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Not to brag or anything, but I think we ladies have it pretty good when it comes to the dating game. Sure, everybody has their ups and downs, but if we look at the way things are often run around here, we definitely seem to come out ahead in the online dating world.

Josh Fischer, the Director of Product Insights at SNAP Interactive, the company that owns Are You Interested, put together a collection of charts that shows exactly how women have the advantage over men on online dating sites. Each chart examines the probability that men and women respond to messages given the age of the message's sender.

The likelihood that an American woman responds to a man on AYI.com drops significantly as the age gap between them increases. The younger the man is, relative to the woman, the better shot he has. The probability of receiving a response peaks when the man is 7-8 years younger than the woman, and steadily declines from there.

The likelihood that an American man responds to a woman on AYI.com varies much more, and the response rates across all age differences are far higher. In fact, it actually dips the lowest when the man is 7-8 years younger than the woman. Merge the charts together, and they don't ever cross paths. Not even once.

Over all, AYI's charts show that, when comparing men and women responding to people their own age, women respond to men 4% of the time while men respond to women around 18% of the time. In other words, the vast majority of messages go unanswered regardless of age or gender.

It also means that the average straight man will have to send 25 messages to women his own age in order to receive one response, while the average straight woman will have to send just 5 messages. Hardly fair, if you ask me.

According to BusinessInsider.com, these conclusions can also be drawn from the data:

• A straight man's best bet is to go the Mrs. Robinson route. The 8-10% chance that a woman 10-8 years older than a man will respond to a message is double the rate of his own peers.
• The New York Jets have better odds of going to the Superbowl this year than men of a certain age have of getting a response from a woman ten years younger. Ouch.
• At worst, there's a 1 in 6 chance a man will respond to a woman's message regardless of her age. So go for it, ladies - you've clearly got nothing to lose.

Dating apps are fast becoming the rage among young singles, especially location-based apps like Tinder, typically used for the purpose of hooking up. But a new service called Twine aims to do things a little differently.

Instead of scrolling through photos to see who's "hot or not", like Tinder, Twine pulls information from your Facebook profiles and matches you with other members nearby based on mutual interests. Oh, and they also blur out photos so that you can start chatting and flirting first, and then decide if you want to reveal your pics to each other later.

While this might sound like a waste of time to daters looking to meet someone quickly, many women tend to shy away from location-based dating apps, which doesn't help the odds if you're a man. Females (more than males) get barraged with invitations from potential dates, and because of the overload of guys virtually approaching them, they are less likely to engage. However, with Twine, everyone has to work a little harder, which makes it that much more engaging, and potentially that much more appealing to female users.

Another great aspect of Twine's strategy is that it aims to cut down on spam and fake profiles. One way it does this is through gender restrictions. Men and women using the service must be represented in equal numbers, so if there are currently more men signed up than women, new members will be put on a waiting list until more women join. Also, users aren't allowed to upload their own photos, they are instead pulled directly from your Facebook profile, so you can't post a picture of someone else.

Other dating apps have launched recently that are also focused on delivering more quality matches. One such app is At First Sight, which provides short video profiles of members to scroll through. With this app, you're getting a feel for what the person is like, how he sounds, what gestures he uses - rather than just a static photo - which helps when making a decision about whether or not you want to meet someone. (It also helps filter those fake profiles.) When I downloaded it however, it was a little clumsy to use. The videos are presented in a chain, and you can keep scrolling down until you find someone who interests you, which means you might stop and start several different video profiles. I do like that each person chooses a question to answer, rather than just a free-flowing format.

Regardless of your preferences, dating apps are here to stay, and might well be the most popular way to meet singles in the future. Even traditional online dating sites are developing their own apps. Either way, isn't it good to have more opportunities to meet people, no matter how you do it?

First there was Singlesnet. Then there was Singlesnet via Match.com. Now there's Kiss.com, the latest evolution of an online dating service that's been in business since 1997.

There was once a time when Singlesnet was the most visited dating site in the United States, but its popularity peaked in December 2008 and steadily declined until a major drop in February 2009. Despite the drastic drop in traffic, Match.com purchased the company in 2010 and Match CEO Greg Blatt had high hopes for the new acquisition.

"While Singlesnet's traffic is currently in decline," he said at the time, "we believe that by applying our category expertise we can reverse that trend, increase the site's profitability and improve the overall user experience."

Quinn Lipin, Singlesnet founder and CEO, was also hopeful that the new partnership would mean a brighter future. "Match.com has been the standard-bearer for the entire online dating industry, so we're excited to team up with them," he said. "I believe working with Match.com will enable us to re-start growth in the business."

Three years have passed, and the company has undergone yet another transformation. The site was rebranded for 2013 as Kiss.com, a sleek, simple, and streamlined dating site better suited to the current online dating climate.

The Kiss.com sign up process begins with an easy fill-in-the-blank questionnaire that makes completing your profile a snap. After you've answered the Mad Libs-style forms, you can then choose the hobbies and interests that most represent you from a selection of cute and colorful cartoon drawings. The list is surprisingly extensive (even pet rocks have an entry!). The same picture-style survey also answers questions about your beliefs regarding politics, religion, and astrology.

Finally, you're given the opportunity to answer in your own words. Two free-response questions let your creativity flow: 'If you only had 4 seconds, what would you say about yourself?' and 'What if you had an hour to describe yourself to someone, what would you say?' If you're not ready to answer every question just yet, you can hit the SKIP button at any point and come back later.

While the look of the site is different, the price structure has barely changed since it was Singlesnet:

• One month for $24.95
• Three months for $16.65 per month ($3.00 cheaper)
• Twelve months for $7.49 per month

Members who choose to upgrade their subscriptions receive better placement in search results, priority access to new features, and unlimited communication with both featured and non-featured members.

