Zoosk

The social dating site Zoosk announced the other day that they have reached a number of mobile milestones. As part of their mobile strategy Zoosk has released a HTML5 version of the site that makes it much more easily accessible via a mobile phone when using the phone’s browser.

Zoosks daily mobile users now account for 15 percent of the site’s traffic. In the past 12 months mobile traffic on the Zoosk dating apps and HTML5 have increased 148 percent. Android phones make up 55 percent of app usage while the Apple iOS phones account for the other 45 percent. For mobile traffic as a whole from members, 61 percent comes from the apps themselves while 55 percent is done via the phones internet browser. This means that 16 percent of members use both the app and the mobile web. On Sundays and Mondays mobile traffic reaches its peak usually and is on average 10 percent higher. Thursday and Fridays are the low point in the week and mobile traffic can see a drop of 5 percent.

Zoosk also quotes a few mobile online dating statistics from a 2011 Juniper Research finding. They state that the mobile dating market is expected to grow from $1.3 billion in 2011 to $2.3 billion by 2016. User will jump from 650 million in 2011 to 1.3 billion by 2016 (fueled largely by China and then North America).

To find out more about this dating site please read our review of Zoosk.com.

It looks like Zoosk is planning to move their headquarters to a larger office space in Central Market located in San Francisco. Their new location is 52,000 square feet and will become Zoosk's global headquarters. This location of San Francisco is becoming a hub of technology companies. Zoosk will be sharing the building with Zendesk and the neighbourhood with companies like Call Socket and Twitter.

This move will more than double Zoosk's space for their 102 employees. Zoosk also plans to expand to 160 employees by the end of 2012. It is estimated that the office space could hold up to 340 employees.

For more information on this story you can check out the press release. To find out what makes this company such a popular dating site you can read our review of Zoosk.

The concept of purchasing virtual goods may not have been around for long, but it has now become one of the fast-growing types of business online. According to the Inside Virtual Goods report, the overall market for virtual goods in the US is on its way to hitting $2.9 billion in 2012 - that's up from $2.2 billion this year and $1.6 billion in 2010.

The virtual goods industry first exploded on Facebook with the popularity of games like FarmVille and CityVille, in which users purchase currency that can be used within the game. Facebook also added a virtual gifts feature that allowed users to buy and send gifts to one another.

Dating sites quickly picked up on the success of the virtual goods game. Plenty of Fish offers "Goldfish Credits" for purchase in packages of 100, 215, or 500. With Goldfish Credits, users can send gifts to other members or find out if someone has opened their messages. Gifts are publically posted on the recipient's profile for 3 three weeks before disappearing. Each Plenty of Fish member also receives 2 virtual roses when they join the site. Roses are sent when composing a message, but each rose may only be used once during a 30 day period. Because they are a rare commodity on the site, roses are considered an especially strong indicator of a user's interest.

HOT or NOT was also an early adopter of virtual goods. The site offered virtual roses ranging from $2 to $10 that could be sent to prospective dates. Though more expensive, the $10 roses became the most popular option because they sent the strongest signals to the recipient. HOT or NOT also found that the recipients of virtual gifts were four times more likely to respond to the sender than users who did not receive a gift.

To date, Zoosk is one of the biggest virtual goods success stories. Zoosk Coins are a virtual currency used to purchase a range of features on the site. According to the site's FAQ, Coins can be used to "purchase Gifts, arrange for a Special Delivery, receive a Delivery Confirmation for your email messages, and Boost your profile." Gifts are cute graphics, like flowers and pets, that can be sent to other members. Special Delivery alerts a message recipient with a pop-up when they have received a message from a user who has purchased the feature. Delivery Confirmation notifies the buyer when their messages have been read, and Boost is a feature that puts the purchaser at the top of someone's search results or in a special place on the homepage of other interested users.

Virtual goods seem poised to become more popular than ever on dating and social networking sites. It looks like your holiday shopping list just got a little bit longer.

For more on this story you can read TechCrunch. For information on the dating sites mentioned in this article you can read our POF.com review and our Zoosk.com review.

Earlier this month Zoosk released a iPad version of their dating application which quickly ranked in the top 20 list for Social Networking Apps in the United States. Like their dating apps for other platforms, this app is available in 25 languages and offers the user the ability to search, browse and communicate with other Zoosk members. It is also optimized for the iPad and takes into the account the larger screen real-estate available.

Zoosk also noted that their mobile apps have been downloaded over 2.5 million to date. Search algorithm changes over the last year have also increased communication on the dating service by increasing message replies 133 percent.

For further details about the service please check out our review of Zoosk.com.

