It’s Mother’s Day weekend and May has also been proclaimed Romance Month, so there’s no shortage of fabulous stories about dating, love and romance on the web and on Twitter.

Let’s start with overwhelming amount of gratitude for all the media mentions this week. Monday started out with a terrific TV promo shoot for the upcoming Ricki Lake Show. I was honored to participate along with others in the Friends of Ricki community. Here’s a sneak peek of a hug from Ricki on location posted on Twitter.

On Tuesday, Dr. Drew Pinsky featured a segment on MissTravel.com and asked me to chime in with my thoughts on the subject. It was an honor to be featured as one of 30 influential women in the Speakerpalooza series on Wednesday.  Enjoy the article, Dating Online? 5 Secrets to Finding Love Again. We’ve got free books to give away, so make sure to comment on the post. On Wednesday we also announced the first-ever Mobile Dating Bootcamp.

On Thursday, I was honored to be featured as one of America’s Ultimate Experts in Woman’s World magazine. The issue is now available at most grocery store check out stands. Check out page 26, I want more romance in my life! Lastly, I’d like to thank our friends at iVillage for the contribution to The Rules: Dos and Don’ts for Online Dating. Whew! There’s enough dating advice to last you through the summer romance season. None of this excitement could be possible if it wasn’t for the continuing support from you, our loyal readers and students.

What stories were hot this week? The Time magazine Mother’s Day cover story has gone viral. Yahoo! posted the story Jamie Lynne Grumet Defends Her Time Magazine Breastfeeding Cover from an interview on  “Today Show.” On YourTango, We Love Dates posted the 4 Things You Should Never Say on a First Date and we couldn’t agree more. Be authentic, but stay positive and leave the drama at home. Clutch posted 3 Things We Wish Men Would Leave Off Their Online Dating Profiles and our friends at Match featured a timely article in Happen magazine, Dating a Mom on Mother’s Day with a reminder not to overwhelm her if you’re in a new relationship. It’s not Valentine’s Day.

Wishing you much love and joy in cyberspace, or wherever you may roam.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Julie Spira and the Cyber-Dating Expert Team.

Follow @JulieSpira

Watch Online Dating Expert Julie Spira on FOX News with tips on how to navigate online dating. Does there profile look too good to be true? Share your comments below.

Julie Spira is an online dating expert, bestselling author, and founder of CyberDatingExpert.com. She creates irresistible profiles for singles on the dating scene. For more dating advice like us at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert and follow @JulieSpira on Twitter.

As April is winding down, there’s no shortage of Spring Fever in the air. My inbox is filled with emails from happy online daters, so without further digital adieu, here are some of our favorite articles from the web and on Twitter this week.

First up, our moment of gratitude.  Thank our pal Sofi at Yahoo! Shine who included us in her article, Controversial Miss Travel dating site proves there’s no such thing as a free trip. Thank you as well to FOX News in Charlotte for the wonderful interview on online dating safety. We’ll post a link next week.

Over at CNN, Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz shared some of their favorite online dating sites in Three Niche Dating Sites for Targeted Romance. Their list included SingleFitPeople.com, TasteBuds.com for music enthusiasts and Tawkify, based on Klout scores for social media powerhouses, which we featured last week. On Huffington Post, I featured a story called, Puppy Love: New Online Dating Sites for Dogs. Shouldn’t your puppy find love on the Internet? One out of ten pets do have a Facebook profile. Are you in that percentage?

On Singles Warehouse, our friend Laurel House (@QuickieChick) gave her opinion on who should pay for a first date. Laurel believes in chivalry with the gentleman picking up the tab. What do you think? At Tecca, they posted Geeky Tales: 10  techie marriage proposals that worked. Our favorite pick was Digg employee Matt Van Horn’s “Proposal 2.0 Marry Me Leslie.” Of course, she said yes!

Our friends at YourTango are in the middle of their Online Dating Bootcamp. Our three best online dating tips are scheduled to post on April 29th. Our favorite tip this week was from Janet Ong, 10 Dos and Dont’s Before Meeting Mr. Online In Person.

As always, we wish you much love and joy in cyberspace, or wherever you may roam.

For more online dating advice, sign up for our Weekly Flirt newsletter and like us at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert

Follow @JulieSpira

Julie Spira is the leading online dating and cyber-relations expert. She’s the author of the bestseller, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online

Last week, online dating was in the news as Spreadsheet guy’s story went viral. He’s since apologized for the embarrassment it caused the women, and himself in the process.

