Dating Services

Opps, we missed this Chemistry free weekend by a day. Still, it is not too late to give them a try since the free communication weekend ends Sunday, August 22, 2010 at midnight. What does a free communication weekend give you at Chemistry.com you may ask? Well, a new member will be able to create a profile, take the personality test, receive matches and communicate with those matches, all at no cost and with no credit card required. You receive most features that a paid member at Chemistry would.

The last Chemistry free communication weekend was during the same weekend in July (see Story). This type of promotion is the ninth time Chemistry has run one. To find out more information on this popular dating service which delivers highly targeted matches based on your personality, read our Chemistry.com review.

From an article over at Madison.com about seniors and how popular online dating is with this demographic, they talked briefly about Match.com. In the piece, Match.com's public relations coordinator, Jaklin Kaden, stated that over 6 percent of Match members are 60 years old or older. For Match members 50 or more, this statistic jumps to 22 percent.

To find out more about this dating service, read our review of Match.com.

eHarmony commissioned a new marriage metrics study from Harris Interactive in 2009. They have released the statistics from the study this week in part to celebrate their 10 year anniversary. The last Harris Interactive study done for eHarmony was in 2007 (see Story); it concluded that 236 eHarmony users get married every day. This was based on data from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007. So, it has been about 3 years since this statistics has been updated. Let's see what Harris Interactive found out.

What they found was that the number of marriages per day resulting from eHarmony has doubled. On average, 542 people are married every day in the United States because of meeting online at eHarmony. Wow, this means there will be another 271 happy couples who married today, thanks to using the dating site eHarmony. This new data came from an online study from Harris Interactive which they ran during July and August of 2009. 7,994 people responded to this study, aged from 20 to 54 and who were married between Jan 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009. If you calculate it out, during this 18 month period, 148,311 eHarmony couples got married. This equals to 4.77 percent of all new marriages in the United States.

For more on this story you can read the 2009 summary of the eHarmony Marriage Metrics Study. For more about this dating site and how it matches members together, read our popular eHarmony review.

I notice that Passion.com got a much needed homepage facelift recently (bottom left). The bottom right image is what the Passion.com homepage has looked like probably for the last 4 years or more (it has been a while). The white to pink gradient background of the new look in much better and it doesn't make the homepage feel as "busy" ascetic wise or as blocky. I also noticed that they have removed any mention of FriendFinder. I guess this is to make the service have a more distinct image and reputation. I think the new look with the softer appearance will work for them and attract more females, which is the hardest thing for most casual dating sites to do.

For more information on this dating site, read our review of Passion.com.

Spark Networks second quarter financial report was released last week (the quarter ended June 30). Overall revenue for this quarter was $10.3 million with a net income of $0.9 million. When these values are compared to quarter 2 last year, revenue is down by 8 percent and net income is down by 47 percent. Total costs this quarter is $8.6 million which is a decrease of 8 percent when compared to the same time last year of $9.3 million. As a whole the company had 160,239 subscribers. This is a decrease of 2 percent from Q2, 2009.

The Jewish Networks (mostly JDate) revenue for quarter 2 was $6.7 million. This is a decrease of 6 percent when compared to last year. On the upside average paying subscribers was 89,055 which is an 8 percent increase for JDate when compared to the same time in 2009.

The Other Affinity Networks (MingleMatch dating sites) saw revenue reach $2.8 million this quarter. This is down by 16 percent when compared to last year. The average paying subscriber did not fall as hard and was only down 2 percent to 64,083.

Lastly, the General Market Networks revenue is $298,000. This is 57 percent less revenue that they earned, when compared to the same quarter last year. Subscribers fared no better and fell 54 percent to 6,434.

For the full 2010 Q2 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks First Quarter 2010 Financials

For those of you waiting, eHarmony has finally released their free iPhone Dating App today (on the day the eHarmony turns 10 no less). The App also works on the iPod Touch and the new iPad as well. Our quick test found the App fast and responsive. eHarmony users on the iPhone (without using Safari) can now view new and existing matches, communicate with them through the guided process and mail, and modify your photos. Free eHarmony members can also subscribe through the App as well.

One question I have is, I wonder if they will open up communication on the iPhone App during eHarmony's free communication weekends? They probably will but I guess we will just have to wait and see. I expect the next free communication weekend to happen in 2 weeks.

To try out the new Dating App, visit iTunes and to find out more about this dating site, check out our eHarmony review.