Online Dating

Wondering why you’re not getting many responses to your carefully crafted online dating profile? The first thing to check – because this is the first thing other daters will notice – are your pictures.

As we all know, attraction starts with visual appeal. This doesn’t mean you have to be some kind of Greek god or supermodel to get a few dates, but it does mean that you have to put your best foot forward and show the people who you are. And according to OkCupid who has done a lot of research on this – your best selling point may be the physical feature you find most flawed.

People have different tastes, so embrace that.

Tinder just announced that it's reached a seriously impressive milestone: it’s made 1 billion matches between its users. That number was just 1 million in January 2013, making Tinder one of the most memorable success stories in online and mobile dating history.

In fact, Tinder has been so successful that even celebrities are getting in on the game. Although you might think it wouldn't be hard for good-looking, A-list of famous folks to find a date, it looks like they have a little more trouble on Tinder than we under-the-radar people would expect.

“We’ve had celebrities reach out to us frequently throughout the last year, sort of calling out various frustrations convincing users that they were actually who they are,” Tinder co-founder Sean Rad told TIME. “One impediment is that sometimes their Facebook accounts, which we pull information from, includes different names than their actual likeness… So [celebrities] were asking for the ability to modify their Tinder name and maybe have a verified badge.”

That's right – apparently all kinds of famous people want nothing more than to be able to swipe right, but their potential matches assume that the well-known faces in their profile pictures mean their accounts are fakes. Making it worse is the fact that Tinder requires Facebook account authorization in order to verify identity, and a lot of celebrities use fake names on social networking sites for privacy purposes. It's a combination that's almost guaranteed to make the average mobile dater send a profile straight to the rejection pile.

Rad and his co-founder Justin Mateen know first-hand what that feels like. For a while, they both listed themselves as the app's co-founders in their Tinder profile taglines. Again and again, they found themselves rejected by users who didn't believe they were telling the truth about their identities.

“It was awesome [to know celebrities are on Tinder] because it sort of validated our theories that everyone, even people of influence, need help forming relationships,” Rad said. “It’s important to us that our users know we are committed to authenticity on every level.” So with that in mind, Tinder is adopting verification badges like Twitter in order to confirm celebrity identities and allow the famous and non-famous alike to intermingle without fear of being scammed.

Of course, Rad won't disclose which celebrities are using the app, but he assures TIME that “These are A-listers.” Sochi Olympians admitted to using Tinder during the Games, and Lindsay Lohan told her Instagram followers know that she found her brother on the app, so you at least know that you stand a chance of meeting one of the world’s most talented athletes and one of the world's most famous redheads.

Spark Networks, Inc., the company behind many special-interest online personal sites including JDate.com, BlackSingles.com, and ChristianMingle.com, has reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ending on December 31, 2013.

"2013 marked our third consecutive year of growth as we continued to execute our long-term strategic plan," said Greg Liberman, Spark Networks' Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "And, unlike the previous two years, in addition to delivering 12% revenue growth, we also demonstrated a meaningful 8% improvement in contribution for the year, punctuated by a 16% increase in Q4 contribution."

Highlights of 2013 for Spark Networks include:

• Total revenue grew Y/Y for 12^th consecutive quarter
• Total contribution grew 16% Y/Y
• Christian Networks revenue grew Y/Y for 13^th consecutive quarter
• Christian Networks ARPU grew Q/Q for first time since Q1 2013

Revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013 was $17.2 million, an increase of 6% compared to the $16.3 million earned the year before. Full year 2013 revenue was $69.4 million, a 12% increase compared to 2012. The Christian Networks segment was primarily responsible for that growth.

"Our dual engines – the Christian and Jewish Networks segments, anchored by ChristianMingle and JDate – once again drove our performance,” said Liberman. “In 2013, Christian Networks grew 27%, generated more than $40 million in revenue and constituted 58% of the company's revenue base. While impressive in a vacuum, that is even more notable given that Christian Networks generated less than $6 million and comprised just 14% of our revenue when we relaunched the business three years ago.”

Spark Networks clearly has another iconic brand on its hands with ChristianMingle, but it hasn’t all been good news for the company. Wall Street isn’t loving Spark nearly as much as consumers are.

Earlier this month, Spark dropped 19% to $4.66 – earning it the dubious distinction of being Wall Street's fifth-biggest percentage drop - after the company said 2014 could be a tough year for some of its online dating website. Revenue is up, losses are down, but Liberman found that many online dating newbies let their paid subscriptions lapse in the third and fourth quarters.

In the face of stiff competition from IAC/Interactive's Match.com and OkCupid, Spark Networks plans to switch up its strategy in 2014 by reining in advertising and marketing spending. "We're pivoting a little bit here and focusing on profitability,'' said Liberman. Hopefully the new strategy means a little less heartbreak for Spark Networks investors.

A lot of people love online dating because of its convenience. It's hard to beat being able to scan through potential matches from the comfort of your own home, entirely at your leisure. Traditional dating can be found, but it can also be a huge time suck. Sometimes all you want is an efficient way to weed out the frogs from the princes (and princesses).

Online daters already know that dating websites are a great way to save time, but it turns out they're also a great way to save money. Couples who meet online tend to marry after a shorter period of time than couples who meet in real life, meaning that a courtship that begins via the Internet ends up being thousands of dollars cheaper than meeting and wooing someone offline.

