POF (Plenty of Fish)

Recipient
PlentyOfFish.com

The 2015 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll was closed for voting at the end of 2015. In the 3 months it was open to voting the poll received 459 votes which is exactly 100 more than last year (which is a little weird). This poll is design to find out what our visitors feel is the best dating service. For this award we are looking at the top free dating site and/or app. The top 8 free dating services where picked by the Editor's to be contenders. In order for these dating services to be selected they needed to meet a number of criteria. This includes having a review on Dating Sites Reviews, having the core features of the service being free (including, profiles, searching, and messages), and being a service which is popular with our visitors.

The recipient of the 2015 Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site is Plenty Of Fish (POF). This is the seventh straight year in a row that POF.com has won this award. In 2015 POF received 134 votes which is 29 percent of the total votes cast. POF came in a little stronger this year as it received 4 percent more of the vote compared to last year.

Here are the final results of the poll:

1. Plenty Of Fish (POF)
2. OkCupid
3. Tinder
4. Meetup
5. DateHookUp.com
6. ChristianDatingforFree.com
7. Mingle 2
8. Craigslist

The top 3 dating services received 70 percent of all votes. POF received 4% more votes than OkCupid which came in second place at 24.8 percent. Rounding out the top 3 was Tinder which had 16 percent of the votes which is 75 votes in total.

Read our review of PlentyOfFish.com for more information about this online dating service or visit Plenty of Fish directly.

Recipient
Plenty of Fish

The 2015 Editor's Top Pick - Over All Award recipient is POF.com. This is the hardest category for us to determine and it was a real close call this year but in the end we at Dating Sites Reviews felt Plenty of Fish deserved the Editor's Top Award.

2015 was a big year for the largest free dating site Plenty of Fish. The biggest POF news (and not the reason for the award) is IAC purchased the company for $575 million. Why did the owners of Match.com spend so much? It has to do with the amount of users POF has, and how well they interact with each other. Since 2003, POF has had more than 100 million singles from around the world register for the dating service. Everyday more than 3.5 million singles log into the service to search for and communicate with other members. In total this generates about 9 million conversations a day and results in every 120 seconds a member confirming to POF that they have started a relationship.

For the last 12 years POF has remained popular due to the fact that it not only has free communication but because the service is easy to use. It does have a paid upgrade option for additional perks but the service's core features (profile, searching, and sending messages) have remained free. POF also continues to pour resources back into the service and is constantly tweaking their matching algorithm to produce better results. This is also noticeable in the POF dating apps as well, by the new features you see with every update and by how easy they are to use.

Read our review of Plenty of Fish for more information about this online dating service or visit Plenty of Fish directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Match.com

Recipient
Plenty of Fish

The recipient of the Editor's Top Pick - Innovative Award for 2015 is Plenty of Fish (POF). This online dating service has kept itself on the top by being an innovator. In 2015 POF reached more than 100 million users and has on average 3.5 active users everyday.

In the past year POF.com received a number of updates. One of the most important is the website went responsive. This means it can now be viewed on a smartphone's browser without all the pinching and zooming. Depending on the screen size of the device viewing pof.com, the website will automatically rearrange the layout along with adding and removing interface items to give the user the best possible viewing experience.

The POF service itself saw a number of new features added. One of the more popular ones was the ability to add photo's to your profile from Instagram. The POF App (iOS and Android) had the most work done on them since they had the most new features. Upgraded members (ie paid users) now have access to VoIP Calling. This means you can contact other members using the dating app for voice calling but still keep your phone number hidden for the extra bit of safety. The POF app also now can send you push notifications on your phone. This means if you are using another app while you get a new message from a potential POF match, you will be notified right away via a popup window with the message along with the ability to reply to the message.

Read our review of Plenty of Fish for more information about this online dating service or visit Plenty of Fish directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Tinder

2015 was the biggest year yet for online dating. Ten years ago, digital dating was still viewed with skepticism. Today, a majority of Americans believe it's a good way to meet people and 5% of Americans in committed relationships say they met their significant other online.

Now that singles have fallen head over heels for online dating, services have exploded. From the basics like Match and eHarmony, to youth-centric options like OkCupid and Tinder, to hyper-specific sites for bacon lovers and beard aficionados, there's something for everyone. So which dating services are a cut above the rest?

