Dating Services

The Harlem Shake has been sweeping the nation and the world. Everyone from universities to Jimmy Fallon have released a video. So how did these Harlem Shake viral videos become a YouTube craze?

It looks like the first Harlem Shake video was uploaded on Jan. 30, 2013 (see Video). As of today it has over 24 million views. The video that really got the ball rolling and set the format for future videos was this one released on Feb. 2, 2013 by a group of teenagers from Australia calling themselves TheSunnyCoastSkate. Basically a Harlem Shake video is about 30 seconds long with the first 15 seconds of a lone masked person dancing with people around him not paying attention. The video then cuts to the entire group of people doing a crazy dance with most dressed in costumes. During the video samples of the 2011 song "Harlem Shake” released by Baauer are played.

By Feb.11, 2013 approximately 4 thousand Harlem Shake videos where being uploaded to YouTube everyday making 12 thousand total videos with 44 million views. By this time companies had started to take notice and where releasing their own videos. When February 15th rolled around there was a total of 40,000 videos that had been viewed 175 million times. The song “Harlem Shake also reached number 1 on iTunes in America.

Not to be left out a number of dating sites and social networks have also released their own Harlem Shake videos. Here they are:

Match.com does the Harlem Shake

Plenty of Fish does the Harlem Shake

Mate1 does the Harlem Shake

Facebook does the Harlem Shake

For more on the Harlem Shake phenomena you can check out Wikipedia.

The Plenty of fish blog just released some current traffic statistics for their dating site. It's good to see a snapshot of what the user base of Plenty of fish is. Marcus Frind released the statistics to highlight how his dating site has grown and to be more open on the number of members POF has.

The user statistics released are based on active daily registered users. This means that the user must be logged into POF.com to be considered part of the statistic group. I am assuming that the numbers given are an average but it doesn’t say what the timeline is for that. It probably is for last month (January) but I am only guessing that he would release the latest numbers available. The user statistics could very well be for last year, last quarter or some other time period.

Plenty of Fish’s largest market is the United States with 2 million active daily registered users. This is followed by the United Kingdom with 550,000 and then Canada with 450,000. POF estimates that if you take the roughly 1400 dating site (non-adult) found in the United States and combine their paying members you will come out with 2.5 million subscribers. Combining these numbers together sounds like a lot of people and it is, but online dating has a lot of room to grow. The population of the United States sits at about 313 million with about 100 million people actually single. This shows that about 1/3 of the population is single. The United Kingdom has a population of about 63 million and Canada is close to 35 million. If we assume that the proportions of singles in these countries are about the same as the US then there are about 21 million single people in the UK and about 12 million in Canada.

In the US I figure that there are about 5.5 million people actively using a dating site every day. I came up with this number by adding Plenty of Fish’s 2 million active users with 2.5 million US paid subscribers, and then adding in an extra million singles for all of the other free dating sites that people use. This means only 5.5 percent of all singles in the United States are actively using an online dating site. Since about 78% of the US has internet access (according to Wikipedia) then this percentage only slightly improves to about 7 percent. The potential for growth in the online dating industry is still huge when your untapped market sits at over 90 percent.

I also found a few other related statistics. Plenty of Fish currently reports (from July 2012) that they have had 45 million members register since launch in 2003. Their current rate of growth is 40,000 new members signing up every day which works out to about 30 percent a year. Members of POF send out 20 million messages a day generating 7 million conversations. Currently the average age on POF is 35. In 2009 the average member was 40 years old.

To find out more about this dating site you should read our Plenty of fish review.

To help celebrate Valentine’s Day Christian Cafe let us know that they are offering price discounts on their memberships of up to 25 percent. Christian Cafe is the largest Christian owned dating site with many active members. They have won our own DSR awards several times for being the top pick in the Christian dating category. A combination of their large membership database, features offered and business ethics has made them one of the top choices we recommend to Christian singles.

The great thing is when someone first joins Christian Cafe, they offer them a 10 day free trial. This trial gives new members complete access to the dating site including communication with all other members. This way you can find out how well the service works for you before you consider purchasing a membership.

