General News

Spark Networks, owner of many special-interest online personals sites including ChristianMingle.com, JDate.com, and BlackSingles.com, has reported financial results for the third quarter ending on September 30, 2014.

It was a time of major transitions for the company. The majority of the Board was removed in July. The new Board was primarily focused on right-sizing the corporate cost structure and improving marketing efficiency, two goals which were, according to Executive Chairman Michael McConnell, largely accomplished. “Improved marketing efficiency at ChristianMingle drove subscriber acquisition costs ('SAC') in September that were less than subscriber lifetime value ('LTV') for the first time since January 2012,” he reports.

On the numbers front, Spark Networks presents the following highlights:

• Contribution of $9.0 million, highest since Q1 2009
• Adjusted EBITDA of $2.5 million, highest since Q1 2010
• Average paying subscribers of 257,679, a sequential decline of 6%
• Revenue of $15.0 million, a decrease of 14% compared to the year-ago period and a 5% decrease compared to the prior quarter

As you can see, it's a mixed bag. The drop in revenue was primarily driven by a 14% decrease in average paying subscribers, reflecting a year-over-year 15% and 9% decline in average paying subscribers for the Christian and Jewish Networks segments, respectively.

On the up side, direct marketing expenses in the third quarter of 2014 were down 52% compared to the year-ago period and 24% compared to the prior quarter. Contribution in the third quarter of 2014 was $9.0 million, an increase of 90% compared to the year-ago period and a 14% increase compared to the prior quarter. In both cases, Christian Networks was the primary driver (improved marketing efficiency and a better mix within the paying subscriber base, to be more specific).

Looking forward, McConnell says the company's primary objective is to improve product functions and features across all platforms. A JDate iPhone app was recently approved and a ChristianMingle app should be on its way soon. Spark Networks is also looking to leverage its presence in Israel and outsource some other development activities in order to speed up product development.

"In summary,” says McConnell, “much has been accomplished in the last several months, but much work remains. The team has embraced our future with a sense of urgency and focus. We look forward to driving changes that create a terrific experience for our customers and support the core communities we serve."

Dating website OkCupid has always been considered more cutting edge among the most popular online dating sites, and it is maintaining this effective strategy. Now, the company is offering its users even more choices when it comes to how they gender-identify, and what their sexual preferences are.

OkCupid’s main appeal is its approach to online dating, much more progressive than traditional sites, and also more fun to navigate. People are encouraged ask each other questions and be more original and unique without being forced to just fill in the blanks for their profiles or being walked through a long questionnaire.  

In other words, instead of being “guided” through a process, OkCupid users have always been given a little more freedom to interact and express themselves how they’d like. This works for users, and it works for OkCupid, too. The company started a blog using data from its own user base that reveals online dating trends and preferences that have come in very handy over the years. It helped OkCupid to offer a premium paid service based on the things people want – like filtering out people who don’t fit their physical ideals. One of its founders recently published a book with his findings about patterns and habits of people who online date, gained from tracking its own users.

So it is only fitting that OkCupid would be on the forefront of offering more choices when it comes to dating and how people describe themselves and what they want. After all, we don’t fit into neat little boxes, especially when it comes to love.

OkCupid’s first new offering allows people more choices for how they identify themselves, other than just as “man” or “woman.” Gender has now been extended to include agender, androgynous, cis man, cis woman, genderfluid, gender non-conforming, hjra, intersex, trans man, trans woman and two spirit, among others.

A person’s sexual orientation is no longer limited to straight, gay, and bi-sexual. Now users can choose among an abundance of choices, including asexual, demisexual, heteroflexible, homoflexible, pansexual, queer, questioning and sapiosexual (one who finds intelligence to be the most important sexual trait).

Right now, these options have only been rolled out to a limited number of users, and the company hasn’t announced when (or if) they will be extending it to all users.

According to website NewNowNext, users were notified of the change in a message from OkCupid: “You’re part of a select group with access to this feature. Keep in mind as we continue to work on this feature: For now, editing your gender and orientation is only supported on the desktop site.”

OkCupid has a reported 3.5 million user base.

In celebration of Thanksgiving in the United States, eHarmony is having a Free Communication Weekend (FCW). This 5 day event starts today November 27th, and runs to the end of day on Monday, December 1st. This is for new and existing free members of eHarmony.com only.

To take full advantage of this long event you should register as a member as soon as you can. This is free and no credit card is required. All you need to do is visit eHarmony at their website or download their dating app. Once you create your account (that you can use on both the app and the website) you then have to take the eHarmony personality questionnaire. There is about 140 questions you need to answer that supplies eHarmony's matching system with the required information it will use to match you with your ideal partner. The questionnaire will take you about 30-40 minutes to complete with most questions being of the multiple choice variety. Once complete you will then receive your first batch of matches. You can then look over their profiles and communicate with the ones you like. Free communication Weekends do not include a number of features. This includes secure call (a phone service), profile photos or skip the guide communication process straight to email.

