Spark Networks

The "Are You Interested" Facebook application is owned by SNAP Interactive. This app recently became the largest dating application on Facebook with 13,262,420 monthly active users. Just a month ago they had only around 8,424,000 monthly active users. Snap Interactive also posted 3rd quarter revenues of $1.65 million which was an increase of over 100 percent when compared to the same period last year. With these rising revenue numbers it looks like Snap Interactive new found traffic is of high quality.

The second largest Facebook dating application is Zoosk with 7,514,381 monthly active users. While "Are you Interested" may have a larger Facebook presence, Zoosk still has a much larger overall membership base thanks to the popularity of their dating website. Zoosk Facebook users also get to interact with the members of the dating website, and vice versa.

For more on this story, check out All Facebook. To find out more about dating on Facebook, please take a look at our Facebook Dating reviews category.

Here is a small bit of news regarding Zoosk.

According to the WSJ, Zoosk.com plans later this year to start matching singles based on their tastes in music, movies and books. This update to the matching system is in response to a survey Zoosk did of its members that found 57 percent of people found it a turn-on if someone else liked the same books as they did. Zoosk also confirmed that common shared interests like those of movies, music and books are great topics for initiating a conversation.

To find out more about this dating site, you can check out our review of Zoosk.com.

ChristianMingle.com launched a new faith-based content website late last month that is a destination designed to serve the Christian community. The website is called Believe.com and it allows Christians to obtain advice, insights and to interact with other community members. Believe.com also features:

sermons in written, audio and video formats from Christian leaders of congregations and organizations across the United States. Topics include encouraging relationship advice, raising children God's way, following biblical financial principles to successful stewardship and many more.

Additional notable features of Believe.com include a Prayer Wall and a searchable Bible. Christian Testimonials can also be found from other visitors and well known Christians that describe life changing experiences and how their faith grew as a result.

To find out more about the dating site, you can check out our review of ChristianMingle.

Spark Networks second quarter financial report was released last week (the quarter ended June 30). Overall revenue for this quarter was $10.3 million with a net income of $0.9 million. When these values are compared to quarter 2 last year, revenue is down by 8 percent and net income is down by 47 percent. Total costs this quarter is $8.6 million which is a decrease of 8 percent when compared to the same time last year of $9.3 million. As a whole the company had 160,239 subscribers. This is a decrease of 2 percent from Q2, 2009.

The Jewish Networks (mostly JDate) revenue for quarter 2 was $6.7 million. This is a decrease of 6 percent when compared to last year. On the upside average paying subscribers was 89,055 which is an 8 percent increase for JDate when compared to the same time in 2009.

The Other Affinity Networks (MingleMatch dating sites) saw revenue reach $2.8 million this quarter. This is down by 16 percent when compared to last year. The average paying subscriber did not fall as hard and was only down 2 percent to 64,083.

Lastly, the General Market Networks revenue is $298,000. This is 57 percent less revenue that they earned, when compared to the same quarter last year. Subscribers fared no better and fell 54 percent to 6,434.

For the full 2010 Q2 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks First Quarter 2010 Financials

Almost 2 months ago Zoosk reported that their Facebook Fan page had over 1 million fans. I checked today and they currently have 1,612,923 Facebook Fans. Here is a YouTube video that Zoosk put together to mark the milestone.

That certainly is a large number of fans and the increase of 600 thousand fans in under 2 months is an achievement itself (that is roughly 10,000 Facebook Fans a day). This is by far the largest number of Fans any dating site has on Facebook. Two other popular online dating sites only have about 6,000 each.

For more information on this popular dating site, read our review of Zoosk.com.

Spark Networks was featured on ABC News Nightline the other day talking about their online dating strategy of going after specific niches, like their popular dating service for Jewish singles called JDate. The Jewish community in North America has made this the number one dating site for this particular niche with over 750,000 active online daters. Another dating site of Spark Networks which they claim is growing fast is ChristianMingle.com. The video from Nightline actually shadows a couple who met recently on Christian Mingle going on their first date.

Spark Networks has over 32 niche dating sites which span the range of dating, for people of different religious faiths, to single military men and women overseas. Spark Networks also sponsors popular single events at Caribbean getaways and on Cruises. You also can't forget about their speed dating site, Hurry Date, which has become popular in and around New York City.

In the video, it was nice to see a bit behind the scenes at Spark Networks call center service. They receive on average 1,700 calls a day. Nightline also mentioned Spark Networks being a $45 million a year business which while very impressive isn't as impressive as back in 2006 where I believe they were making over $80 million.

Ultimately Spark Networks is taking the approach that smaller dating pools which are narrower and much more specific in focus are better for matching. Singles who join these dating services have a sense of community and much better chance at finding love.

To find out more on the popular dating sites from Spark Networks, read the following reviews:

• JDate.com review
• Christian Mingle review
• Spark.com review