According to market strategists at New York City-based ConvergEx Group, the average dating period prior to marriage for a couple who met in real life is approximately 42 months. Let's do some math: if that couple goes on one date per week, and that date costs around $130 (for food, drinks, entertainment tickets, etc.), then the total cost of that couple's courtship would be around $23,660.

The average time between meeting and marriage for couples who meet online, on the other hand, runs around 18.5 months. The average dating site customer spends $239 a year for online memberships, according to ConvergEx Group, and if we assume that the amount spent on dates is the same, an online dater saves $12,803 in comparison to an offline dater.

And what if the dates go Dutch? In that case, each online dater saves just over $6400. Not too shabby at all!

But, just because it's more acceptable, easier, and less expensive for people to meet online doesn't mean more US citizens are using dating sites to meet marriage partners. According to the Pew Research Center, only 51% of Americans were married in 2011 – a significant drop from the 72% who were married in 1960 – and the numbers are continuing to decline.

ConvergEx suggests that the trend could be in reaction to the high divorce rates seen throughout the 1970s and 80s. “Seeing their parents and/or friends’ parents go through a divorce has made today’s young people more cautious when it comes to finding a mate,” they say.

Many more of today's young people are putting their careers had of relationships, making them less reliant on a spouse for support and possibly also contributing to the decline in marriage. Marriage rates are reportedly also dropping faster among people with less education. "Declining marriage rates among those with lower levels of educational attainment is a warning sign that is worth watching," says ConvergEx, "especially if the trend continues."

Are you passionate and romantic? Or do you consider yourself more rational and perceptive?

A new study came out from statistician, researcher and computational biologist Emma Pierson, who dug into some eHarmony-released data to produce some interesting findings. Apparently, the adjectives you use to describe yourself on the eHarmony site influences who you are matched with.

The study pointed out that many people tend to use the same adjectives together to describe themselves. For instance, if you call yourself passionate likely you also use the term romantic. If you describe yourself as intelligent you probably would agree that you’re also rational or perceptive.

Based on these adjective groupings, Pierson found that there are five basic types of eHarmony daters: The Romeos (passionate), the Spocks (intelligent, rational), the Snow Whites (sweet, quiet), the Teddy Roosevelts (optimistic and energetic), and the Hufflepuffs (hard working and loyal).

According to the study, most people will identify with one of these groups more than the others, and tend to use adjectives that describe them together – such as dependable and hard-working. This matters to eHarmony because it also determines who to match you with based on these adjectives.

The most striking observation from the data she collected: women tend to be matched with men who are in the same grouping – in other words, Teddy Roosevelts tend to go for other Teddy Roosevelts. There are two exceptions however: Spock women seem to have a thing for Romeo men (opposites attract?), and Hufflepuff women get matched up with Snow White men.

For the men, it lines up pretty closely as well. Though the majority of male members get matched up with women in their same category, Romeo men pair up with Spock women fairly often too. (Good to know that a passionate man likes a smart woman – maybe she keeps him reigned in?) Also, Snow White men tend to go for the loyal, dependable Hufflepuff women.

Where do you fall on the chart? Are you the rational dater, who carefully examines all the evidence before deciding whether or not to fall in love? Or are you easy-going and optimistic, assuming that when you meet the right person, things will work out, so you don’t sweat the small stuff?

There’s some truth to matching based on how you see yourself, because eHarmony claims that their members have longer lasting marriages and relationships than those who met on other dating sites. Mostly, it’s interesting to see that in the end, similar and complementary feelings, approaches and personality traits do tend to attract each other.

File this one under “Not a surprise.” IAC/InterActiveCorp – owner of Match, OkCupid, Tinder, and more – has released its fourth quarter 2013 financial results, and things are looking good almost all the way across the bar.

IAC’s performance was strong in Q4 2013. Match closed up the year well with 12% revenue growth and 21% OIBA (Operating Income Before Amortization) growth in the fourth quarter. Total revenue for Q4 2013 was $203.9M, up from $182.6M in Q4 2012. For the year, Match grew revenue 10.5% and OIBA 16%, and the company predicts an even better year of growth in 2014.

After pulling out of European markets to focus on the United States in 2009, Match has managed to successfully grow in the US as well as across the globe. The company doesn’t hesitate to call itself “the unquestioned global leader in dating,” with 30 million active users and 3.4 million paying subscribers in 2013.

Core, Meetic and Developing revenues grew 4%, 8% and 69%, respectively, to $115.7 million, $58.9 million and $29.4 million. That growth was driven by an increase in subscribers and as well as the contribution of mobile app Twoo, which was not in the prior year period. On the whole, profits increased due to higher revenue and lower customer acquisition costs as a percentage of revenue.

The most interesting source of IAC’s potential growth is Tinder, the rapidly growing social dating app primarily owned by IAC. Tinder clocked in at 100M daily profile views in August 2013, and is expected to hit 1B daily profile views in April. That’s some serious swiping. Although Tinder's implied valuation today is low, it could prove to be worth more than IAC's current market cap of $6.4B.

Even for IAC’s traditional dating sites, mobile has been big. 50% of all communication for Match.com US is sent from mobile devices. At OkCupid, the number rises to over 60%. Those numbers were single digits as recently as 2010, and IAC says it has just barely scratched the surface where optimization for geo-specific features and mobile markets are concerned.

2014 promises to be full of mobile product enhancements across the board, so IAC expects to see even greater engagement and customer acquisition resulting from smartphones. These are the kind of changes that allow IAC’s portfolio to continuously thrive, despite the changing world around it. The future looks predictably bright for the company.