Dating Services

I notice several comments this week about users not liking the fact that Plenty Of Fish has now made the dating feature "Viewed Me" for paid users only. I had thought this was done a while ago but after some further research it looks like only the ability to see when someone had looked at your profile was removed. You could still see who had viewed you, not just when.

Well earlier this week it looks like you now cannot see who has viewed your profile anymore on POF.com, if you are a free member. You will now have to pay for this privilege.

For more information on this popular dating site, you can read our POF.com review.

eHarmony let us know that they are offering free communication this weekend in the United States and Canada. This promotions starts in the morning at 12:01am on Friday March 16th and ends in the evening of Monday March 19th at 11:59pm.

For singles interested in trying our eHarmony, this 4 day event is a great way to do it for free and with no credit card required. To start all you need to do is sign in and create a free profile on eHarmony. Once you are finished with creating the profile and taking the in-depth questionnaire, you will then receive your first set of matches. After you have reviewed your matches you can then start the guided communication process and contact your preferred matches. Features not included during free communication events are photos, Secure Call or Skip to Email.

This will be eHarmony's 38th free communication event (by our count) with the last one happening around Valentine's Day (see Story).

To find further information about this online dating site, you can read our eHarmony.com review.

Spark Networks fourth quarter and full year end results were released on March 1st. For the last quarter revenue was $12.9 million and for the entire 2011 year it was $48.5 million. The net loss for the reported quarter was $1.1 million which gave the year 2011 a total net loss of $1.6 million. As a whole revenue was up 19 percent when compared to 2010 and up 27 percent when quarter 4 in 2011 is compared to quarter 4 in 2010. This is in large part thanks to the Other Affinity Networks which saw revenue increase by 78 percent throughout the year.

Subscribers also grew 21 percent for the year and 32 percent in quarter 4 (when compared to the same quarter in 2010). Average paying subscribers for the entire company for quarter 4 2011 was 212,850. For the year the number of average paying subscriber was 196,850.

Spark Networks 2 big sites are JDate (which is part of the Jewish Networks) and Christian Mingle (which is part of the Other Affinity Networks). Subscriber and revenue remand flat for the Jewish Networks. Revenue for quarter 4 was $6.9 million with 87,101 subscribers. The Other Affinity Networks saw revenue of $5.9 million and 123,139 average paying subscribers for quarter 4, 2011. When compared to last year's quarter revenue increased by 114 percent and subscribers increased by 89 percent.

For the full 2011 Q4 release visit the Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks Third Quarter 2011 Financials

Right on the heels of Valentine's Day, eHarmony will be having a free communication weekend which will run from Friday February 17th to Monday February 20th. This promotion is available to all members in the United States and no credit card is required.

With the increased popularity of online dating during this romantic week and eHarmony's reputation of creating relationships that are long-term and which often lead to marriage, you can expect this service to be bustling with new members eager to meet their matches. All you need to do is spend some time and create your profile. Once completed, you will receive your first matches that you then can start to communicate with. Features not included during free communication events are photos, Secure Call or Skip to Email.

By our estimation, this will be eHarmony's 37th free communication event with the last one happening during the New Year celebration (see Story).

To find out more about this popular dating service designed to find you a long-term relationship, you can read our review of eHarmony.

Here is a short video clip of Sam Moorcroft, the CEO of ChristianCafe.com being interviewed about his dating service and why more Christians are turning to online dating to meet their soul mate.

Note: Unfortunately the source to the video and/or image which once was displayed here has since been removed by the authors for an unknown reason.

In the video they also talk about other popular dating sites and why there are some disadvantages to using a large generic dating site if you are looking for someone of the same faith.

For more on the story you can read CBN. ChristianCafe.com is a service dedicated to connecting Christian singles together for marriage. If you are interested in this service you can check out our Christian Cafe review for more information.

Plenty Of Fish is reporting that they had over 300 million monthly visits to their Android and iPhone apps last month. I am not sure if they mean they had 300 million visits to their respective app pages on iTunes and Android Market or if members used the apps on their phones a total of 300 million times (probably the latter, but how can you visit an app, I thought you used an app).

Plenty Of Fish is also seeing mobile traffic increasing by 3 percent every week with 40 percent of all United States signups now coming from mobile phones and tablets. iPads saw an increase of usage by 88 percent alone from December 2011 to January 2012 (must be those Holiday presents). All this traffic equals to over 3 billion page views a month coming from mobile apps. Wow, that is a lot! I never expected such a large percentage of signups would come from mobile devices already.

I guess the iTunes PlentyOfFish app description needs an update though, as I write this post it currently states that Plenty Of Fish has over 145 million monthly visitors and 38 million users.

To find out about this dating service and their mobile apps you can read our Plenty Of Fish review.