Online Dating

For the first quarter ending March 31, 2011 Spark Networks reported revenue of $11 million. This is an 8 percent increase in revenue over last quarter (the largest growth between quarters in the last 5 years) and a 4 percent increase when compared to the same quarter in 2010. Spark Networks reported a net loss of $0.2 million in the first quarter due to $1.8 million being spent on direct advertising. In the same quarter last year a net income of $0.9 million was recorded.

Revenue for JDate this quarter was $6.9 million which was the same last quarter. JDate did have a 2 percent increase in subscribers at 91,545.

Revenue for the Other Affinity networks (ChristianMingle, BlackSingles, etc.) was $3.8 million. This is a 35 percent increase over the last quarter. Average paying subscribers was at 81,889 which is a 26 percent increase when compared to Q4, 2010.

Revenue for General Market Networks was down 20 percent to $190,000 when compared to the last quarter. Subscribers also fell similarly (19 percent) to 4,207.

For the full 2011 Q1 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks Fourth Quarter 2010 Financials

eHarmony in the United States is having a free communication event this weekend from May 27 to May 30, which falls close to Memorial Day. During this eHarmony event, new and existing members will be able to use the guided communication process for free which allows you to interact with other members by asking and answering questions.

Along with guided communication, members will also be able to create a profile and receive matches at no cost and with no credit card required. Viewing of members profile pictures and Secure Call communication are not included in this promotion.

This will be eHarmony's 34th (I believe) free communication event with the last one occurring for the entire month of February (see Story).

To find out more details on this popular online dating site that matches you based on personality, please check out our eHarmony.com review.

FriendFinder Networks expected to raise $50 million in gross profit from its IPO which started trading May 11, 2011 on the Nasdaq under the "FFN" ticker symbol. The company expect shares to go for around $10 and plan to sell 5 million. The money raised from the IPO has been earmarked to pay down their debt.

FriendFinder Networks stock price currently sits at $5.67 per stock and it has been as low as $5.32 per stock in the past few days.

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

Related Story: FriendFinder Networks Plans To Revisit Public Offering

Last month Jiayuan.com applied to list on the Nasdaq. Well, on May 11th Jiayuan.com (China's largest dating site) opened for trading under the symbol DATE at $11 per share. At one point it reached $11.62 a share but by end of trading it had fallen 4.4 percent to close at $10.52 per share. As of writing this post one share of the company is worth $10.68 US dollars.

From the IPO Jiayaun said they raised $78.1 million from 7.1 million American depositary shares.

For more on this story you can read .

A dating site for singles 50-plus called OurTime.com was launched the other day by People Media. People Media is owned by IAC which also owns the popular dating services Match.com and Chemistry.

OurTime.com launched with over 1 million profiles in its database. These profiles were gathered from some of IAC's existing dating sites that had singles which matched a number of criteria, including being over the age of 50. Combining all of these profiles into one dating site makes OurTime.com one of the larger services online to cater this niche.

Singles visiting OurTime.com can expect the members to be more interested in long-term relationships and companionship rather than marriage. Members tend also to be more traditional in their thinking and much happier with their personal lives when compared to someone younger.

For more on this story you can read the press release. At the moment we do not have a review of OurTime.com but for a similar dating service you should check out our Senior People Meet review.

Update: Our new review of OurTime.com is now available online.

According to the blog "Breaking the online dating sound barrier”, the dating site Plenty Of Fish only accepts users from Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Spain, France, Germany and Italy. I did try creating a new user from China and I didn't have any problems (I had the account deleted), so POF must check the IP of the user to see what country it is from before they allow them to register.

The other bit of news about Plenty Of Fish is, it now supports 4 languages. Before now the site was only available in English. As of a few days ago French, German and Spanish versions can be accessed with an Italian version coming soon. This means any text from the user interface (menus, links, etc.) along with all help and information pages are available in the language. The only thing that doesn't get converted is any text a user may have typed for profile fields like the About Me section.

For more information on this story you can check out Fernando's Blog and to find out more about this dating site you can read our Plentyoffish.com review.