General News

An article at Sun Sentinel has a few interesting statistics about FriendFinder Networks.

According to the Sun, the company has more than 30,000 sites which have had more than 405 million registrants worldwide and when you combine all of the FriendFinder Networks site traffic together, it gives them more unique visitors than MySpace or Twitter in a given month.

The article also mentions that FriendFinder Networks expects to generate $350 million in revenue and $105 million in earnings for 2010. In 2009 the company earned $330 million in revenue and $103 million in earnings.

Currently FriendFinder Networks has 350 employees who work in offices located in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boca.

To find out more about dating sites run by FriendFinder Networks you can read our FriendFinder.com review and our Passion.com review.

This weekend all Chemistry users will be able to communicate for free. This promotion starts first thing, Friday January 7, and runs Saturday, and all day Sunday January 9. Free communication means that any member of Chemistry can send and receive email from any other Chemistry member. This is at no cost and with no credit card required.

This is a busy time of year for online dating which means it is an excellent time to try out Chemistry to see if it is the right dating site for you. Chemistry's in-depth profile and matchmaking system make it ideal for singles looking for a long-term relationship and marriage.

The last free communication weekend was held in November (see Story). This upcoming one will be Chemistry.com's 12th they have run. For more information on this online dating site that matches you with members based on personality, you can read our review of Chemistry.

"The growth in Google searches for Muslim dating [in the UK] has surged far ahead of other ethno-cultural dating searches with an astonishing 81% YoY growth," reports the Google Barometer Blog.

This increased interest in Muslim dating reflects a strong demographic trend followed by the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS). From 2004-2008, according to ONS data, "the total number of British Muslims increased ten times faster than the overall population." The Muslim population of Britain rose to over 2.4 million in 2008, making Islam the country's second largest religion, and is younger than the overall population (more than 1.6 million people under the age of 35). As a result of the growing population and the advantageous age profile, online dating for Muslims in the UK is expected to flourish.

One of the greatest success stories in the thriving Muslim dating market is SingleMuslim.com. As more and more singles search Google for dating sites with particular themes, sites targeting daters with specific interests and backgrounds are booming. SingleMuslim.com, a British-based company that has over 500,000 registered members across the globe, has become one of the most popular brands. According to data provided by the site, "roughly half of its online audience is composed uniquely of British Muslims, who provide over 20,000 unique visits and 500 new users registered each day."

"Given demographic trends and search data, the market for online dating for Muslim individuals is set to take off and become increasingly mainstream," say Bickey Russell and Elizabeth Song. A July 2010 poll of more than 3,600 SingleMuslim.com users "found that religious compatibility was ranked as the most important dating criteria by 33% of Muslim singles, ahead of appearance or education level," a strong indication that the popularity of Muslim dating sites will continue to rise.

If you're interested in exploring Muslim dating further, check out these other sites:

1) MuslimFriends.com - MuslimFriends has been in the business for 9 years, and calls itself "the premiere matrimonial and personals site for Muslim singles in the USA, Canada, UK and other developed countries." Joining is free, but paid membership options are available.

2) Muslima.com - Muslima caters to marriage-minded Muslim singles. It is free to join, and free members can contact paid members, but paid memberships allow offer upgraded features like sending instant messages and using video mail. For more on this dating site, read our review of Muslima.com.

3) Qiran.com - Qiran has been matchmaking since 2004. Once again, a paid membership option is available, that includes features like e-cards and live chat, in addition to a free standard membership.

Not to be confused with our last story about PlentyOFfish.com new TV commercial, the UK dating site Plenty "More" Fish (PlentyMoreFish.com) also has a new TV commercial.



According to OPW the TV ads started to run last week on the Sky Network. The ad campaign will last a couple of months.

I have not seen this commercial on TV yet for PlentyOfFish.com but it was suppose to start airing last week in North America. This is PlentyOfFish's first TV commercial.

For more on this dating service take a look at our review of PlentyOfFish.com.

While women are searching for love online, they are also searching for new cosmetic products, according to recent research by Google UK analysts Bickey Russell and Elizabeth Song.

"The indexed search volumes for top search terms in cosmetics (including terms such as 'mac cosmetics,' 'avon,' 'make up tips') have largely followed corresponding figures for queries related to women seeking men (e.g. 'single men in London,' 'find boyfriend'), Russell and Song report. Dating and cosmetic products have a historically close relationship, a trend that is almost certainly the result of the fierce competition that can be found in the dating pool. As more and more women turn to the Internet to find love, the need to stand out from the crowd becomes increasingly great, boosting the sale of cosmetic products.

Russell and Song also discovered that, though the financial crisis has had a traumatic effect on countless industries, love and beauty appear to be recession-proof commodities. Shortly after the September 11th attacks, "Leonard Lauder of Estee Lauder coined the term "lipstick index" to describe how women continued to purchase high-impact beauty products during times of economic uncertainty." This theory has held true throughout the current recession, with Mintel market research data "showing that beauty product sales in the UK grew 30% between 2004 and 2009 from £7.4 billion to £9.6 billion, in contrast to a dismal 9% for clothes and shoes during this period."

Online dating has also entered a period of growth thanks to the recession. According to Nielsen research, "unique visitors to dating websites grew by 20% in 2008 when the economy was at its most uncertain, compared with 9% growth the year before."

In uncertain financial times, these two industries have continued to thrive while others have collapsed around them. While the market for luxury goods like designer handbags has suffered, "cosmetics continue to fly off shelves because British women are still intent on looking their best as well as attracting future partners." As the desire for a more attractive appearance grows, and the purchase of beauty products grows with it, women in the UK feel more and more confident about themselves, and become increasingly willing to enter the online dating market. As a result, the beauty and dating industries have formed a reciprocal relationship: as growth in the beauty sector increases, more women join online dating sites, and as interest in online dating rises, more women turn to the beauty industry to enhance their chances of finding love.