Dating Services

Let's talk about the Tinder problem.

On one hand, Tinder has been great for mobile dating. Tons of people are on the app, meaning no one is judging you for using it and your pool of potential dates is huge. On the other hand, there are so many people using it that it's difficult to find the needles in the undateable haystack. It's easy to dismiss the entire app as useless once you've swiped left on enough losers.

A new app called The League is hoping to solve that problem – by admitting only the most successful and ambitious users, and keeping everyone else out. Basically, it's Tinder for elitists, although founder Amanda Bradford prefers to say The League “curates members.”

"The best universities curate students. Employers curate their employees. Work and school are the top places where 20-somethings meet each other. So it makes sense for a dating community," she told Business Insider.

The target user is interesting and motivated, passionate and working towards achieving a dream, a young professional who is looking for something more than a hookup. So far the app skews slightly female. Users tend to be in their late 20s and have advanced degrees. All have successfully passed through The League's are-you-cool-enough algorithm, which Bradford says relies more on LinkedIn than Facebook.

If accepted, users are shown a handful of matches each day. At 5pm, a new batch of matches is available. The League ensures you aren't shown first connections or current co-workers, to minimize the potential for awkward encounters.

Accepted users also receive a “ticket” to give to another single friend. Others are put on a waitlist until they’re deemed worthy of entrance into The League. Admittance doesn't guarantee you a spot forever – if you fail to measure up to The League's exacting standards (by responding poorly and earning a bad “flakiness score,” for example), you will be deemed a “low-quality member” and ousted.

Bradford was initially hoping to raise $750,000 from investors, but interest in the app was so high that it's now raised $2.1 million in seed funding. For now, The League is limited to 4,500 beta users in San Francisco. Since November, the app has been responsible for pairing 20,000 people and 19 successful couples. Bradford is focused on growing her small team and expanding to New York City, where there is already a sizeable wait list.

Following NYC, Bradford hopes to conquer London and work her way through more of the world's most interesting cities. The League currently has no plans to come to America's smaller towns, where it's unlikely to find its hyper motivated, career-focused target market.

Is it too late to be talking about 2014?

We're already into February so the answer is probably yes, but I hope you'll forgive me. Especially if I include selected stats for 2015 as a peace offering. Do we have a deal?

I'll take your silence as a yes.

Match.com knows pretty much all there is to know about online dating – seeing as it's one of the biggest online dating sites around – so when Match speaks, I listen. The site closed out 2014 with a short infographic on some of the highlights of the year (including its 6 most popular members!).

It was (unsurprisingly) a busy year. 4.8 million pictures were added to the site, and 280 million photos were liked by users. Over 5 million (5.48, to be exact) dates were made, all around the country. Users in Albany logged in more than users in any other city, but Miami singles sent the most messages. Must have something to do with all the beaches and bikinis. The users who searched most outside of their city reside in Anchorage – which may, also, have to do with (Alaska's lack of) beaches and bikinis.

On the pop culture and technology fronts, hashtags continued to take over the Internet. The most used in one profile was a whopping 44! Selfies also continued to be a dominant force in the online sphere. 5,613 Match.com profiles contained the word “selfie” in 2014. Strangely, the only thing that came close to it was Disney's smash-hit kids' flick: 5,501 people said Frozen was their favorite movie of the year.

That's it for 2014, but Match.com has tirelessly turned out new stats for 2015 – even though we're only one month in. Following the holidays, singles feel an extra boost of motivation to join online dating sites. The busiest day of the year for Match.com tends to be January 4^th, with the best of the blitz occurring at 7:52pm CST. Certain cities feel an especially strong call to post-holiday online dating:

• Columbia, South Carolina
• Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• Jackson, Mississippi

Interestingly, all in the South. What's happening down there that makes everyone rush to romance after New Year's?

And just who, specifically, is joining up this year? According to Match, the average age of single men who join the site during the busy season is 35. Match also saw an uptick in certain groups signing up in 2015:

• Single Parents: up 45%
• Singles Who Work In Education: up 46%
• Single Bowlers: up 47%
• Curvy Single Women: up 50%
• Singles Quitting Smoking: up 45%
• Singles In The Fashion Industry: up 47%

So if you're into mid-thirties Southern fathers who teach for a living and bowl in their spare time, 2015 could be your year.

Recipient of Gold
Match.com

Recipient of Silver
eHarmony

Recipient of Bronze
Zoosk

We launched the 2014 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll in September of 2014 and we closed the poll to voting during the first week of January, 2015. After running for about 4 months we had 359 voters participate. The first question of the poll is about which dating service you believe deserves to win our top 2014 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award. The top spot for this award receives Gold, followed by Silver and then Bronze. For this question we listed the top 7 dating services you can cast one vote for.