This week, the official launch of MissTravel.com, whose tagline is “Travel Dating for Generous and Attractive People” is spreading like wildfire. In my opinion, this site goes beyond the old-fashioned “Mile High Club” membership. Adamant about not being an escort service, founder Brandon Wade tells ABC News, “There’s 2.6 attractive women for every one generous man.”

Does this mean there’s so much of the world to see, with so very few men to share the experience with?

What happens when you arrive in Paris and your man gets abusive? Are you stuck at Charles de Gaulle Airport without a return ticket home? Could you insist on having your own room if it’s truly for plain companionship, with no benefits associated?

Here’s their one-minute video that describes the service. Already over 10,000 people have signed up.

Do you think this is an escort service disguised as a dating site or a terrific site to find a travel companion? Is it a marketing gimmick? Would you sign up?

Your comments are welcome.

Julie Spira is an online dating and cyber-relations expert. She’s the Editor-in-Chief at CyberDatingExpert.com and author of the bestseller, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. For online dating advice, like us at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert, follow @JulieSpira on Twitter, and sign up for our Weekly Flirt newsletter.

It’s a beautiful spring weekend and time to share some of our favorite stories about dating, love and romance from around the web and on Twitter with you.

First of all, we’d like to thank Ithaca College for the terrific article in their IC View magazine that is sent out to all alumni. The story, Finding Love Online featured my dating advice and tips for singles on the dating scene. Many thanks to our friends at Sparkology for including us in their Dating Experts column in, “How to Politely Say You’re Not Interested.”

My two cents worth:

More often-than-not, online messages are ignored. Don’t start humming to the Nick Lowe song, “You’ve Got to be Cruel to be Kind” if you decide to respond. Say thank you, but add that you don’t feel you have enough in common to pursue a relationship, or let them know if they’re out of your geographic location or age range.

Of course the hot romantic news of the week was the Friday the 13th announcement of Brad and Angelina’s engagement. There’s no shortage of stories about the ring, but our favorites include CBS News who reports that Brad worked on the engagement ring for a year and Vanity Fair who announced that the famous ring now has an agent.

USA Today interviewed Steve Harvey, author of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, which we had featured in our Reading Room. In this article, the cast dished dating advice, both from the film and how they handle love in the real world. Cosmo posted 10 Fun First Date Ideas He’ll Love. Our favorite was sneaking into a matinee. Our friend Natasha Burton posted on Huffington Post Weddings: Should You Follow Your Nose — Not Your Heart–To Find Love. Would you go to a Pheromone Party to find love at first sniff? See what Natasha has to say on the subject.

YourTango reported on Chris Noth’s (aka Mr. Big) Hawaiian wedding bells to his long-time girlfriend Tara Wilson. Yes, there can be happy ending for a 10-year relationship. Sometimes patience is a virtue.

Wishing you much love and joy in cyberspace, or wherever you may roam.

The Cyber-Dating Expert Team

Follow @JulieSpira

Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert

We’ve all heard that online dating is a numbers game. 122 million worldwide to be exact according to ComScore’s research.

When we created Jerry’s irresistible profile, [winks, emails, and IMs, oh my!] his response was “OMG, this stuff is like crack!” While we want you to fall in love and give you many tools to do so, we certainly don’t want to create a universe of online dating addicts.

Having too many conversations at once or viewing too many profiles doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful with the process. As a matter of fact, it could actually backfire on you.

The first week your profile is active is always the busiest time.  It then settles down to a more manageable pace. Those who winked at you or flirted with you without a profile are probably not paying members or are not serious about the process, so unless you like their profile, you can just ignore them. If you like the profile, don’t wink or flirt back. Be bold and send an email saying hello. You can even thank them for the wink to let them know you’ve noticed.

I recommended to Jerry that he shouldn’t communicate with more than 5 people at a time. Limiting the ongoing communication will give you the opportunity to get to know someone. If the online conversation goes well, then schedule a phone date.  If you feel like you’re at the dentist’s office where someone is pulling teeth, don’t schedule a date.

I shared my thoughts in the ask the dating experts column on Sparkology on how to politely say you’re not interested.

