Online Dating

This Friday, on his popular CBS show Dr. Phil, Dr. Phil McGraw will take on the hot topic of "Sugar Baby Students."

"College girls and recent graduates who are struggling with mounting debt and a weak job market are turning to websites, such as SeekingArrangement.com, that introduce them to wealthy men who, in exchange for companionship -- and maybe sex -- help them pay their bills," says the episode description on DrPhil.com. "Is this the Internet version of the world's oldest occupation, or just a niche dating site?" The episode will feature thoughts from 4 sugar babies, a former prosecutor and CNN analyst, and Brandon Wade, the founder of Seeking Arrangement.com - and sparks are guaranteed to fly.

"While I am honored that Dr. Phil chose to work with SeekingArrangement.com rather than other sugar daddy dating websites to create a segment to educate the world on the sugar lifestyle," Brandon Wade wrote on the dating site's blog, "I was not too happy with the approach taken by the show's producers." Though he initially thought that appearing on the show would facilitate "an intelligent discussion into the sugar lifestyle" and be "an opportunity for me to showcase that sugar babies were intelligent and goal-oriented ladies, while sugar daddies are respectful gentlemen," Wade feels that the experience turned into something completely different once the cameras were rolling, all in the name of creating controversy.

Wade is now fighting back, defending what he believes to be a legitimate and legal arrangement between consenting adults: "While I am open to debating issues (such as the merits of sugar dating) with logic and reason, I am honestly appalled when educated and intelligent people resort to name calling in an effort to create TV buzz." He notes that SeekingArrangement.com, like all dating sites, is sometimes the victim of users who misuse the service and break the rules, though he promises members that they take these transgressions seriously and do their best to prevent them from happening.

As a result of this recent negative coverage, Wade says that he believes it is "time to take the focus away from the question of whether 'sex' and 'money' is involved in a sugar relationship," because "'sex' is always involved in any romantic relationship and because 'money', too, is always exchanged in any relationship." In an effort to propagate positive views of the sugar lifestyle, Wade says that big changes will be coming to SeekingArrangement.com.

"Over the next few days you will see some big changes coming to the SeekingArrangement.com homepage, as we start to focus our messaging on the positive qualities of being sugar daddies and sugar babies," Wade writes on the blog. "Sugar relationships are in their ideal form relationships that empower individuals. They are win-win relationships formed as a result of two people (a modern sugar daddy and a goal seeking sugar baby) who were brutally honest with each other up front."

See what Dr. Phil has to say about sugar daddy arrangements on Dr. Phil this Friday, September 16, on CBS, and let us know what you think!

For a list of reviews on other Sugar Daddy type dating sites you can check out our Wealthy Singles Dating category.

It was a "Midsummer Night Affair" at the Hudson Terrace, a trendy Manhattan nightclub, earlier this month, as 400 men and women seeking sugar daddy/sugar baby relationships flooded the venue in hopes of meeting a match. Despite the $40 entrance fee for women, and the $80 cover for men, hopeful sugar daddies and sugar babies packed into the party, sponsored by the sugar daddy dating site SeekingArrangement.com.

Perhaps it's the recession, or maybe it's just that the stigma of these sorts of agreements is lessening more and more with every passing day, but it seems as though sugar daddy arrangements are more popular now than ever before. A recent article in the Huffington Post, which profiled several men and women in this kind of arrangement, attributed the sugar daddy's rising popularity to the soaring cost of higher education.

"I was thinking about going on Match," one 25 year old student says, "but I needed help financially. I guess what finally pushed me over the edge was that I needed help to pay off my loans from school." The work of two anthropology graduates at George Washington University revealed similar findings: of the 100 participants in their study of sugar daddy culture, more than half reported that the money they received was paying for their education.

Brandon Wade, the CEO and founder of SeekingArrangement.com, has also noticed the growing popularity of the site with students. "Over the past few years, the number of college students using our site has exploded," he says. "College students are one of the biggest segments of our sugar babies and the numbers are growing all the time." Wade considers this a public service, a unique opportunity for individuals to form mutually beneficial relationships, and it seems that many of the site's male members agree.

"Most of these young women have debt from school," says a sugar daddy who goes by the name 'Jack' and describes himself as a 'humanitarian.' "I guess I like the college girls more because I think of their student debt as good debt. At least it seems like I'm helping them out, like I'm helping them to get a better life."

