws. We create fixes. We market products.

We are Generation We.

It was my birthday yesterday. My wife and I decided to keep things mellow. This was in part because I don’t much like birthdays anymore and in part because my sisters got me an HDTV DirectTivo, so whatever small incentive I had to ever leave the house disappeared.

We decided to grab some lunch and see a movie. We saw Kinsey. Later that night, we watched Boogie Nights on DVD. It was only this morning, upon reflection, that I realized it wouldn’t take a Freudian analyst to pick up on a certain theme running through those movies. And looking back even further, I realized that I almost always spend my birthday watching movies and they are almost always somehow connected to that same theme.

The peak was about a decade ago when, during the same birthday visit to the video store, I rented Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and a movie called Masseuse III. That combination (in addition to getting me placed on my video store’s unofficial “watch list”) helps to explain the rather disturbing pavlovian response I have every time I hear the Oompa Loompa song.

What troubles me the most is that in under a decade, I’ve gone from Masseuse III (the best of a trilogy that I think rivals Peter Jackson’s recent effort) to something as tame as a documdrama about Alfred Kinsey. What’s in store for my next birthday. A friggin’ filmstrip on cell meiosis?

Here are a couple of desktop patterns (or wallpapers) that might add a little holiday cheer to your desktop. Or if you’re like me, they’ll just give you cavities.

Over the weekend, the Pope announced that the move towards legalizing gay marriage is an attack on society.

Attacks on marriage and the family, from an ideological and legal aspect, are becoming stronger and more radical every day. Who destroys this fundamental fabric causes a profound injury to society and provokes often irreparable damage.

He’s right on the message. He’s just wrong on the topic. It’s actually enabling and allowing a pandemic of child molestation and then looking the other way when victims emerge and then bumping those involved up to new and more powerful positions in the Vatican that causes profound injury. So does pretending that the fabric of families is made up of anything more important than love and acceptance.

How would you like to be part of an ad for your favorite product? Not an ad that you were paid for and maybe not even an ad that anyone else (other than your friends and coworkers) would see?

That basic description may not sound that compelling. But if it’s the right product and the right offer, you’d be surprised at how many takers there would be.

A new web-based service is offering customers the chance to turn any digital photo into their own personal iPod advertisement. And people are going for it.

This is just one more example of the new age of marketing. One of the pillars of this new age will be to figure out ways to turn your customers into evangelists. But in this case, a third party has come up with a way to run a business letting other people advertise Apple’s product.

This just sort of happened. Cool product. Great ad campaign. Right userbase. A few folks with a creative idea of how to make a few bucks.

Look for many companies to try to figure out how to make things like this happen in the future. It will not be easy to manufacture this kind of viral marketing. Even with the help of the new buzz manufacturers, success is far from a sure thing. And that’s probably good.

What if we entered a new age of marketing; one during which the product itself actually mattered?