Spark Networks

Recently Yahoo! Personals members were told that Match.com will become the exclusive dating service of Yahoo. Members could either migrate to Match.com or continue to use Yahoo Personals until July 21st, 2010 (when the site will close for good).

Spark.com has extended an offer to ex-Yahoo! Personals Members. They can receive a 1 month free membership to Spark.com. With this membership you will be able to use the entire site for free, including communication. One thing Spark.com has over most other popular dating services is they allow free members to communicate with paid members. This means if you are a full member of Spark.com you know that all members can communicate with you. To take advantage of this offer all you need to do is log onto Spark.com and create a free profile. You then need to email the Match.com Welcome Notice along with your Spark.com username to freecommunication@spark.net and within 24 hours you will receive your free membership.

This is a good deal since Yahoo members now can have a membership not only on Match.com but Spark.com as well. Plus you can also take advantage of a similar free offer at ChristianCafe.com. This means ex-Yahoo Personals members have the option to receive 3 memberships at 3 of the more popular dating services for the price of one.

To find out more about this dating site, read our Spark.com review.

Quepasa.com is a social network website with over 13 million members that services the Latino online community. According to Compete their traffic has increased 5 times to 275,000 unique visitors a month, over the last 6 months. Last week an announcement was made that Quepasa has partnered with the dating site Zoosk to make their service for singles the primary option to all of Quepasa members. This partnership benefits both companies. It gives Zoosk a large, new, and relatively untapped singles market and it gives Quepasa an additional revenue generating service.

Members of Quepasa can expect the dating service from Zoosk to go live by the end of this month.

To find out more about the dating site you can read our Zoosk review.

Earlier this month Spark Networks released their first quarter earnings for 2010. Revenue in this quarter overall dropped 12 percent to 10.5 million when compared to the same period last year. When compared to the last quarter in 2009, revenue dropped 5 percent. Net income for this quarter was $929,000. This is a 3 times increase over the same period last quarter of $311,000. Average paying subscribers for the whole company was 169,833. This is an increase of 1 percent when compared to quarter 1 of 2009.

Spark Networks dating sites that fall under the Jewish Networks banner (made up mostly of JDate) had revenue of $7.1 million. This is a decrease of 7 percent when compared to quarter 1, 2009. Some good news is found here because subscribers did increase 10 percent too 93,235. The last time JDate had this many subscribers was back at the end of 2007.

The other important division for Spark Networks is their Other Affinity Networks (the MingleMatch sites). For this quarter they earned $3 million which is a 10 percent decrease when compared to the same quarter last year. Subscribers were up though, by 6 percent to 68,124.

For the full 2010 Q1 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks Fourth Quarter 2009 Financials

Spark Networks is one of the few dating companies to be a Better Business Bureau (BBB) Accredited business. They have been one since 1999. Being a BBB accredit business means that the:

... BBB has determined that the business meets accreditation standards which include a commitment to make a good faith effort to resolve any consumer complaints.

Why is belonging to the BBB important? The BBB is an international recognized independent organization that allows consumers to not only voice their own opinions about a company but it also allows them to file a complaint which will be monitored by the BBB on how the accredited business responds. If you check out Spark Networks BBB report you can see the number of complaints they have had in the last 36 months and the type of response which was given. The response of Spark Networks directly reflects their BBB rating. This doesn't mean Spark Networks has to comply with every consumer request but they do need to follow the contract they entered in with their customers or risk receiving a lower BBB rating.

Zoosk is a dating site which has grown in popularity thanks in large part to them embracing Social Networks like Facebook (they are the number one dating app on Facebook). In January of 2009 Zoosk had 15 million members and in little over a year they have seen tremendous growth. Today, Zoosk has 50 million users worldwide. To expand their network of members further, Zoosk has announced a free iPhone Dating Application which supports multiple languages. Languages supported include English, French, Italian and Spanish. The Zoosk App also allows members to see who has viewed their profile and also allows members to use the iPhone's GPS for location based matching. Since its release the Zoosk iPhone dating application has become the third most popular dating app for the iPhone.

Zoosk also has released an instant messenger program for both Mac and PC computers. The Zoosk Messenger allows for desktop chat with other Zooskers and was developed on the Adobe Air platform to bring a richer, more interactive experience. This online chat program fully integrates into Zoosk and lets you instantly connect with singles in your area. The program also notifies you when your friends come online.

Zoosk must have been one of the fastest growing dating sites last year. This is due to the additional funding they have received (see Zoosk Funding Story) which allowed them to expand their network to multiple platforms and advertise much more extensively online (I am seeing their ads everywhere now). Zoosk wants to cover all platforms of communication it seems and are hoping to own a bigger piece of the $4 billion worldwide online dating industry.

For more on this story, read the press release. You can also checkout our review of Zoosk.

Early in March Great Hill Partners offered to take Spark Networks private by buying all of the shares they did not own for $3.10 per share (see Story). Great Hill currently owns about 25 percent of the stock so the deal would have cost them about $64 million. Spark Networks said they would consider the offer, much to the dismay of a number of share holders.

Yesterday, a Spark Networks special committee on the offer unanimously rejected the proposal from Great Hill Equity Partners. No reason was given about why they rejected the offer but they did say that they will continue to consider other alternatives.

For more on the story, read the Spark Networks press release.