Types (Niche)

Last week JDate officially announced the launch of JDate Mobile in Beta. JDate Mobile is compatible with any web enabled phone, including all of the smart phones like the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry. When you sign up for JDate Mobile you will get instant text alerts when:

• You receive email or some other form of communication.
• Someone views your profile.
• If you get added to someone's Hot List.

These text alerts are free to all members. Current subscribers of JDate will also be able to send and receivie email messages right from your phone.

For more information on this dating site, check out our review of JDate.com.

The popular Christian dating site, ChristianCafe.com, released an iPhone dating app (which also works on the iPad) this week. With this App, members can search and view profile information and photos of other singles. They can also send and receive messages and winks as well. Non-members who have never visited the website before can download the app and use it to create a basic profile and sign up for the 10 day free trial. To download the ChristianCafe.com app for your iphone visit iTunes.

Here is a short video of the ChristianCafe iPhone Application in action:

Members on the go who have a Google Android phone are in luck too. ChristianCafe expects to release an app soon for Android.

To find out more about this dating site, read our review of ChristianCafe.com.

The Skout dating application for the iPhone has reached version 2.0 and not only did it get some new features it also got a design makeover. New features include virtual gifts, a game called "Look at Me" which allows you to bid for attention of other members and a Wink-Bomb. The bomb allows members using Skout to reach hundreds of singles in your proximity all at once with location based dating and the GPS in your phone. With the app you can then find out who has been looking at your profile and think you're hot. With this information in hand you can then contact these people to meet up somewhere close by.

If you are interested in trying out Skout for your iPhone here are a few more interesting stats about the dating service.

• Skout was the first iPhone Dating Application
• Skout members send on average 100 messages in 1 month.
• Currently over 750,000 people have used Skout's location based dating option.
• A Skout iPad dating application is currently being developed.

Here is a sneak peek video of the dating app in action:

For a few more details read the press release. Here is our list of other dating sites which offer their services on mobile phones.

Classified Intelligence Report disclosed today that they have estimated for 2010 that Craigslist will generate $122 million in gross revenue with profits ranging from $88 to $99 million. This works out to about $4 million per employee. Last year (2009) revenue was estimated to be $100 million and back in 2003 revenue was estimated at $7 million for Craigslist. According to the report, half of their revenue in 2010 will come from recruitment advertising while 30 percent comes from the Adult Services listings and a further 17 percent coming from apartment ads in New York City.

In 2009 Craigslist was accused of being a large source for prostitution. In a bid to appease lawmakers Craigslist renamed their "Erotic Services" category to "Adult Services" and upped the fee per listing to $10 (it was $5). Craigslist also agreed to manual approve each listing. When the Erotic Services category was around Craigslist donated the proceeds from these listings to undisclosed charities. Since the name change, Craigslist has stopped this practice.

Find out more at AimGroup.com and for further details about this classifieds website, read our review of Craigslist.

Zoosk is a dating site which has grown in popularity thanks in large part to them embracing Social Networks like Facebook (they are the number one dating app on Facebook). In January of 2009 Zoosk had 15 million members and in little over a year they have seen tremendous growth. Today, Zoosk has 50 million users worldwide. To expand their network of members further, Zoosk has announced a free iPhone Dating Application which supports multiple languages. Languages supported include English, French, Italian and Spanish. The Zoosk App also allows members to see who has viewed their profile and also allows members to use the iPhone's GPS for location based matching. Since its release the Zoosk iPhone dating application has become the third most popular dating app for the iPhone.

Zoosk also has released an instant messenger program for both Mac and PC computers. The Zoosk Messenger allows for desktop chat with other Zooskers and was developed on the Adobe Air platform to bring a richer, more interactive experience. This online chat program fully integrates into Zoosk and lets you instantly connect with singles in your area. The program also notifies you when your friends come online.

Zoosk must have been one of the fastest growing dating sites last year. This is due to the additional funding they have received (see Zoosk Funding Story) which allowed them to expand their network to multiple platforms and advertise much more extensively online (I am seeing their ads everywhere now). Zoosk wants to cover all platforms of communication it seems and are hoping to own a bigger piece of the $4 billion worldwide online dating industry.

For more on this story, read the press release. You can also checkout our review of Zoosk.

According to the Android Community Match.com has released an Android App on the Google Android Market. This App is not listed under Match.com's Mobile link yet on their main website but we did get word it was coming when the Blackberry Match.com Dating App was released in February (see Story). This free download allows Match.com members to update their profile, search for singles and to communicate with other members. It offers a compact slick interface which is much easier to use than surfing Match.com with your mobile phones internet browser.

I haven't tested the App yet so I am not sure if it offers any location based dating but I don't see why it can't since Android phones do have a built in GPS. When we get our hands on an Android phone you can expect a review soon, check back often.

Match.com currently offers Mobile Dating Applications for top 5 smart phones (iPhone, Plam Pixi, Palm Pre, Blackberry, and Android). To find out more information about this dating service, read our Match.com review.