Bustle teamed up with Google to reveal the top-searched dating apps and sites in 2015. The list is surprisingly diverse:

1. Plenty Of Fish: Plenty of Fish sounds like a throwback to an earlier era of online dating, but the site is alive and well as we start 2016. Its inexpensive options draw 50,000 new members every day and even hooked The Match Group, which acquired POF in July 2015. See our full review of Plenty of Fish.
2. Tinder: It's no surprise that Tinder nearly took the top spot. The time-killing app made “swipe” an important part of everyone's vocabulary and totally changed the dating game. See our full review of Tinder.
3. Match: Match.com has been connecting singles since the primitive days of online dating and is still a prime choice. Over the years, the site has perfected its matching technique and remained a favorite for daters all around the world. See our full review of Match.
4. OkCupid: OkCupid revolutionized the online dating industry as an entirely free service. Today paid options have popped up, but OkCupid remains largely free to use and scores highly for its excellent compatibility algorithm. See our full review of OkCupid.
5. eHarmony: Though it began as a dating service strictly for Christians, eHarmony has expanded its service to welcome a wider variety of singles. The site has built a reputation as a go-to service for serious relationships. See our full review of eHarmony.
6. Zoosk: Zoosk quietly continued its quest for world domination in 2015. With service available in 80 countries, 25 different languages, and on your computer, phone, tablet, and Facebook, Zoosk is practically inescapable. See our full review of Zoosk.
7. Bumble: Bumble got a lot of press last year for its “Feminist Tinder” approach to online dating. The app takes the infamous swiping set-up, but attempts to lower the creep factor by putting female members in charge.
8. Hinge: Scared of meeting strangers online? Hinge solves the problem by using Facebook to connect users with mutual friends. Members can breathe easy knowing that their dates have been vetted by someone they trust. See our full review of Hinge.
9. Grouper: It's impossible to take all the awkwardness out of a first date, but Grouper helps lessen it by adding friends to the mix. The app connects groups of friends to take the pressure off.
10. Farmers Only: Yes, believe it or not, the uber-niche Farmers Only made the cut. Although perhaps it's just from people searching Google to find out if it's actually real.

PlentyOfFish has been in the game for years, but to keep up with upstarts like Tinder, continuous reinvention is a must. This year has seen plenty of change for POF, from being acquired by IAC/InterActive's Match Group to going public as part of the Match Group's IPO. Now the mobile app is getting a makeover.

A new update, launched December 15, 2015, has added several new features to the apps for iOS and Android. Bugs have also been fixed for a more stable user experience.

The first new feature will appeal to safety-minded singles. With free Voice Calling, you can place a secure, private call to someone without giving out your contact details. To call, open a message in your inbox. If the recipient is accepting Voice Calls, tap the phone icon to dial. Take note: calls are made through the app, so connect to wi-fi first if you're concerned about exceeding your monthly data limit.

Plenty of Fish may have taken a backseat to services like Tinder in terms of cultural recognition, but 2015 has been a big year for the company nonetheless.

In March, POF released its revenue numbers for the first time. The dating app and website reached 100 million users worldwide and announced that its run rate – the revenue a company can expect to bring in if business continues as it has so far that year – for 2015 was expected to hit $100 million. That's a dollar per year per user, even though most POF users don't pay a dime for the service.

In July POF was acquired by Match Group, an IAC/InterActive subsidiary, for $575 million in cash. Match Group had purchased a number of dating services over the previous six years, including How About We and OkCupid. Add those to Tinder, which Match had funded early in its lifetime, and Match Group became a serious power player in the online dating world.

After much speculation, Match Group filed for an IPO in October of this year with a tentative offering amount of $100 million. It will operate under the ticker symbol "MTCH" on NASDAQ.

And that's not where the big news ends for Plenty of Fish in 2015. As part of Match Group's filing with the SEC, the company revealed POF's current financial status. This is only the second time the public has seen POF's revenue numbers.

POF's revenue is divided into two categories: subscription and advertising. The majority of the website's funding comes from subscriptions, which make up 75% of POF's income compared to 25% from ads. POF currently estimates 2015 revenue to be $80 million.

With a little math magic, we can find out how many paying users Plenty Of Fish has. Seventy-five percent of $80 million is $60 million per year from subscriptions. Divide that by 12 and POF pulls in $5 million per month. Then divide again by $10, the average monthly revenue per paid member, and the final number is 500,000 paid members. That's a remarkably small percentage of POF's 100 million users.

There's a reason the company relies so heavily on subscription revenue over ads. As singles increasingly favor mobile devices over computers, services like Plenty Of Fish are forced to adapt to smaller screens. Ads are more distracting and harder to read in the cramped space of a smartphone screen.

In other ways, mobile has strongly contributed to the success of POF. “Since our shift to mobile we’ve seen rapid growth both in terms of users and revenue,” says founder and CEO Markus Frind.

“Our revenue model has also evolved from one driven by advertising to one driven by paid membership,” he adds. “Now more than ever, singles are willing to pay for an enhanced user experience.”