Many have called these arrangements prostitution, but Wade is quick to defend them. "The media loves to use the term prostitution, but I'm adamantly against that," he told the Wall Street Journal. "There is chemistry involved in these relationships. It's not a one-time exchange of money for sex." In fact, he believes that sugar daddy/sugar baby agreements have the potential to be healthier than other relationships, because both parties are immediately upfront about what they want from the relationship and what they are offering. When each person's expectations are clearly stated, the potential for romantic disaster is significantly lessened.

Some, like a girl referred to as 'Jennifer' says, see both a practical and a romantic side to the sugar daddy phenomenon. "I realize I'm not going to have it forever," she told the Huffington Post. "While I've still got it, I'm going to milk it for all it's worth. I mean, maybe I'll get swept off my feet. Really, anything could happen."

So what do you think? Is the sugar daddy culture a thinly-veiled form of prostitution, or an acceptable and mutually beneficial agreement made between consenting adults?

For similar dating services you can take a look at our Wealthy Singles Dating category.

Update 2020-03-30: Good news. POF has announced a new feature called POF Live that allows live video broadcasting to other users including private one on one sessions.

Update 2019-07-09: Please note that POF has since removed the video chat functionality from both their app and website.

After dropping IM for about a year in 2009, PlentyOfFish recently started to offer audio and video chatting. This has been a feature request for a while by many members. To use the new feature you must have Adobe Flash player version 10.1 or higher installed on your computer as well as the required hardware which includes a webcam or microphone.

To start an audio or video chat all you need to do is click the chat link underneath a members thumbnail photo. Once your request to chat is accepted you can then click on the audio or video button found at the top of the chat window.

To find out more about this dating site you can read our POF.com review.

China's leading dating site, Jiayuan.com has roughly a million users a month now who pay for the privilege to exchange messages with other members. The messages can be paid for by either the sender or the receiver. Their second quarter earnings this year almost doubled to $12.9 million when compared to the same quarter last year. Jiayuan listed on the Nasdaq back in May and since then their stock price has jumped 21 percent (as of last Friday). This is very good especially when you compare it to other Nasdaq listed Internet companies from China (most have fallen).

Jiayuan never relied heavily on advertising on their site as a source of income. In 2008 advertising made up only 15 percent of their revenue. Online advertising is a very competitive market with slim margins and for this reason at the start of this year Jiayuan decided to drop advertising from their dating site completely. Supporting a sales staff and the way it affected the user experience just did not make it profitable. Paid messaging now accounts for 80 percent of their revenue with the other 20 percent generated from in-person events and a premium service members can use to hire a human matchmaker.

For more on the story you can read the WSJ.

Spark Networks has reported their second quarter financial results for the year 2011. Revenue is up by 17 percent to $12 million when compared to quarter 2 of 2010 and up 9 percent when compared to the last quarter. This is the largest quarter over quarter growth in 6 years and the third consecutive quarter growth in a row.

Jewish Networks was responsible for $6.73 million of revenue. This is an increase of 1 percent when compared to the same quarter last year. The Other Affinity Networks saw revenue reach $4.7 million. This is an increase of 68 percent when compared to Q2 2010. General Market Networks revenue continued to fall with revenues of only $153,000. This is a decrease of 48 percent. Revenue from Offline & Other Businesses was $449,000.

Average paying subscribers for the Jewish Networks rose 1 percent to 90,094 during quarter 2. Other Affinity Networks surpassed Jewish Networks for the first time ever and reached 96,071 average paying subscribers. This is an increase of 50 percent. General Market Networks subscribers fell again to 3,485. They saw a 46 percent decrease when compared to the same quarter last year.

I have been seeing a lot of Christian Mingle TV commercials lately so I am sure this marketing endeavor is partially responsible for the large increase of subscribers that the Other Affinity Networks is seeing.

For the full 2011 Q2 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks First Quarter 2011 Financials

PlentyOfFish has just updated their mobile dating applications for both the iPhone and Android OSs. The big improvement with this version is speed and lower bandwidth use. This is achieved by caching the profile and picture data retrieved from POF so it is only downloaded once or when updated.

Other improvements include easier editing of both photos and profiles. Pinching and zooming profile pictures has been added along with updates to editing your location and searching for local users. Users can also now just search for mobile users near them.

The POF App on the Android Market currently has a rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars with almost 6,000 votes. According to a number of reviews the only thing missing from the app is the ability to chat via text.

For more on this story please read the press release. To find out about this dating site and what other singles think you should check out our PlentyOfFish review.