Match Group

The 50 plus singles crowd is not necessarily looking for casual dates. They are looking for a long term relationships that offer companionship. This group of online daters still is being reported as the fastest growing group of singles on dating sites. In the last U.S. Census, seniors are also a growing demographic. It was reported that there are 95.9 million single people in America. 15.8 million (16.5 %) of these people are 65 years or older (see Story). Let's see how some of the more popular dating sites are performing in this demographic.

Match.com is reporting 16 percent of men and 17 percent of women members are 50 or older. Match.com also reported 1,403 million paying subscribers in quarter 3 of this year so this means there are about 236,000 members on Match who are at least 50.

eHarmony's first quarter of 2009 saw a 20 percent growth in users 60 and over when compared to 2008. While we don't have any actual subscriber numbers, we do know that the average age on eHarmony is 35 and that they have been getting about 3.6 million unique visitors per month on their dating sites (US, UK, and Canada).

In the last 5 years Lavalife.com more than doubled its members who are 45 or older. In response to this surge in members, LavalifePRIME was launched in 2007 and now has more than 70,000 members.

To find out more about the dating sites listed here please read our eHarmony review, Match.com review, and our LavalifePRIME review. For more dating site specifically for seniors, check out our Dating Over 50 category.

It looks like Plenty of Fish has a new advertising and marketing plan aimed at young adults and it involves celebrities. The first hint of this new tactic was when PlentyOfFish.com appeared in a Flo Rida video for the song Available (see Story). At first I thought it was a strictly a promotional partnership between the dating site and Flo (POF is in the video, so the dating site will then promote Flo Rida) but now I am not so sure. I have a feeling POF basically paid to be included in the video for the publicity.

Plenty Of Fish now has a new promotion featuring Lady Gaga. At each concert stop on The Monster Ball tour, two singles can win a "date of a lifetime". The date includes tickets to the concert and backstage passes. To enter the contest you can visit the Lady Gaga page on POF.

It definitely looks like POF is trying to attract young adults to their dating site by being associated with popular music artists. I wonder if they will be doing other advertising, besides using the internet, to promote this new contest?

For a bit more on the story, read the press release. To find out what singles are saying about POF, read our Plentyoffish.com review.

The free dating site DownToEarth.com was officially launched in January 2009 by IAC, the parent company of Match.com and Chemistry (see Story). Down To Earth's target market was the College-aged crowd of 18 to 25 and their goal by the end of the year was to have 250,000 members. Well, it looks like they didn't make it. OPW reports that the dating site DownToEarth.com has been relaunched as Stir.com.

DownToEarth.com reached their traffic peak in March at almost 250 thousand unique visitors, since then the dating site's traffic has fallen by over half to 96 thousand unique visitors in September:

Free dating site OkCupid recently did several studies about online dating emails, looking at over a million of their members. They took a look first at the words that people wrote to one another and how those words correlated to response rate. (Here's a hint: Use proper English and not netspeak if you want replies.) But probably their most controversial article related to how your race determines the amount of replies you will receive.

We all want to assume that people are a lot more colorblind than they used to be, but OkCupid has found that's simply not the case. Even if we say that race doesn't matter, the numbers don't lie - it really does.

OkCupid's CEO, Sam Yagan, told NPR's Michel Martin that they were intrigued by the idea that they could get some answers to the questions people have about the role race plays in online dating. After all, when people are asked to state their dating preferences in their profile, they check off certain boxes. Do those boxes match up to the emails they deem worthy of a reply?

Match.com spent around £6m on advertising in the United Kingdom according to Nielsen. Hanft Raboy and Partners previously held the Ad account for Match.com in the UK but this year the new marketing director, Karl Gregory decided on using Mother instead.

The only details we have on the new marketing campaign so far is, it starts in the new year, and it will attempt to engage people at an emotional level.

For the full story visit Marketing Magazine and to find out more about this UK dating site, read our Match.com UK review.

Next Friday (10/16/09), Saturday (10/17/09) and Sunday (10/18/09) ALL Chemistry users will be able to communicate for free. This FREE Weekend will also be supported by TV commercials and increased online advertising so there should be plenty of extra activity on Chemistry.com

Free communication means all members will be able to send mail messages to any of their matches and receive mail from singles who are matched to them as well, all at no cost. As always, new members also receive a free in-depth personality test designed to match you with compatible singles.

The last Flirtathon happening last month in September (see Story) so this is Chemistry's 6th free communication weekend. For more information on this dating site with an in-depth matchmaking system, read some Chemistry reviews.