Match

Match.com released a interesting study on April 20, 2010 about America's dating behavior. Back in 2009 and early 2010 Match.com commissioned Chadwick Martin Bailey to conduct 3 studies. With these studies, 3 surveys were created to collect data:

• Marriage Survey - A survey of people who were married within the last 5 years.
• Online Dating Survey - A survey of people who have used dating sites within the last 5 years.
• General Survey - A survey of people who are single or are in a new relationship.

Over 11,000 people participated in these surveys. All are 18 years or older and live in the United States. The General Survey's participants also had income of at least $30,000.

From these surveys Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB) concluded several interesting findings.

Marriage Survey - 7000 participants

• 38 percent of couples who married in the last year met through work or school.
• 27 percent of couples who married in the last year met through a friend or family.
• In the last 3 years (and year), 17 percent of couples who married met on a online dating site. (1 in 6 couples)
• Bars, Clubs and other social events counted for only 8 percent of marriages.
• Churches counted for 4 percent of marriages.

Online Dating Survey - 3000 participants

• Match.com counted for 30 percent of all marriages of people who met on dating sites. The 2nd ranked competitor was at 16%, followed by the 3rd at 15 percent.
• 35 percent of Match.com members had a relationship of 3 months or more. The 2nd ranked competitor was at 17%, followed by the 3rd at 16 percent.

General Survey - 2525 participants

• 20 percent of single people have dated someone they met on a dating site. (1 in 5 singles)
• 20 percent of people in a new committed relationship met on a dating site. (1 in 5 singles)

Click here (pdf file) for the full Match.com and Chadwick Martin Bailey study. To find out more about this dating site, read our Match.com review.

Match.com launched April 21, 1995, this was 15 years ago exactly last Wednesday. They were owned by Electric Classifieds and a membership cost $9.95 per month. In a little over a year they had 100,000 registrations. In 1997 CUC International Inc. acquires Match.com and by the next year a monthly membership rose to $12.95. By 1999 memberships was $16.95 a month and Match.com purchased one of their competitors, the One & Only Network.

In 2000 Match.com had 156,945 paying subscribers and by 2001 they had partnered with AOL and MSN. A membership price at this point was $24.95 a month. In 2002 Match.com was then available in 40 countries thanks to in part by acquiring the international dating site Soulmates.com. In 2003 Match.com entered the cell phone dating market by launching MatchMobile. 2005 was a big year for Match.com when they launched the MindFindBind program. This program was created in part by the famous TV talk show host and relationship expert Dr. Phil. During this year Chemistry.com was launched as well.

In 2009 Match.com sold their European operations to Meetic and buys People Media from American Capital Ltd.. People Media run several niche dating services with the most popular ones being for Seniors, Black Americans and Christians. During this year Match.com also launches Dating Applications on the iPhone, Palm Pre and Palm Pixi cell phones.

In 2010 Match.com releases Dating Apps for the Blackberry and Android mobile phones. Match.com also acquires Singlesnet.com. At this point a monthly membership at Match.com costs $34.99.

The top picture on the right is what Match.com looked like in 2000 (thanks to the WayBackMachine). The bottom right photo is a snapshot of what Match.com looked like in 2009.

For a more detailed timeline visit Fox Business or read our own recorded history of Match.com. To find more information on this dating site, read out review of Match.com.

According to the Android Community Match.com has released an Android App on the Google Android Market. This App is not listed under Match.com's Mobile link yet on their main website but we did get word it was coming when the Blackberry Match.com Dating App was released in February (see Story). This free download allows Match.com members to update their profile, search for singles and to communicate with other members. It offers a compact slick interface which is much easier to use than surfing Match.com with your mobile phones internet browser.

I haven't tested the App yet so I am not sure if it offers any location based dating but I don't see why it can't since Android phones do have a built in GPS. When we get our hands on an Android phone you can expect a review soon, check back often.

Match.com currently offers Mobile Dating Applications for top 5 smart phones (iPhone, Plam Pixi, Palm Pre, Blackberry, and Android). To find out more information about this dating service, read our Match.com review.

In mid March, Match.com announced a partnership with Yahoo!7 in Australia. Match.com will be the exclusive dating partner to Yahoo's Australian news and search portal as well as Yahoo!Xtra for New Zealand. You can now reach the new partnered dating service by visiting Yahoo!7 Dating or by clicking on the "Dating" menu item available on the Yahoo!7 home page.

Currently on the Yahoo!7 Dating page visitors have access to both the old dating service and the new Match.com partnered service. The original Yahoo!7 Dating will close it' doors in June, 2010.

We closed the 2009 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll last month (Feb. 18) with a total of 705 votes from the public. This is over 100 more votes than last year's Single's Choice Awards. It is good to see people participating in the poll since ultimately it is online daters like yourselves who decide which service becomes the popular one to use. Plus, singles who visit our site and are new to online dating use our awards as a tool to indicate which dating sites to try out first.

As with last year we listed the top 10 dating sites for our visitors to vote on. The top 3 voted dating sites got an award, Gold, Silver and Bronze. The one thing we did different this year was we added a second question to our poll asking which free dating site would be your top choice for an award. To find out the answer to this question, check out this story.

The recipient of the Gold 2009 Singles's Choice Award is Match.com. This is the third year in a row that this dating site has won the Gold Single's Choice Award which shows Match.com continues to be the market leader in online dating. Match.com has a proven record of success and many members worldwide who know if you want to be serious about finding a partner, Match.com is the leading dating site to join. This year Match.com received 2 percent more votes than in 2008 for a total of 201 (29% of the total vote).

The recipient of the Silver 2009 Singles's Choice Award is eHarmony. This is eHarmony's second year to win this award. They earned 22 percent of the votes (same as last year) which was 153 total votes out of 705. The dating site with the famous matching system certainly had a number of changes this year. There was new features added, profile tweaks and a successful Facebook fan page.

The recipient of the Bronze 2009 Singles's Choice Award is Yahoo! Personals. Yahoo also won this award last year as well except they slipped 2 percent this year and ended up with 11 percent of the total vote, which means they had 74 votes. While Yahoo may have taken 3rd place they still run a first rate dating service. All you have to do is log into their dating site to find out why.

This year's standings for the Single's Choice award for all dating sites in the poll are (click the dating site name to read our full review):

1. Match.com
2. eHarmony
3. Yahoo! Personals
4. Chemistry
5. Lavalife
6. SinglesNet.com
7. PerfectMatch.com
8. FriendFinder.com
9. True.com
10. Date.com

We would like to give a big THANKS to everyone who participated this year in the Single's Choice Award.

It looks like the rumor was true (see Story), Match.com released a press release yesterday which confirm that they have made a deal to acquire the dating site Singlesnet.com. Financial terms of the deal have yet to be released but Match CEO Greg Blatt did state that Singlesnet will continue to be run largely as a standalone business. Adrian Ong of Match.com will be taking over the helm from the previous owner of Singlesnet, Quinn Lipin. Mr Lipin will still continue to work for Singlesnet.com as an executive.

Singlesnet was once the most visited dating site in the USA back in December 2008. Since then traffic has slowly declined with a major drop happening in February 2009 from 7 million unique visitors to just under 5 million.