Match

You think I'm insane, right?

There's no possible way there could be one day that's better for online dating than all the others. That's just crazy.

Except it isn't crazy. It's a real thing.

Online dating is there for you all year round, but there's one window of time each year that's more active than any other. Match.com and Plenty of Fish – two of the biggest dating companies in the game, so rest assured they know what they're talking about – say that the single most popular day for online dating is (drumroll please):

January 4.

And it gets even more impressive than that. They've even narrowed it down to an exact time period. (Are they sorcerers over there?) Roughly 5pm to 8pm are the magic hours in which the largest number of people sign up, log on, and start searching for online love. If you're still skeptical, Zoosk backs the estimated timeframe up. In 2014, its most trafficked time was the Sunday after New Year's.

Across the board, online dating sites see a huge boost in action between New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day. And it's not hard to imagine why. There's an obvious seasonal sentimentality that takes over during that time, and its natural manifestation in the techno-obsessed 21^st century is online dating.

Although the exact reason is unclear, we can easily speculate. The new year is a time for a fresh start, for new goals, for making positive changes. For many people, those things mean a renewed focus on finding love – and what better way to kick your love life into gear than joining an online dating site?

On the other hand, the holiday season is a notoriously lonely time, and that could also explain why online dating sites see a serious boost in action. Hitting a low point could be the motivator needed to finally try out online dating after all.

Interestingly, it's not just online dating that feels the effects of the holidays. The Washington Post reports that researchers have also observed a post-holiday spike in searches for porn, and that “a 2012 study by Facebook’s data team found that people are far more likely to change their relationship status in January or February than they are at any other time of year.”

And lest you think this is merely an online phenomenon, a study also found that “the holiday season tends to see a jump in both condom sales and conceptions.”

So what are you waiting for? The time is NOW.

Do singles prefer taking selfies or traveling? What city has the highest number of active daters, or at least those who message the most? What height do most women prefer when they filter their matches?

If you like knowing the answers to these kinds of questions – in other words, identifying peoples’ preferences and what are they actually doing when they’re online dating - Match has just presented a wrap-up list of dating stats for 2014, culled from its extensive database. 

Tinder might be taking the dating world by storm, but so far the traditional dating websites like OkCupid and Match have been studying their users and providing us with valuable data about how people actually date, instead of just making assumptions. As it turns out, not everyone is into hooking up or taking selfies despite popular opinion and Tinder. But singles do tend to be visually stimulated. It’s all about the photos.

According to Match.com, 4.8 million photos were added to its site in 2014, and 280 million total were “liked.” It seems the ladies know that men are looking at their photos more than anything else, because straight women topped the list of most photos posted, with an average of 3.6 photos uploaded per woman (compared to Lesbian women and Gay men with 2.3 photos on average, and straight men with 2.8 photos on average).

And what cities are the best in terms of active online daters? Interestingly, Miami subscribers sent the most messages (over both New York and Los Angeles); users in Albany, New York logged in the most; and not surprisingly, those from Anchorage, Alaska searched most frequently outside their city looking for potential dates. Salt Lake City was the runner up, with the second highest number of users looking outside the city limits for love.

As for keywords people include in their profiles, “travel” came in first with over 1,000,000 people using the term to describe their interests. “Down to earth” is another popular phrase used in online dating profiles, with over 232,000 including it in theirs. The word “selfie” appeared in profiles far less often – just north of 5,600 times. Match.com even discovered who included the most hashtags in a profile – (44 hashtags to be exact).

Among the most common words used in profiles: Electrician, Welcoming, Warmhearted, Quickest, and Ladies. Other interesting choices that were among the most popular include crochet, sewing and Cosmetology. (I’m kind of surprised things like “jogging” or “watching football” didn’t make the top of the list, but maybe people are starting to branch out?)

And apologies guys – the height that most of your female Match.com counterparts were looking for was 6 feet. Being tall is definitely an advantage for men.

What’s in store for 2015? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. For more information on this dating service please check out our Match.com review.

How much do people in Indiana love auto racing? So much that NASCAR is the most frequently used word in online dating profiles from the state.

Mashable recently teamed up with Match.com to analyze thousands of US-based online dating profiles and discover how daters differ from state to state. Anyone who ventures into the untamed wilds of online dating quickly discovers the same words and phrases appear over and over again. Surprise: it turns out that pretty much everyone likes all music except country. Yawn.

Tired of feeling like all online dating profiles are the same, Mashable and Match broke down which words are used with relative frequency in certain states, compared to relative frequency in the rest of the country. If you're in the mood for making the most cliché online dating profile possible, find your location on this map and see what daters in your state are most obsessed with.

Here are a few highlights:

• California: desert
• New York: museum
• Texas: oil
• Florida: Disney
• Alaska: cabin
• Georgia: grilling
• Hawaii: surf
• Nevada: casino (duh)

Match and Mashable aren't the only ones who recently delved into state-by-state dating. The dating app Lulu (think Yelp, but for ranking and reviewing men) did some research to find out who the most popular man in each state is. Female Lulu users can anonymously rate men they know on everything from looks, to ambition, to relationships. to, yes, sex. Lulu also recently introduced anonymous messages and questions called "Truth Bombs.”

As you can probably imagine, the app was controversial when it first launched, but Lulu has since cleaned up its image and allowed men to sign up for the service. They can’t rate women, but they can promote their profiles.

The men in this experiment (all Lulu users themselves) were rated on a scale of 1-10 by women who know them. Business Insider reports: “While there are no perfect scores in the US, a man in Texas and a man in Illinois men both received a 9.7 score. Their friends used the following hashtags to describe them: ‘#DoesDishes,’ ‘#RemembersBirthdays,’ and ‘#OneOfTheGoodOnes.’”