More often-than-not, online messages are ignored. Don’t start humming to the Nick Lowe song, “You’ve Got to be Cruel to be Kind” if you decide to respond. Say thank you, but add that you don’t feel you have enough in common to pursue a relationship, or let them know if they’re out of your geographic location or age range.

Wishing you much joy and love in cyberspace, or wherever you may roam.

Julie Spira is an online dating expert and cyber-relations expert. She’s the author of the bestseller, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Follow @JulieSpira on Twitter and Like us at Facebook.com/cyberdatingexpert for more dating advice.

Just in time for the spring holiday weekend, grab your jelly beans and bikinis and enjoy this issue of the Cyber Dating Expert Weekly Flirt newsletter.

From the first kiss to will you marry me and beyond, our friends at Zoosk are encouraging their success couples to share their romantic milestones and hang around once their relationship has become official.

Redefining themselves as “the romantic network,” they’ve announced a new feature called “Couples Profiles,” where happy couples can create a joint profile to highlight their romantic journey.

Zoosk co-founder Shayan Zadeh and a friend of Cyber-Dating Expert tells us, “Zoosk started by helping singles find a partner to begin their romantic journey. Yet when we helped two people find each other and develop a relationship they left Zoosk and there was no dedicated place online for them to share their romantic journey. Our new Couple Profiles offering provides couples with a place to share their romantic milestones and memories online in a joint profile that can be shared with friends. As we continue to develop Couple Profiles, we have plans to add many more features.”

This makes a lot of sense as Facebook’s timeline also features these important relationship milestones, however not on a single profile.

Watch their video to see the features of “Couples Profiles” and feel free to chime in with your thoughts.

Julie Spira is the leading online dating expert, bestselling author, and CEO of Cyber-Dating Expert. She creates irresistible profiles for singles on the dating scene. For more dating and relationship advice, like us at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert and sign up for our Weekly Flirt Dating advice newsletter. Follow @JulieSpira on Twitter.

As a guest on FOX 11 in Los Angeles, I spoke with Phil Shuman about some of the Internet dating safety tips and advice that I recommend for singles looking for love online.

Full story at:
Online Dating Just Got A Lot Safer: MyFoxLA.com

Some dating tips include:

• Do a Google search for your date’s email
• Do a Google search for your date’s phone number
• Set up a Google Voice number for dating
• Set up a gmail account on Google for dating purposes
• Trust your intuition and report any suspicious activity to the online dating site

At the end of the digital day, there are a lot of terrific people joining online dating sites. You just be able to find your match.

Julie Spira is an online dating expert, cyber-relations expert, and author of the bestseller, “The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com, where you can sign up for the Weekly Flirt dating advice newsletter. Follow @JulieSpira on Twitter and Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert.

We all know that our best friends and potential loved ones are spending more time digitally connected. Whether it’s the hours a day viewing your friends profiles on Facebook or the chit-chat on Twitter, if you’ve met online, would you propose online?

This question was asked of me by my friend and dating expert Jen Kirsch. In an article on Yahoo! Shine, Man Proposes to Girl in Infographic, Jen takes a look into the latest and creative Valentine’s digital Infographic marriage proposal from Drake Martinet to his girlfriend, Mashable VP of Marketing and Communications, Stacy Green. Fortunately, her answer was yes.

We watch each others timelines on Facebook and create a permanent digital footprint about our love lives for the world to see.  I told Jen that, I’ve  witnessed a number of these online proposals first hand and says it’s the modern equivalent of people proposing by skydiving or on a Jumbotron at a sports game. “They are living in a world that is surrounded by online activity. They look at it in the same romantic way as someone who is being proposed to at a game,” says Spira.

“The people we are talking about that are proposing this way they are in the social media world and this is an offshoot of their personality habits, which are more online than offline. It’s a way for someone to get cute and creative outside of the box,” says Spira.

To read the full article, click here. Many thanks to Jen for including me in her story.

Would you, or wouldn’t you propose marriage on Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, or in an Infographic? Would you say yes? Feel free to chime in with your thoughts.

If you get a moment, like us at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert and @JulieSpira on Twitter and vote for us in the Readers’ Choice Awards for best dating blog.

Julie Spira is an online dating expert,  founder of CyberDatingExpert.com, and bestselling author of The Perils of Cyber-Dating. She creates irresistible profiles for singles on the dating scene. For more dating advice, sign up for our free Weekly Flirt newsletter.