Dating Services

They may have been shy about trying online dating when the trend first started, but now Baby Boomers make up the fastest-growing demographic in the online dating market.

According to a recent article in Time Magazine, online dating sites have seen a surge in memberships of those 50+ looking for love. At Match.com, memberships of those aged 50-65 has increased 89% in the last five years. And on JDate.com, members in the 50+ age group jumped 40% in only one year. In fact, its parent company has a website dedicated specifically to the Boomer market called SingleSeniorsMeet.com, and is its fastest-growing property.

Dr. Helen Fisher, anthropologist and consultant for Chemistry.com, notes that Boomers are the perfect candidates for online dating. They have met most of the people in their network of friends and business colleagues, have limited time, and don't usually go to bars, so the Internet is becoming a more appealing way of meeting new people.

Female Boomers seem to be making the most impact, according to Fisher. She states, "Women are powering into the job market; they have more disposable income so they can walk out of bad marriages...The expectation now is that older people are going to date, and remarry."

Baby Boomers have also had more experience with long-term relationships than younger online daters, and are therefore more certain about what they want in a relationship, which works for online dating. According to Match.com, 71% of members 50+ are divorced and 11% are widowed.

"Many Boomer daters sign up for online dating post-divorce or after a long dating hiatus," said JDate spokesperson Arielle Schechtman. "They are busy professionals, so being able to learn about potential dates online, on their own time schedules, makes online dating more valuable to them than to other age groups."

For more information on the dating sites mentioned in this post, please read our Match.com review, Chemistry review, and our JDate review.

It has been reported that China's leading dating site, Jiayuan.com, is getting ready to be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market in the first half of 2011. The dating site has hired Price Waterhouse Coopers to audit and prepare the listing. With the IPO they hope to raise about $100 million in US funds.

Jiayuan.com was launched in 2003 and has had about 25 million people register online so far. The company also claims that they are responsible for 4.5 million people getting married.

Data from iResearch.cn indicates that since 2008, Jiayuan.com market share in China has hovered just under the 50 percent mark. In 2009, revenue for Jiayuan.com was 80 million Yuan ($12 million USD). It is estimated that this year the company will have over 100 million Yuan ($15 million USD) in revenue.

For more on the story, read China Knowledge. To find information on other dating sites for Asian singles, check out our Ethnic Dating category.

Pauly Shore is the spokesman and judge for the new Mate1.com contest. The contest is called "Check Please!" and is designed to find the most awkward date experience. There is $5,000 in prizes and just a few steps required to enter.

• First, you will need a 1 to 2 minute video with you describing or re-enacting your awkward date
• Second, you will need to upload the video to YouTube. You will need to title and tag the video with "Mate1 Check Please! Contest"
• Third, you will need to register as a contestant at CheckPleaseContest.com
• Finally, you need to spread your video through your social channels. The top ten viewed and mentioned videos will be judged by Pauly Shore

Here is Pauly Shore giving more details on the contest as well as his most awkward dating experience:

To find out more about this story you can also read the press release. For more information on this dating site, please read our review of Mate1.com.

Online dating may be on the rise, but so are sites which compete with eHarmony's stronghold on the market. CEO Greg Waldorf recently spoke to The Wall Street Journal about their plans for the future, including a thirty-million dollar ad campaign aimed at trying to increase growth in subscriptions.

In the article, Waldorf points out that the recession has actually increased consumer interest in eHarmony. In a study the company did in September and October of 2009, researchers found that when the Dow dropped 100 points, the site saw a 2% increase in the number of pages viewed on each site compared to days when the Dow rose.

However, subscriber growth has been slowing. Waldorf maintains that singles are still looking for long-term relationships, but they are likely exhausting other methods first, like trying to meet other singles on their own rather than through a dating website.

Spark Networks 2010 3rd quarter financials are in so let's see how they did. Overall revenue is down $1.2 million this quarter to $9.9 million when compared to the same quarter last year. Net income for quarter 3 was $1.2 million. This is up 20% over quarter 3, 2009.

The Jewish Networks revenue was $6.8 million for the 3rd quarter this year. This was 4 percent less when compared to last year. The other Affinity Networks revenue was down 14 percent to $2.7 million and the General Market Networks earned $264,000, a 54 percent decrease over last year.

Average paying subscribers for Spark Networks, as a whole, in the 3rd quarter of 2010 were 158,422. This is a decrease of 4 percent compared to 165,206 for the 3rd quarter of 2009. Subscribers for the Jewish Networks were at 89,792 for the 3rd quarter. This is up 4 percent when compared to the 3rd quarter of last year. The Other Affinity Networks subscribers were down 7 percent to 62,026 and the General Market Networks decrease was 49 percent to 5,888 subscribers.

For the full 2010 Q3 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks Second Quarter 2010 Financials

Chemistry is having a free weekend again soon. It runs for 3 days and starts Friday November 19 and ends Sunday November 21. During this free communication weekend all users will be able to communicate by sending emails at no cost and with no credit card required. Creating a profile and receiving matches are also always free at Chemistry.com.

These free weekends at Chemistry always means it will be extra busy at the dating site since more singles will be visiting to take advantage of the free promotion. Chemistry also steps up their marketing efforts by advertising the free weekend on TV.

The last free communication weekend was held in October (see Story). This upcoming one will be Chemistry.com's 11th they have run. For more information on this online dating site that matches you with members based on personality, you can read our Chemistry.com review.