Recipient of Gold
Match.com

Recipient of Silver
eHarmony

Recipient of Bronze
Zoosk

We closed the 2010 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll earlier this month with a total of 798 votes from visitors. The poll really was popular this year and it received over 10 percent more votes than last year while being available only for 3 months when compared to 5 months in 2009. I had hoped to start the poll in August or September but it wasn't online until October. Next year the plan is to have all the awards finished up by the end of December instead of running into the new year like we have always done.

It's interesting to see how the results vary from year to year in the Single's Choice award as the dating sites compete to be number one with singles. This award is sort of like the "Best Director" award at the Oscars, it is the most important. The reason the Single's Choice award stands out is it is decided by the public with votes, and not us. With our Editor's Top Pick awards we try to make an unbiased selection but, when you talk dating sites everyday sometimes the decision may not be as clear as we would like.

For 2010 we listed the top ten dating sites for you to vote on. The three dating sites which received the most votes will get an award, Gold for first, Silver for second and Bronze for third.

The recipient of the Gold 2010 Single's Choice Award is Match.com. Not surprising, this is the fourth year in a row that this dating site has won the Gold Single's Choice Award. Match.com continues to lead in the dating industry and this year they received over 37 percent of the votes. This is a huge eight percent increase over last year which shows Match.com is gaining in popularity and continues to be the one to beat. Match.com was also the winner of the Editor's Top Pick - Overall award as well.

The recipient of the Silver 2010 Single's Choice Award is eHarmony. This is eHarmony's third year to win this award and their popularity remains about the same at 20 percent of total votes. eHarmony is designed for singles with long term relationships in mind so it is not for everyone. With them winning Silver it shows just how popular and effective they are especially since they do all of the matching for you.

The recipient of the Bronze 2010 Single's Choice Award is Zoosk. Zoosk is a relatively new dating service and it is the first time they have appeared in the DSR Choice awards. This is a great accomplishment for them to receive an award this year let alone a Single's Choice award which is decided by votes. Zoosk received 94 votes which is almost 12 percent of the total vote.

This year's standings for the Single's Choice award for all dating sites in the poll are (click the dating site name to read our full review):

1. Match.com
2. eHarmony
3. Zoosk
4. PerfectMatch.com
5. Chemistry
6. Lavalife
7. Date.com
8. FriendFinder.com
9. SinglesNet.com
10. True.com

Once again, we would like to give a big THANKS to everyone who cast a vote this year in the Single's Choice Award.

While Justin Bieber is trending on Twitter, what's trending in the world of online dating?

According to the Google Barometer Blog, mobile dating is the newest trend sweeping the U.K. Bickey Russell and Elizabeth Song, Senior Industry Analyst and Analyst Intern, respectively, for Google UK, studied the rising popularity of mobile dating and found that "the volume of Google searches on mobile devices related to dating grew by 215% YoY ['Year Over Year'] since 2008" in the UK alone. And, in an even more remarkable turn, "the volume of dating queries on mobile phones shot up ten fold in just three years' time."

As smartphone usage has become increasingly prevalent, the usage of mobile devices - and the constant Internet connectivity they provide - to access dating websites to search for potential matches and answer messages from interested members has become more and more popular. The market is so large, in fact, that Juniper, a market research firm, has estimated that "the overall mobile dating sector will grow to $1.4 billion worldwide by 2013." That's right - $1.4 billion in just three years. Google research has also found that searches from laptops and desktop computers for "mobile dating" and "text dating" have grown over 72% YoY in the UK.

So what can on-the-go online dating do for you? New interactive features are being invented constantly, allowing you to take advantage of countless new online dating opportunities like proximity dating, which uses GPS or Bluetooth technology to alert users when other singles are nearby. Mobile and location dating also introduce a real-life context into the online dating scene, "making the process less detached from users' everyday lives, social networks, and gathering places."

If you're interested in trying mobile dating, you don't have to venture far outside your comfort zone - many major dating sites, like Match, eHarmony, and JDate, have mobile apps available for download. If you're ready for something new, however, check out these popular apps:

1. Meet Moi: Meet Moi is a location-based mobile dating app that updates your location in real-time and alerts you when a match is nearby. Their basic service is free.

2. SpeedDate.com: Members can search through millions of profiles and start conversations via email with prospective matches. SpeedDate provides an advanced set of filters that allows users to search based on specific criteria, as well as a tagging feature that ensures that favorite profiles are saved.

3. Grindr: Grindr is the largest location-based dating app for gay, bi, and curious men. Grindr is free, and has about 600,000 users per month (about 250,000 users per day, who log on approximately eight times within a 24 hour period!).

4. Zoosk: Zoosk won the award for Best Mobile Dating Site at the Internet Dating Conference this year, and is consistently a #1 dating app in the iTunes Store. The app has all of the functionality of the website, with a GPS location tagging feature.

For more information on the service which won the award Best Mobile Dating Site, please read our Zoosk review. For other dating sites which also offer their services over a phone, check out our Mobile Phone Dating category.