For more information on this dating site you should read our detailed Christian Cafe review.

Recipient of Gold
Match.com

Recipient of Silver
eHarmony

Recipient of Bronze
Zoosk

The 2012 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll was closed on January 1st, 2012. It ran for 3 months and received just over 650 votes. The first question of this poll asked which paid dating site would you recommend for our Single’s Choice Award. This post takes a look at the results. In our opinion this award is our most important award and this is why it is the last one we give out. This award is voted on by our visitors which collectively spend much more time on dating sites and run into many more situations than we do. We deal with online dating sites everyday here at DSR but our visitors experiences make them the true experts.

For 2012 we listed the top online dating sites for you to vote on. There was eight in the list in which three will receive an award, Gold for first, Silver for second and Bronze for the third most votes.

The recipient of the Gold 2012 Single's Choice Award is Match.com. They received 30.5 percent of the vote which works out to 199 votes. 5 of the dating sites received under 10 percent of the vote which shows Match.com has a huge lead in popularity. Match.com also received our Editor's Top Pick - Overall award earlier this year.

The recipient of the Silver 2012 Single's Choice Award is eHarmony. This matchmaking site received 23 percent of the vote which is a half percent more than last year. eHarmony also received an award for Editor's Top Pick - Match System which is no surprise. This is eHarmony’s 5th year in a row winning this award.

The recipient of the Bronze 2012 Single's Choice Award is Zoosk. Zoosk has been around since 2007 and has won this award once before in 2010. This year Zoosk received 78 votes which is 12 percent of the total vote.

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. Chemistry
5. Lavalife
6. Badoo
7. PerfectMatch.com
8. Date.com

We here at Dating Sites Reviews (DSR) would like to thank everyone who voted for the 2012 Single's Choice Award. The results of the poll help our visitors in 2013 to figure out which service is best for them. It also helps us tailor the needs of our users and better report on the sites and services that interest them.

Chemistry.com is having a free weekend starting today and it will run for 72 hours. This means Friday February 1st, and all day Saturday, and Sunday February 3rd new and existing members of Chemistry will be able to us all the features of the dating site at no cost and with no credit card required.

When you register during this promotion you will be able to create a profile and complete the personality test. When you are finished you will then receive your quality matches. There is no searching on Chemistry as their matching algorithm takes care of this process by matching you with the best candidates for long-term relationships. With your matches you will be able to view their complete profile and photos along with communicating with them by using email and chemistry starters.

There last free weekend happened in October of 2012. To find out more on this dating service please read our Chemistry.com review.

Recipient
PlentyOfFish.com

The 2012 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll launched in the afternoon of October 1st, 2012. In 2 months we had over 300 votes and by the new year when the poll closed January 1st, 2013 we had 652 votes cast. This poll on the best free dating site is important as it is voted on by you, our visitors. The is because our visitors are also the members that make up these dating sites and you and your experiences are ultimately what makes a dating site successful.

For this survey we included 8 of the top free dating sites. A dating site is considered free when a member can create a profile, search for matches, and communicate with all members via mail for no cost and with no credit card required. A free dating can offer an upgraded membership that can include other perks but it must keep the core dating site experience free.

The 2012 Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site goes to Plenty Of Fish (POF). This is the fourth straight year that POF has won this award. This year they received 30 percent of the vote which is 197 of the votes. POF seems to have experience a bit of a drop in popularity since last year when they had 39 percent of the vote.

Here are the final results of the poll:

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

OkCupid came in second place again this year. This was the closest race we ever had for the top spot. OkCupid had almost 27 percent of the vote which is just 3 percent off of POF. As a comparison the difference in 2011 between these two dating sites was 15 percent of the vote. Third place went to DateHookup which was just 3.5 percent off of second place, again very close. In 2011 DateHookup ranked fourth and was over 14 percent off of second place. All of the other dating sites in the poll scored under 10 percent of the vote. There is quite a large difference this year between the top 3 dating sites and the rest.

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