Will a makeover prove to be all Kiss.com needs to climb its way back to the top?

Facebook's ad strategy is a subject of major concern for investors. Advertisements are the site's principal driver of revenue and now that it's a public company, Facebook must satisfy investors as well as its own internal team.

The outlook has been grimmer than anticipated for all but one group of advertisers: dating apps.

In June 2013, the top 20 grossing iPhone apps in the social networking sphere included at least 13 dating apps. Facebook-integrated apps like Tinder, a new app that's taking the market by storm, are becoming increasingly popular among social networking-savvy singles. But as Tinder grows, some older apps, like Are You Interested, a freemium app that's been downloaded 70 million times in its 6-year history, are suffering.

AYI monthly users have dropped from 7.3 million in November 2011 to 3 million today. Only 80,000 people have signed up for AYI subscriptions so far, reports Forbes, and revenue was static for 2012. AYI needs a new strategy if it's going to leverage the 20 million Facebook users who have already synced their profiles to the app and stay on top of the competition. To reinvigorate the brand, AYI turned to Facebook's mobile app install ads.

AYI began a heavy marketing campaign on Facebook's mobile offering, and within a month saw 200% more downloads than the previous month. Because Facebook's mobile advertising is relatively inexpensive, AYI was able to conduct tests to find their most engaged audiences:

• Canadian males & Brazilians of both genders aged 26-36
• Finns over the age of 36
• Americans over 30

And it's not just Facebook's impressive opportunities for market research that make it an ideal choice for marketers. Ads like those used by AYI no longer take users out of the Facebook app and into the app store to download, Users can install new apps directly from their newsfeed, which makes for an easier, more streamlined experience.

Some companies have a greater potential for Facebook ad success than others. Cliff Lerner, co-founder and CEO of Are You Interested, recommends Facebook mobile ads for companies that operate in multiple countries. Those companies, he believes, have the most to gain from the demographic testing that can be done on Facebook. He also advises targeting friends of people who have already installed the app and showing that connection to users who are more likely to download an app their friends are already using.

"Users don't behave differently on mobile but there's less competition for traffic right now and it's cheaper to acquire a user," Lerner says. Facebook's mobile offering may now be the hottest place for companies that rely on downloads to do business.

When it comes to dating with an age difference, there's usually only one story told: men love younger women, and women love older men.

Yeah, it's true - some men do want to date younger women and some women do only go for older men - but it's not the full story, and it's time we recognized that there's more to May-December dating than one unscientific-but-still-predominant view.

AYI.com (Are You Interested?), a dating service that uses Facebook to pair people based on interests, has pulled data from its 68 million downloads and 20 million Facebook profiles to analyze what it takes to make a successful match. Their experiment focused in on the 1 million recommended pairings in a specific population of 35,942 users ages 30 to 49.

AYI's most surprising finding was this: their female subscribers were five times more likely to show interest in men who were five years their junior than men who were five years older. The old narrative is outdated and inaccurate.

Well, sort of. Men do still like dating younger women, as the AYI study proved. Among the 26,434 men between the ages of 30 and 49 who were studied, 42% said they wouldn't even consider dating a woman if she was older than them. If, however, an older woman contacted them first, they admitted they wouldn't necessarily turn her down. AYI's data shows that a man is only 22% less likely to respond to an older woman than to a younger woman if she is the one who initiates contact.

What gives, guys? If you think older women are an easy target with no other options - and it doesn't require any preliminary effort on your part - you'll go for it, but otherwise you won't go anywhere near them? That doesn't sound like the progressive society I like to think I live in.

There are a few theories that explain why AYI's study turned up its findings. Once upon a time, AYI analysts think, young women marrying older men had an appeal based on wealth. While there are still plenty of women who like the idea of marrying for money, younger women are now inundated with requests from older men on dating sites and the myth of the Sugar Daddy is never as glamourous as it seems.

A 2008 study published in the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly found that women who are 10 or more years older than their partner are more satisfied and more committed to their relationships than women who are the same age or younger than their partners. So guys...don't limit yourself to younger women, and girls...don't be afraid of dating younger men.

Looking for some new ideas to plan a date? Summer is here, which means there are a ton of activities going on in your neighborhood that you may or may not know about. If you don't know where to find them, then you should be making use of some cool apps out there that can help hook you up. So to speak.

Regardless of whether you're online dating or you already have a significant other, it can be stressful to plan dates. If you try something you've never done before, you never know what to expect. But that's part of the fun, right?

If you're sick of the same old same old but need a little inspiration, or if you want a choice of what to do (even at the last minute), there are apps available to help you out. Every city offers events or places that you might not know about. Check out some of the apps we found, and what they offer:

How About We. This app is available for both singles and couples. If you're a couple, How About We suggests date ideas (like an evening cruise, live concert, or good place for brunches with outdoor patios), and allows you to book in advance through their site. When you become a member, they also offer deals and freebies for future dates.

Sosh. If you live in the San Francisco or New York areas, you might want to check out this app for something non-traditional. Sosh's main focus is to find events or places that are cool and unique. In fact, if a particular event gets bookmarked by too many people, they stop promoting it to users. With over 500 activities, places, venues, and other out-of-the-way interests discovered each weekend, Sosh is a good place to look to try something off the beaten path. Its website claims the app is coming soon to L.A., Chicago, Boston and Seattle.

Goby. Looking for a real adventure? If you have some time set aside for your date, this app is a good resource to help you plan everything from vacations to small excursions to nearby places. Depending on the type of adventure you want to have (hiking a mountain vs. a gallery opening), you can find it. Goby provides a description of the event, where it is, and how close it is to you.

Happy dating!