All descriptions in Lulu are hashtags, because longer free-form answers could earn the writer an accusation of libel. Some of the top hashtags include #OpensDoors, #CaptainFun, #MakesMeLaugh, #RespectsWomen, #AlwaysHappy, #CanTalkToMyDad, #NerdyButILikeIt, and the simple but effective #NotADick.

For a full list of the winning men, see the original post on Business Insider. For more on one of the dating services that conducted the study please read our review of Match.com.

IAC has released third quarter 2014 results. Revenue for the quarter totaled $782.2 million, up from $756.9 million in Q3 2013.

In the third quarter of 2014, consolidated revenue for IAC increased 3% year-over-year driven by solid growth at The Match Group and strong growth at Vimeo and HomeAdvisor. The Match Group revenue increased 12%, driven by 9% growth in paid subscribers to its dating websites. They now number over 3.6 million globally. Contributions from The Princeton Review and FriendScout24 – acquired on August 1, 2014 and August 31, 2014, respectively – also played large roles in The Match Group's success in Q3 2014.

Several other important segments also ended in the green, making Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA the dark spot in an otherwise-bright quarter. Third quarter adjusted-EBITDA was $135 million, down 18% from the third quarter of 2013. However, it was down only 1% when excluding approximately $14 million in net gains related to asset sales and the impact of around $13 million of acquisition-related differed revenue write-downs for the Princeton Review, FriendScout 24, and Slimwear.

Online dating sites like OkCupid and Plenty of Fish have had a free model for a long time, which has managed to expand their membership databases and make them tough contenders with paid sites such as Match.com and eHarmony. But now that free dating apps like Tinder have entered the picture and taken the dating world by storm, the paid dating sites have seen not only a decline in membership, but also in revenues.

Is online dating on its way out?

According to a recent article in The Economist, paid online dating sites have reason to worry. In the article, The Economist points out Cupid, who runs subscription-based dating websites such as Cupid.com, UniformDating.com, and LoveBeginsAt.com, announced a $4.9 million loss in the first 6 months of 2014, up 20% from last year. The number of members has dropped, too. At the end of 2012, Cupid’s sites had 113,000 paying members, but by June 2014, they had just 48,000.

While this is a disturbing trend for online dating sites like Cupid – which haven’t really taken off like other paid sites Match.com and eHarmony – it could weed out many contenders in the online dating market over the next couple of years. However in contrast to Cupid's earnings, eHarmony recently reported incredible subscriber growth and better earnings than they have seen in years, due to focusing on long-term relationships and technology that they market as extremely valuable for finding the “right” match.

But what about popular free dating apps and websites like Tinder and old-timer OkCupid? They have attracted users because of their easy set-up and accessibility. They have made online dating less intimidating, (although a little more sketchy according to some users). Are they responsible for the decline in companies like Cupid? 

Not necessarily. Even free apps and websites aren’t so free anymore.

There has been a shift for the free dating apps and online sites to offer “freemium” services – that is, additional features to the basic service but for a price. In the current online dating market, revenue growth needs to happen for investors to remain interested, and that means charging for services once the user base is built. Tinder recently announced that it will launch a premium paid service in early November, while the basic features of the app will still be free. OkCupid started with a freemium model a while ago, charging users who want to filter profiles according to user preferences, or to be able to review and see reviews of other members.

Still others like eHarmony are adding more personalized matchmaking services at a very high price – thousands per year – for those who want a relationship but would like someone else to do the heavy lifting. eHarmony has not reported numbers to see the success of this particular service.

So what does the future look like for online dating? One thing is for sure: free models likely won’t last forever.

I've got good news for Apple fans. If using the Match app on your iPhone and iPod Touch just isn't enough for you, you can now get your fix on your iPad, too. Match has just announced a brand new, redesigned, fully maximized app for the the larger iDevice with iPad-optimized functionality.

Check out the new app in the App Store or at Match.com and get the scoop on its robust features below:

See Endless Photos With Stream

Stream is an iOS-exclusive feature that uses an innovative algorithm to serve up photos of singles. Stream finds the members closest to you and highlights photos in their profile in addition to the primary profile pic. Because the iPad has a larger screen, Stream can display multiple pictures at once. Ostensibly it's there to help you discover more of someone's personality, but let's be real: you're not looking for personality in the pics.

Make Quick Connections with Mixer

We live in an era of NOW, so Mixer aims to match you with potential partners at warp speed. Using geographic location, another exclusive algorithm, and your favorite swiping technology, Mixer makes it easier than ever to browse profiles.

Additional Features

Stream and Mixer are the big additions to the new Match App for iPad, but it's got plenty of other interesting ingredients to look forward to:

• Facebook sign-in: Signing into your Match.com account just got even easier. Now you can sign in using your Facebook credentials.
• Grid search: The impact of Pinterest is undeniable. Now you can see more singles at a time with Match's enhanced search view, which takes a cue from Pinterest's famous grid.
• Easier photo uploading: The snap-happy can now add photos from three different locations within the app's interface.
• In-app notifications: Stay even more connected in this hyper-connected world with in-app notifications.
• In-app purchasing: For the first time, you'll be able to purchase subscriptions and additional features while you're signed into your iPad app. How did it take Match so long to make it even easier to spend money on their products? Who knows, but you'll be glad you can when you're itching for an upgrade on-the-go.
• More ways to communicate: Your communication options are practically endless in the new Match iPad app. You can chat with potential dates throughout the entire app, from Stream, to your Daily Matches, and even directly from a member's photo. And there's no waiting – you can communicate from the second you start up the app.