General News

"Every ten years in the United States we take a census, the purpose of which is to determine how many people live in different areas of our country, so that the makeup of the House of Representatives reflects the makeup of the nation. Along with a simple count of heads, the census asks other questions which give us insight into our income, jobs, homes, ages, and backgrounds. This information is analyzed and published by the government, telling us who we are.

But these facts and figures, interesting and useful as they may be, are not really us."

With that interpretation of the U.S. census, artist R. Luke DuBois introduces his latest project, a piece entitled "A More Perfect Union." In an effort to define Americans more accurately and create his own version of the 2010 United States census, DuBois joined 21 online dating sites - from Match.com to AsiaFriendFinder - and analyzed the profiles of 19,095,414 single Americans. The results are "a road atlas of the United States, with the names of cities, towns, and neighborhoods replaced with the words people use to describe themselves and those they want to be with." The maps contain 20,262 unique words, each of which appears in the location in which it's used more frequently than anywhere else in the country.

DuBois found, among other things, that the nation's happiest people seem to be living on the coasts, particularly in Washington, where online daters in Seattle take the title for most instances of the word "happy" appearing in their dating profiles. The least happy women appeared to be living in New York, in the Bronx, while the least happy men call central and western Nebraska home.

Ladies in parts of Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, and Ohio - and men in parts of Texas, Wyoming, and Georgia - are the most "lonely" in the country. The least lonely women are in Illinois, and the least lonely men have settled in California, around Los Angeles.

Some of DuBois' more scandalous findings trace instances of words like "naughty," "virgin," and "kinky." No one in Wyoming, it turns out, uses the description "naughty" in their profiles, though many women in Colorado do. The highest concentrations of virgin men and women are in New York's 12th congressional district (which includes Williamsburg and the Lower East Side) and Louisiana's 2nd (New Orleans), respectively. New Orleans does, however, come in first when it comes to the least virgin men, an award that went to Houston, TX for the women. If kink is your thing, search San Jose, CA and southern West Virginia, which tied for most kinky women, or New Mexico for kinky men. Kinksters would do well, on the other hand, to avoid Wyoming completely.

Though DuBois doesn't theorize about why certain words are more prevalent in certain parts of the country, his experiment tells us a lot about what it means to date in contemporary America. "Online dating requires a very specific, complex act of self-identity," he told ABC. "If you don't do online dating, you assume everyone says the same thing, e.g. 'I'm nice, cute, smart, fun'.... But it turns out that the real objective of an online dating profile is to stand out from the crowd and get noticed, so people talk openly and honestly about their aspirations, their hobbies, their life history. It's really fascinating."

For 14 days eHarmony Australia is running a free guided communication event starting April 13th and ending on April 26th, 2011. This means starting tomorrow for a fortnight, singles in Australia can visit eHarmony.com.au, create a profile, receive matches, and then communicate with those matches through the guided communication process at no cost.

As winter approaches in Australia it is a good time for singles to check out their local online dating site since this is typically the busy period for dating and matchmaking services.

To find out more about this online dating site in Australia, you should check out our eHarmony review.

Last month in a press release FriendFinder Networks announced that they want to re-launch its proposed initial public offering of common stock.

The story of their IPO started back in December of 2008 when FriendFinder Networks first filed their IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $460 million (see Story). In January 2010 they revised their initial public offering to less than half at $220 million (see Story). By February things were not looking so good and citing market conditions FriendFinder Networks delayed their IPO indefinitely (see Story).

For more information on dating services which FriendFinder Networks operates, you can check out our FriendFinder.com review and our Passion.com review.

In February Lavalife offered a 30 day free trial.

It looks like now they are going to be offering their dating service for free to singles who live in the United States. I have a feeling that this may only be for a limited time. So, online daters who live in the US and who are looking for a top grade dating service that is 100% free may want to give Lavalife a try.

For more information on this dating site you can read our [staticpage: Lavalife.com review].

Spark Networks reported their fourth quarter financial results this month. Revenue for the last quarter was down 9 percent to $10.1 million with a net income of $600 thousand. Net income is up substantially this quarter though since in quarter 4 of 2009 they reported a loss of $9.6 million. For the 12 months of 2010 revenue decreased 10 percent to $40.9 million with net income at $3.7 million when compared to 2009. In 2009 Spark Networks reported a net loss of $6.4 million.

For q4 2010 the number of average paying subscribers for the entire company was 160,744. This is a decrease of 5 percent when compared to the same quarter last year. For the entire year of 2010 the number of average paying subscribers was down 2 percent from 2009 to 162,311. Breaking average paying subscribers down by segment for quarter 4 2010 you can see all experienced a decrease when compared to the same quarter in 2009:

• Other Affinity Networks - 65,172 (-4%)
• Jewish Networks - 89,723 (-1%)
• General Market Networks - 5,174 (-46%)

For the full 2010 Q4 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks Third Quarter 2010 Financials

Cupid PLC head office is located in the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. They employ about 15 people at the head office and another 200 or so in the Ukraine.

Cupid made a few announcements earlier this month about their final results for the year 2010:

• Revenues increase by 202 percent to £25.7m. In 2009 revenue was £8.5m
• Pre-tax profits for Cupid rose to £4.16m from £983,000 in 2009
• 42 percent of Q4 revenues came from outside the UK
• Their goal is to have more than 50% of revenues coming from North America by the end of 2011
• When you combine all of Cupid's dating sites they have 13 million customer profiles registered worldwide

For more information on this story you can read the announcement on the London Stock Exchange. To find out more about Cupid PLC dating sites you can read our Cupid.com review.