General News

For the first time this year shipments of tablets and smartphones exceeded those of desktops and laptops. According to the Flurry blog, 2011 is also the year that the daily time a user spends on mobile applications exceeded that of normal internet browsing (both on the desktop and smartphone). They came to this conclusion while compiling internet usage data from Alexa and comScore, and comparing it with their own data that they track for mobile application usage.

In June, 2010 the average user spent 64 minutes a day on the web and 43 minutes a day using mobile applications. By December of that year web use jumped to 70 minutes and mobile application use went up 23 minutes to 66. By June, 2011 web use has risen to 74 minutes a day but, mobile app use surpassed that and has reached 81 minutes a day. According to Flurry, this means that the average user now spends daily 9 percent more of their time using mobile apps than browsing the web.

I was initially surprised by these numbers but after thinking about it they do makes sense as mobile applications have come a long way in only 3 short years of popularity. When looking at these numbers from Flurry it looks like that more people now use mobile applications than browse the web. That is not the case, many more people still use the internet than mobile apps, it's just that those who have both tend to use their mobile applications more. Still, these numbers are interesting and it shows that dating sites need to take into consideration not only allowing their members to access their service by the web but by mobile applications as well.

For dating sites who offer a dating mobile application please read our Match.com review and our eHarmony Review.

I was surprised this morning when I read that Perfectmatch.com has been acquired by FriendFinder Networks (FFN). I am sure there have been others but this is the first dating site that I know of that FriendFinder Networks (or Various) has purchased. The only thing in the press release mentioned about the terms of the deal is that:

... founder Duane Dahl will join FriendFinder Networks as General Manager of the Company's general audience dating websites group ...

Having Duane Dahl join the FriendFinder ranks is a good move on FFN's part. In the past Perfectmatch.com is one of the few dating sites that has been able to get their dating service featured in movies from Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and NBC Universal. The dating site also has been a part of the "Dr. Phil Show" and "Dancing with the Stars".

For more on the story read the press release. To find out about the dating service FriendFinder acquired you can check out our Perfectmatch.com review.

The European dating giant Cupid plc acquired 75% of two German online dating services, WomenWeb GmbH and OnlineLiebe GmbH for £2.5m last month. This is part of Cupids plans to grow internationally and it gives them a foot hold in Germany. According to Cupid, with their knowledge in online marketing along with the existing team knowledge of the German dating life they are confident that their new acquisitions will grow.

For more on the story read BBC News. To find out information on one of their leading dating sites you can check out our Cupid.com review.

Here are some dating statistics from the POF Blog. I believe these numbers are for 2011 and just concern the United States.

• There are 54 million singles
• Of those 10 percent (5.5 million) are currently using a dating service
• 2.6 million pay for the service leaving 2.9 million that do not.
• Overall 8.8 million have tried online dating

According to the US Census in 2009 there were 95.9 million unmarried people in the US. So I guess about 40 percent of those must be in some sort of common law relationship and just have not married. I believe that the 10 percent figure of people who use dating sites probably has not changed much over the last 5 years. The trick now for dating sites is to get the other 49 million to try online dating.

What happens when you ask over 12,500 singles in 8 countries about their perspectives on monogamy, infidelity, and forgiveness?

Zoosk's latest survey happens.

Participants from the United States, UK, Italy, Germany, France, Denmark, Australia, and Sweden were polled by the social dating site to uncover the similarities and disparities in dating habits around the world. Findings include:

• Americans are least forgiving of politicians who cheat on their partners. 53% of singles in the US said that learning that a politician had cheated on their partner would influence their vote. Singles in other countries, however, are less interested in the private lives of their politicians. In the 7 other countries surveyed, the majority of singles reported that learning that a political candidate was a cheater would not influence their vote.
• Americans might not be as obsessed with celebrity culture as we think. Though creating a list of celebrities partners have a free pass to get involved with is a long-standing tradition in monogamous couples, a massive 80% of American singles said that they would not cheat on their partner if they had the opportunity to have a one-night stand with a celebrity. Italian singles, on the other hand, were most likely (34%) to step out on their partners if it meant spending a night with a celebrity crush.
• Tiger Woods' philandering has earned him the top spot on the "Worst Offenders" list across the globe. In France and Italy, Silvio Berlusconi was ranked the #1 worst cheater, with Tiger Woods coming in a close second, but in the 6 other countries polled Tiger Woods topped the list of notorious womanizers.
• Italians are most likely to venture into the world of nonmonogamy. 20% of Italian singles said that they prefer open relationships to monogamous relationships, compared to 15% of German singles, 11% of French singles, 9% of singles in Australia, 8% of singles in Denmark, 7% of American singles, and 6% of Swedish and British singles.
• Forgiveness is hard to find in any country. On average, 28% of singles in the countries polled said that they could forgive a partner for cheating, while 72% said that they could not. Danish singles appear to be the least forgiving (23%), and the most forgiving singles are found in Germany (35%).
• Though forgiving a cheating partner is a challenge, many singles believe that philanderers can be reformed. The majority of singles in 5 countries - the US, Sweden, France, Denmark, and Germany - said that they believe a cheater can return to monogamy after an affair. Singles in Italy, the UK, and Australia are firm believers that "once a cheater, always a cheater."

"The Zoosk survey found a level of agreement across cultures about the desire to be in a monogamous relationship or the difficulty of forgiving a partner for cheating," says Alex Mehr, co-founder and co-CEO of Zoosk. "It is particularly fascinating to us to see which issues singles around the world do not see eye to eye on."

For more information about this dating service, please read our review of Zoosk.com.

Last month It's Just Lunch celebrated their 20 year anniversary. Since 1991 they have not only been matching singles in the United States but in a number of countries around the world. It's Just Lunch is not an online dating site, they are a service run by matchmakers who help busy business people to meet other singles. Everything has the personal touch from meeting with clients face-to-face for the important first interview, to setting up the dates between matched clients.

To find out more about this matchmaking service please check out our It's Just Lunch review.