Dating Services

Classified Intelligence Report disclosed today that they have estimated for 2010 that Craigslist will generate $122 million in gross revenue with profits ranging from $88 to $99 million. This works out to about $4 million per employee. Last year (2009) revenue was estimated to be $100 million and back in 2003 revenue was estimated at $7 million for Craigslist. According to the report, half of their revenue in 2010 will come from recruitment advertising while 30 percent comes from the Adult Services listings and a further 17 percent coming from apartment ads in New York City.

In 2009 Craigslist was accused of being a large source for prostitution. In a bid to appease lawmakers Craigslist renamed their "Erotic Services" category to "Adult Services" and upped the fee per listing to $10 (it was $5). Craigslist also agreed to manual approve each listing. When the Erotic Services category was around Craigslist donated the proceeds from these listings to undisclosed charities. Since the name change, Craigslist has stopped this practice.

Find out more at AimGroup.com and for further details about this classifieds website, read our review of Craigslist.

Chemistry is offering a free communication weekend starting this Friday, April 30, 2010 and ending Sunday, May 2nd, 2010. This 72 hour event allows all free members of Chemistry to not only create a profile and be matched with other singles for free, but members will be able to communicate with all members for no cost. Plus, no credit card is required!

If a dating service which matches you on your personality is of interest to you then you have no better weekend to try Chemistry out than now. These free weekends have become quite popular for them with online daters. This is because Chemistry.com's detailed personality test combined with their guided communication and dating process (called 1-2-3 Meet) is a sure-fire way to meet singles looking for a long term relationship and/or marriage.

The last Chemistry.com free weekend for communication happening in March (see Story). This new promotion marks the 7th time Chemistry has offered a free weekend for members. For further details about this online matchmaking service, please read our review of Chemistry.

Zoosk is a dating site which has grown in popularity thanks in large part to them embracing Social Networks like Facebook (they are the number one dating app on Facebook). In January of 2009 Zoosk had 15 million members and in little over a year they have seen tremendous growth. Today, Zoosk has 50 million users worldwide. To expand their network of members further, Zoosk has announced a free iPhone Dating Application which supports multiple languages. Languages supported include English, French, Italian and Spanish. The Zoosk App also allows members to see who has viewed their profile and also allows members to use the iPhone's GPS for location based matching. Since its release the Zoosk iPhone dating application has become the third most popular dating app for the iPhone.

Zoosk also has released an instant messenger program for both Mac and PC computers. The Zoosk Messenger allows for desktop chat with other Zooskers and was developed on the Adobe Air platform to bring a richer, more interactive experience. This online chat program fully integrates into Zoosk and lets you instantly connect with singles in your area. The program also notifies you when your friends come online.

Zoosk must have been one of the fastest growing dating sites last year. This is due to the additional funding they have received (see Zoosk Funding Story) which allowed them to expand their network to multiple platforms and advertise much more extensively online (I am seeing their ads everywhere now). Zoosk wants to cover all platforms of communication it seems and are hoping to own a bigger piece of the $4 billion worldwide online dating industry.

For more on this story, read the press release. You can also checkout our review of Zoosk.

Most dating websites have several landing pages for visitors (these are web pages visitors are meant to enter the dating site with). Some are completely dependent on the actual URL while others may take into consideration other criteria like what country the visitor may be coming from. I notice the other day that OkCupid has revamped their homepage. Gone are the featured profiles as seen in the right top photo. It looks like OkCupid decided to simplify things as seen in the bottom left snapshot. On the left column OkCupid has the member signup area along with 4 quotes from leading publications like Time and the New York Post. The main section of the page is reserved as a place for new members to signup. There is a hand drawn image of a woman saying "Welcome to OkCupid! We just need a few things to get started." and she is pointing at the profile questions which ask the Gender, Orientation and your Relationship Status with a Next button which continues the sign up process.

I wonder if this new homepage is converting better for them than the old one. Does straight to the point quotes like "The Google of online dating" and the start of the create a profile form get more people to sign up for the dating service than seeing a bunch of members profiles in a gallery format? It seems like a lot of sites now days have moved away from the show what members we have approach. Most now usually show a stock photo of a couple having fun along with the initial questions for the profile.

To find out more about this dating site, read our OkCupid review.

Using Facebook as a dating tool can be complicated if you do not watch what you doing. In many ways it's great, especially in the beginning. You have all these friends, and friends of friends that can vouch for you that you are a great guy or gal. This makes meeting people easy to do.

There is also a downside to using Facebook like a dating site. Here are 3:

1. Relationships and Breakups Are Public

The main problem with Facebook and dating is, it is public. Sure you can now hide information from your friends and dates but it can get extremely complicated to do with all the privacy rules which only a dedicated Facebook expert is going to know how to use. Every step of a relationship on Facebook is public from changing your relationship status (and hoping your partner reciprocates) to the banter that goes back and forth between people who have just discovered love. On the other end, breakups are just as public and can lead to some embarrassing moments for all involved.

CNN Health recently took a look at finding love online for singles that are disabled or have other health problems. Singles with health problems find that the larger generic dating sites do not necessarily cater to their relationship needs. Most profiles from these dating sites do not ask health related issues except to find out how often someone may exercise or the body type they may have. This means people with health problems cannot be up front and mention their condition on their profile unless it is within the essay questions. The problem with this is people who are searching for matches may not realize the person they plan on communicating with has health issues. This may not be considered a deal breaker by the person, but then again it might be, which can result in an awkward email message and results in time wasted by both members.

The solution to this problem is dating sites designed for people specifically with health problems. Searching on the internet today you can find dating sites for people with sexual transmitted diseases, disabilities and mental health conditions. Members on these dating services are open about their health problems because they want to meet someone who will accept them for who they are. These members also find it is sometimes better to partner with someone with similar health problems because they can better understand what they are going through.

With these new types of online dating sites, singles with health problems do not have to worry anymore about when they have to break it to the person they are dating about their condition. These niche dating sites make it easier by having members be upfront about their health conditions.

For the full story about health and online dating, head over to CNN. The only dating site at the moment we have a review for someone with health problems is PositiveSingles.com. This popular dating site is for singles with a sexual transmitted disease. Online dating sites for people who are disabled are becoming more popular and we plan to take a look at a few soon to give our recommendations on which one too join.