Dating Services

Millionaire Match has been in business for over 14 years and since then they have had almost 2.5 million members sign up. You can access MillioniareMatch.com via their website and also on dating apps for iOS and Android mobile phones.

They recently launched a new feature on the dating site called "True Selfies". This is a badge for a woman's profile that shows that she has at least one profile photo that have been verified makeup-free. This is to showcase that she is a natural beauty.

While the True Selfies verification is only available to women their are a number of other member verified badges available for both genders. Member's can have verified photo's, age, education and occupation. Of course we shouldn't forget, members can also be verified as millionaires. All of these verifications require you to send certain documentation to MillionaireMatch.com so they can confirm the information in your profile.

To find out more about this sugar daddy type dating service please read our Millionaire Match review.

PlentyofFish might not be making headlines the way Tinder has in the past few months, but its growth continues to be one of the online dating industry’s biggest successes. The company has announced that it hit the 100 million user milestone recently, and also revealed that it’s been a profitable company from its beginning, now with a $100 million run rate predicted for 2015.

POF has relied on a mixture of ads and premium subscriptions for revenue since 2008 (prior to this, ads only). In the last three years however, the company’s user base has shifted from primarily desktop computers to 80-85% using their mobile devices to access their accounts. Other traditional online dating sites have noticed the same trend of their user bases from desktop to mobile.

CEO Marcus Frind admits to website Business Vancouver that “finding love on a desktop computer is quickly vanishing.” Really, the appeal and ease of online dating makes more sense on a mobile device, which can be accessed anytime, anywhere. Mobile access means more users logging in and engaging with each other, a necessity for the longevity of any online dating service.

Frind said: “Since our shift to mobile we’ve seen rapid growth both in terms of users and revenue...Our revenue model has also evolved from one driven by advertising to one driven by paid membership, indicating that, now more than ever, singles are willing to pay for an enhanced user experience.”

For POF, that means their source of revenue has shifted to the mobile space and its premium service. An upgraded membership includes features like detecting when another user views a profile or when a personal message has been checked.

According to Frind, the user milestone and financial state of the company is significant in and of itself - and is no indication of his future plans, though he's never revealed this kind of data before. He’s not looking to take the company public, since he is the sole owner of POF. In recent years, the company also acquired speed dating service Fast Company to complement its offerings, but the main revenue source seems to be POF’s premium dating service.

POF has hit some bumps in the road since its launch back in 2003. For one, Frind refocused the dating site’s image, which had garnered a reputation of being primarily a hook-up site. With the facelift – which included focusing on the mobile app technology and re-branding the dating service for long-term relationships, not hook-ups - Frind seems to have found a winning formula.

The company, which used to employ only Frind, now has 75 employees, and doesn’t seem to be daunted by its mobile competition. POF is holding its own, despite a fickle online dating market.

For more information on this online dating service you can read our POF review.

There's something magical about springtime. After a winter of hibernation, everyone is ready throw on shorts and venture outside for the first time in three months, blinking and stumbling into the light like survivors of a disaster movie.

Unless, like me, you live in New York City and spent your first day of spring cowering under a blanket, watching snow fall outside your window and cursing the weather gods. It's not all shorts and sundresses yet, but come May sunbathing in Central Park will feel that much more glorious.

For those of you who didn't just get pummeled by snow, the flowers are blooming and so is romance. New data from Zoosk suggests that online dating rates go up in spring, meaning “spring fever” might be a very real thing.

Zoosk's data scientists analyzed 9.6 million conversations, over 850,000 signups, and over 66 million member sessions in search of scientific evidence for spring fever. Is it real? Is it possible to quantify the condition? Do people date differently in spring compared to other seasons?

By comparing the data of Zoosk members from the first two weeks of spring to the data from a month prior, Zoosk claims to have found “conclusive evidence” that spring fever is indeed a real phenomenon.

It began with messages. Zoosk reports that 34% more first messages are sent daily during springtime. After months of online food orders and Netflix being our only companions, it appears spring brings out our desire to connect with other humans again. And it's not just about quantity. The messages sent during spring are also “deeper” - meaning that each user in the conversation sends at least two messages. 28% more messages started daily in spring meet the criteria.

Of course, in order to get to the talking part, people have to sign up in the first place. And they do. Zoosk discovered an 11% increase in daily registrations in spring.

It makes perfect sense when you stop to think about it. This is, after all, the season during which most of Mother Nature's creatures feel a little extra frisky. And it's much easier to find the motivation to dress up and go out when you don't run the risk of developing frostbite by doing so. Not to mention that the mind is much more inclined to wander when you're looking at short sleeves and skirts, rather than knee-length down coats, clunky snow boots, and balaclavas. Dress it up all you want, but “bank robber” is never a good look.

Singles in the US are feeling totally emojional.

The days of the regular ol' smiley face are long gone. America has upped its emoticon game and we're officially living in the Age of Emoji.

Match.com is back with another installment of its annual Singles in America study. This year, they surveyed a nationally representative sample of over 5,600 US. singles aged 18 to 70+ years and one of 2015's hot topics was emoji use.

“If you had asked me a year ago what I thought of emoticons and emojis, I would have said they are fun and entertaining, but I probably wouldn’t have thought they could help our understanding of human behavior,” writes Dr. Justin R. Garcia. “But as more and more people of varying ages in my own social networks – family, friends, colleagues, dates – use emoticons and emojis...I’ve come to appreciate them as something more than funny little characters.”