The recipient of the Gold 2014 Single's Choice Award is Match.com. Match.com grew in popularity this year and received almost 5% more votes than last year. For 2014 Match received 24.3% of the vote which works out to 87 voters. The silver award winner received 5% less votes.

The recipient of the Silver 2014 Single's Choice Award is eHarmony. It was a huge year for eHarmony. After Dr. Neil Clarke Warren came back as CEO, eHarmony was able to grow their membership base by an astonishing 54%. This year eHarmony received 71 votes by our visitors which is 19.83% of the total votes cast.

The recipient of the Bronze 2014 Single's Choice Award is Zoosk. For 2014 Zoosk received 54 votes. This is 15.08% of all the votes. It was a tight race for Bronze as we saw the dating service Are You Interested receive 49 votes which is just 5 less than Zoosk.

Here are this year's standings for the Single's Choice award for all dating sites in the poll.

1. Match.com
2. eHarmony
3. Zoosk
4. Are You Interested
5. Christian Mingle
6. How About We
7. Badoo

We would like to thank everyone who cast a vote this year for our Single’s Choice Award. The results of this award help guide our visitors to choose the best dating service for them as each of the winning services receives an award badge for the year which designates them as a winner. All award winners are also added to the 2014 Award category.

Recipient
PlentyOfFish.com

The 2014 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll was closed for voting in January (it ran for almost 4 months). The 2 question poll received 359 votes. The second question is about which dating service you think deserves the 2014 Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site. For the first time the candidates included a service available only as a dating app, which is Tinder. A dating service is eligible for this award if it has already been reviewed by Dating Sites Reviews and, all of its main core features are free. This includes creating a profile, searching for members and communicating with those members by sending messages. If any of these features require the member to pay to use or are severally hampered (unless the member pays) then we don’t consider the service to be free.

The recipient of the Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site in 2014 is Plenty Of Fish (POF). This is the sixth straight year in a row that Plenty of Fish (POF) has won this award but, this year was the closest race yet. Tinder was within 4% of the total vote in taking the top spot. In 2014 POF received 99 votes which is 27.5% of all votes.

Here are the final results of the poll:

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

The top 3 dating services received almost 75 percent of all votes. It only took 22 votes to make the difference between first place and third.

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

Recipient
Match.com

The recipient of the Editor's Top Pick - Over All Award for 2014 is Match.com. This is the eighth straight year that Match has won this award and been our Editor’s number one choice for a dating service.

There are a number of reasons why Match continues to succeed and see double digit membership growth year over year. Match’s concentration on continuing to improve their mobile products is one reason (and why they are the recipient of our new Dating App award). One of the other reasons is that their service is really easy to use. From uploading photos (on average 3.6 photos for women and 2.8 photos for men) to sending out messages Match.com has found the right balance between features offered and ease of use.

Match is also not afraid of trying new ideas. In 2014 they introduced Major League Baseball team fan pages on their site which not only gives you the latest news on your favorite team but it helps you to connect with other fans. Another idea that is popular is the MatchMade Scholarship. This is a program with a budget of $50,000 which was setup for children whose parents met on Match. Which is a lot of children by the way, since 1995 Match.com matches has resulted in over 1 million babies.

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

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Plenty of Fish

Valentine’s Day is almost upon us and eHarmony has decided to have a free communication weekend to celebrate the lovers holiday. The event runs from Thursday February 12th to the end of day on Monday February 16th.

Valentine’s Day is dreaded by some and welcomed by others. It doesn’t matter which of the categories you fall into as we are in the internet age, so finding a potential partner has never been easier. Dating services like eHarmony are just a few clicks away on your laptop and thanks to smart phones you can now join these services via dating apps wherever you happen to be.

eHarmony specializes in long-term relationships. With their advanced matching system and in-depth research eHarmony is in a unique position to offer member’s very high quality matches. Thanks to their commitment to finding what makes love tick, on average 438 marriages happen every day in the United States because of matches made by eHarmony.

To join all you need to do is sign up as a free member (no credit card is required). From there you need to take the eHarmony personality test which includes multiple choice questions designed to help the matching system to determine who your ideal matches might be. Doing these 2 steps requires about 45 minutes of your time but it is well worth it. Once completed you then will receive your first batch of matches. You can then review your candidates to figure out which ones you would like to communicate with. With free communication events the following features are not included: secure call (a phone service), profile photos, and skipping the guided communication process to go straight to email .

For more information on this service and how the dating site and app work, please read our review of eHarmony.