Remember during free communication everyone can communicate so this dating site will be extra busy, especially since it is a holiday and most people are home. To find out more about this dating service that has dedicated apps available for the iPhone, iPad, and Android, you can read our review of eHarmony.

Just how crazy are single consumers for Tinder? And how much will they be willing to pay for the service?

The company is betting that certain features will be very valuable to Tinder users who have been requesting them since the service launched. So valuable that the company will be beta testing different price points in the UK, Germany and Brazil, with prices ranging from $.99 US to $4.99 to as high as $20.00 US for the premium version of the app, Tinder Plus.

Tinder Plus will roll out in these three markets first to determine how to proceed in other markets.

JDate, a popular dating website for Jewish singles, has launched a new mobile app for its members.

In the past couple of years mobile apps have taken off among daters, especially with the popularity of free and easy-to-use dating apps like Tinder, so traditional dating sites have had to step up their mobile game. After all, most people have their phones with them at all times and are able to log in anytime, anywhere, as opposed to their desktops.

Desktop dating is almost a thing of the past. Since it’s much easier to access phone apps, mobile dating apps tend to be stickier for users – attracting people to check in when they are waiting in line or for a friend to meet them, or just bored. The more often people are logging in, the more attractive it is to other potential users, which is what online dating companies want.

Enter JDate’s new app, which they describe as “a robust, on-the-go experience.” The features however are pretty standard, compared to what is already available via mobile dating apps. The big difference is their loyal user base – singles looking for relationships with similarly religious people.

Some of the new features include a better snapshot of each potential match. For each profile, you can easily see information such as location, religious preference (orthodox, reform, etc.), how well matched you are (0-100%), and from the same screen, you can choose to look at profile details, chat, email, or flirt with your match.

Photo access has improved, too. From the app, you can scroll through hundreds of photos of your matches (a la Tinder), as well as upload your own either from your phone, Instagram or Facebook.

Subscribers have the ability to chat instantly with other members who are either currently browsing the app or on the site from a desktop, and can hold multiple chats at once. They also have the ability to see who has favorited them or viewed their profile, and to see who is nearby via the “Members of the Tribe” feature.

The app also includes JDate’s popular “Secret Admirer” game, where a member can anonymously show interest in another member.

Reviews on the iTunes store have been mixed. Many users are happy with the results compared to apps of other traditional dating sites like Match and eHarmony because of JDate's easy-to-navigate format, but they are frustrated by the search capabilities as well as how long it took the company to make a well-formatted app.

JDate currently has over 750,000 members worldwide. To find out more about this service you can read our JDate review.

Antidate may be the antidote to disappointing mobile dating. At least, that's what they hope to be.

The dating app space is obviously exploding (thanks primarily to Tinder, but also apps like Happn and Hinge). The latest contender to enter the ring is Antidate, which hopes to knockout the competition with its asymmetric, gender-skewed approach to the dating app experience.

Here's the twist: male users are visible to women within the app (and their location is plotted on a map), but women aren't visible until they indicate interest in someone (by initiating a conversation, for example, or clicking a guy's profile). This strategy allows women to filter out unwanted advances while men get to sit back, relax, and let the ladies take the lead.

"When we first talked about a dating app, Tinder hadn’t launched and the only mobile dating apps we knew about were the gay ones like Grindr. We knew girls wouldn’t want to be viewable on a map so came up with the idea of an asymmetric experience for guys and girls,” co-founder Mo Saha told TechCrunch.

Saha saw benefits for both sides in Antidate's concept. Women could feel safer, knowing that their location information would never be revealed, and could avoid receiving messages from men they weren't interested in. Men who were tired of always making the first move could use the app to reverse the typical dating dynamic. “We also knew that online dating conversations are five times more likely to continue if started by a girl,” Saha noted. Win-win-win.

Antidate is still in the early stages, but it has a few other interesting tricks up its sleeve that might help it get noticed, such as:

• A real-time selfie requirement that time stamps photos, to eliminate the problem of people posting out-of-date photos to their profiles
• A rating feature, so users can indicate how much someone they met in real life looks like their photos
• Ephemeral messaging, so communications between potential dates disappear after 24 hours
• An Instagram usage requirement, which filters (no pun intended) the pool of prospective users and targets a younger, more social crowd

Although it's been in development for around 2 years, Antidate has only been out in beta on iOS for a few months. A full version launched recently and a marketing push is planned for the December holidays. Keep an eye out for what could be your new favorite dating app in 2015.