To the uninitiated, emojis are practically another language. Even to the initiated, there's bound to be a character or two that's just puzzling. And to a growing number of behavioral scientists, emojis actually are a new form of nonverbal communication to be studied. “In an age of rapid mobile interaction,” Dr. Garcia writes, emojis are a 21^st century system of emotional expression and interpersonal engagement “that can help us understand human affect.”

When asked why they use emojis, US singles offered three top reasons:

• PERSONALITY: They give my text messages more personality (49% men, 53% women)
• EMOTION: It’s easier for me to express my feelings (37% men, 36% women)
• CONVENIENCE: It’s faster and easier than writing a full message (21% men, 18% women)

When asked which emojis singles favor for flirting, the following were the top three responses:

• Winky face (53% of singles)
• Smiley face (38% of singles)
• Kissy face (27% of singles)

Emoji users shared several traits. 62% want to be married (compared to only 30% of non-emoji users) and are more likely to place a high value on finding a partner who is a good communicator. Emoji users are also much more likely to be actively dating and to have sex.

But don't take things too far. While 40% of singles use emoticons and emojis regularly, nearly 75% agree that you should limit your use to 1-3 per conversation. Any more than that, and you may text yourself straight out of a date.

For more on the service which conducted this study you can read our Match.com review.

Are you excited about the new Tinder Plus service that has rolled out in the U.S.? Don't get too carried away – turns out, if you’re 30 or older, you’ll have to pay more than your younger single counterparts.

Tinder is charging users of its premium service only $9.99 if they are under 30, but those 30 and older have to pay $19.99 per month for the same service. In the U.K., the pay gap is even larger.

Tinder has been testing pricing and features of Tinder Plus in various markets prior to its U.S. roll out, which is expected to happen in late March. Reports have been mixed – while Tinder claims that its users have responded favorably to the premium service and its features (as well as pricing), the app’s ratings have declined in the U.K. app store thanks to several harsh reviews.

The success of the new service is important to Tinder, who has yet to capitalize on the sheer number of users of the free service. The company has struggled to come up with viable revenue streams that don’t take away from the user experience (they have tried to avoid in-app advertising), in order to maintain their growing user base. Offering a tiered premium service like Tinder Plus seems the best answer, adding some popular features based on users’ requests - such as the ability to go back and see rejected profiles, or to meet matches in different cities.

But along with these improvements, there are reports that Tinder is placing limits on the number of swipes any user can do per day for the free service (which sparked outrage in the U.K. app stores), prompting users to buy the premium service if they want to continue swiping.

And the latest controversy appears to be age discrimination. In a statement to defend its unusual pricing technique, Tinder said this to NPR: "Over the past few months, we've tested Tinder Plus extensively in several countries…Lots of products offer differentiated price tiers by age, like Spotify does for students, for example. Tinder is no different; during our testing we've learned, not surprisingly, that younger users are just as excited about Tinder Plus but are more budget constrained and need a lower price to pull the trigger." 

Not everyone is buying Tinder’s explanation. As website Engadget pointed out, this “sleazy” move by Tinder will likely cause more people to lie about their ages on Facebook.

The real test will has come now since Tinder Plus made its U.S. debut this month. Perhaps this is the move that will make room for other competitors in the crowded dating app market.

For five years, Match.com has graced us with America’s most comprehensive study on singles. For this year's Singles In America study, Match surveyed over 5,600 singles of all ages, ethnicities, incomes and walks of life. Naturally, the impact of technology on our dating habits was a major topic of discussion this year.

60% of singles spend at least 1 hour a day on social media. 39% of singles’ daily conversations happen digitally. Now that we're more connected than ever, our online activity has a greater impact on our love lives than ever before. And that means some serious etiquette issues. Let's talk do's and don'ts.

Single men have the following advice for single ladies:

• DO: send photos, send sexy texts, use emoticons, check your spelling and grammar
• DON'T: text more than once before a reply, text during work hours, use netspeak (OMG, LOL, etc), use ALL CAPS

Single ladies have this advice for single men:

• DO: send photos, use emoticons, text netspeak, check your spelling and grammar
• DON'T: send sexy photos, text more than once before a reply, send sexy texts, ask too many personal questions

Unsurprisingly, selfies were huge this year. Women take slightly more, but not by much. Reasons for taking a selfie range from “to capture a moment” (65%), to “to show off where they're at/what they're doing (41%), to “to show off a good hair day or outfit (31%). A majority of people think the most attractive selfies are natural and unenhanced.

On Instagram, single women favor certain kinds of photos. Funny pictures and shots of traveling or landscapes rank highest, followed by pictures of a date's hobbies and pictures of animals. When it comes to those infamous filtered photos of food, men and women are divided. 25% of single women think food pics are a turn on, but only 19% of men agree.

On other social networks, men and women agree that liking a photo is one of the top ways to show interest (38% of men vs 39% of women). Commenting on a photo is also a strong indicator (34% of men vs 31% of women). What you absolutely shouldn't do, on the other hand, is air your emotional drama in posts, take excessive selfies, or ask a date to unfriend their exes.

And here's a fun fact: 54% of emoji-using singles had sex in 2014, compared to only 31% of non-emoji users. Food for thought.

For more information on this dating service you can read our Match.com review.