General News

Market Research released a new report this month on the current US dating service market. In it they state that dating services are a $2.1 billion business with online dating representing 53 percent of the market (other types include print personals, matchmakers, etc.). Year over year since 2001 online dating has become more popular. This year though, revenue is only expected to grow 7.5 percent in the United States. The reason for this is that competition has exploded with an estimated 1,500 dating sites serving the US. Dating sites also have found that they are competing more with social networking sites. That is why dating companies in the US are starting to expand into Europe where the next online dating boom is predicted to happen.

In 2007 it was reported that by 2012 revenue projected for the entire dating industry would be $1.9 Billion. It looks like the projection was only about 10 percent off. JupiterResearch (who also offer industry reports) also estimated revenue for the year 2007 to be $900 million.

For more information on this report you can read the abstract at Market Research.

According to Dan Slater, an expert in the business of online dating, the answer may be "yes."

The recent online dating industry conference in Miami, Florida saw a range of participants - from the major corporote players like IAC, the owner of Match and OkCupid, to the indie industry-disrupters like Plenty of Fish and Grindr. Every company thinks they know exactly what the future will hold for the industry - what's going to die out, what's going to be the next big thing - but who really has a handle on where online dating is going?

Day One of the conference began with a keynote address from Gary Kremen, the founder of Match.com, the Internet's first mass-market dating site. Match was, and still is, a hugely successful venture, but the climate is changing and online dating sites must adapt with it.

In 2007, Alex Mehr and Shayan Zadeh did exactly that, by creating a dating site that was modeled on social networking sites. Mehr and Zadeh launched Zoosk as a third-party dating app for Facebook, and by 2012 it had reached nearly 5 million unique visitors and had climbed to the top of the U.S. Rankings of online dating sites. Zoosk's success begs the question: Is the Match model dying?

"One of its former employees," writes Slater, "who spoke to a packed conference room in the afternoon, believes that Match and its kind--i.e. traditional dating sites, which, by the way, currently account for most of the industry--have seen their day." Brian Bowman, the former VP of product development at Match, has created a new dating application called TheComplete.me in hopes of giving the online dating industry the upgrade it needs.

Rather than giving users a static profile, TheComplete.me will tap into the sites that members use every day, like Netflix, Picasa, or Amazon, to create a dynamic picture of who each user is. The idea is to create a profile that evolves with you, and is a more complete and personalized representation of who you are than the anonymous profiles used by traditional dating sites.

Taking dating in this direction means major changes for the ideas of privacy and transparency. "If online-dating culture advances to the point where the person you're hoping to date has an expectation of transparency," says Slater, "or, in Bowman's words, 'authenticity,' openness will become the new norm."

The idea is still in its infancy, but it's big news for the online dating industry and may be, in the near future, big news for you.

I missed the news release a few months ago but FriendFinder Networks did report their third quarter results for 2011. Revenue for this period was $82.7 million which is down by about $4 million when compared to the same quarter in 2010. A net loss of $5.4 million was reported. This is due in large part to paying interest expense of over $21 million on their outstanding principal debt of $491.8 million.

New subscribers and renewals were reported to be down in Europe but no exact numbers were given.

For more information on the 2011 Q3 financial report please read the news release. For more information on some of FFN dating sites you can read our FriendFinder.com review and our Asia FriendFinder review.

Related Story: FriendFinder Networks Second Quarter 2011 Financials

SeekingArrangement.com announced last Friday the launch of their anonymous phone calling feature. The service is called ICALLU which allows members to talk over the phone to each other without revealing their phone number to the member they are calling. Registering for this calling feature is free to members. A member's profile is marked as "phone verified" when they have gone through the registration and verification process (using SMS). Pricing for this service is currently 99 cents a minute ($1.99 for international calls) for the member who initiates the phone call.

SeekingArrangement.com decided to go ahead and offer this anonymous phone service after their research showed that 55 percent of their members have indicated that they are concerned about privacy. 32 percent of members also have already had a negative experience from giving out their phone number to a stranger.

For more information on this story you can read the press release. For similar dating sites to SeekingArrangement.com you can take a look at our Sugar Daddy dating category.

I noticed you now can access MillionaireMatch through a mobile device. They have a new app available on both the iPhone and Android phones.

With the app you can do most things found on the website including updating your profile, searching for matches and communicating with other members by sending winks and emails. You can also view lists of your favorites, who has liked you and members who have viewed your profile.

For more information about this dating service to find wealthy men please read our MillionaireMatch.com review.

They say that when you're serious about getting serious, you have to share everything with your partner. But what about your passwords? Does your partner have the right to access your e-mail inbox? How about your Facebook account? Or your online bank statements?

According to a recent article in the New York Times, that's exactly what many young couples are now doing. In yet another example of how technology has changed the way we date and relate, gifting a letterman jacket or exchanging class rings is no longer the most coveted sign of devotion for loved up young people. Now it's fashionable to share passwords to online accounts, or to create identical passwords that allow each other access to e-mails, texts, Facebook messages, and a host of other formerly-private online information.

Though it's intended to be a romantic gesture, the risks are clear. "The stories of fallout," writes Matt Richtel, "include a spurned boyfriend in junior high who tries to humiliate his ex-girlfriend by spreading her e-mail secrets" and "tensions between significant others over scouring each other's private messages for clues of disloyalty or infidelity." Changing a password is easy, but erasing the damage that can be done to relationship and reputation before the password is changed is a much bigger task.

Gizmodo writer Sam Biddle has called password sharing "a linchpin of intimacy in the 21st century." "I've known plenty of couples who have shared passwords, and not a single one has not regretted it," he said in an interview, before adding that swapping passwords contains the implicit agreement that mutually assured destruction is the consequence if someone misbehaves.

It might sounds like something that only more inexperienced daters would fall for, but plenty of "older and wiser" daters are getting swept up in the falsely romantic notion that sharing your life with someone means sharing everything with someone. The fad may have started with teenagers, but it's continuing with adults.

Biddle's advice for navigating the new trend for password sharing is clear: don't do it. "The inbox is one of the few sacred places left online," he writes, "the only space on your monitor not shared into oblivion. This isn't about having something to hide-it's about keeping meaningful boundaries in an era when there are verrrrry few. We all need whatever scraps of privacy we have left, and your email is just that." Facebook, AIM, your smartphone, your laptop...every password should be kept private, or revealed only after very serious consideration.

But there's one exception: Netflix. "If you're embarrassed by your taste in movies and TV," Biddle says, "your relationship is screwed anyway. Just make sure it's a different password from everything else."

Have you ever shared a password with a partner? Was the experience good or bad? Would you do it again?