Online Dating

While Justin Bieber is trending on Twitter, what's trending in the world of online dating?

According to the Google Barometer Blog, mobile dating is the newest trend sweeping the U.K. Bickey Russell and Elizabeth Song, Senior Industry Analyst and Analyst Intern, respectively, for Google UK, studied the rising popularity of mobile dating and found that "the volume of Google searches on mobile devices related to dating grew by 215% YoY ['Year Over Year'] since 2008" in the UK alone. And, in an even more remarkable turn, "the volume of dating queries on mobile phones shot up ten fold in just three years' time."

As smartphone usage has become increasingly prevalent, the usage of mobile devices - and the constant Internet connectivity they provide - to access dating websites to search for potential matches and answer messages from interested members has become more and more popular. The market is so large, in fact, that Juniper, a market research firm, has estimated that "the overall mobile dating sector will grow to $1.4 billion worldwide by 2013." That's right - $1.4 billion in just three years. Google research has also found that searches from laptops and desktop computers for "mobile dating" and "text dating" have grown over 72% YoY in the UK.

So what can on-the-go online dating do for you? New interactive features are being invented constantly, allowing you to take advantage of countless new online dating opportunities like proximity dating, which uses GPS or Bluetooth technology to alert users when other singles are nearby. Mobile and location dating also introduce a real-life context into the online dating scene, "making the process less detached from users' everyday lives, social networks, and gathering places."

If you're interested in trying mobile dating, you don't have to venture far outside your comfort zone - many major dating sites, like Match, eHarmony, and JDate, have mobile apps available for download. If you're ready for something new, however, check out these popular apps:

1. Meet Moi: Meet Moi is a location-based mobile dating app that updates your location in real-time and alerts you when a match is nearby. Their basic service is free.

2. SpeedDate.com: Members can search through millions of profiles and start conversations via email with prospective matches. SpeedDate provides an advanced set of filters that allows users to search based on specific criteria, as well as a tagging feature that ensures that favorite profiles are saved.

3. Grindr: Grindr is the largest location-based dating app for gay, bi, and curious men. Grindr is free, and has about 600,000 users per month (about 250,000 users per day, who log on approximately eight times within a 24 hour period!).

4. Zoosk: Zoosk won the award for Best Mobile Dating Site at the Internet Dating Conference this year, and is consistently a #1 dating app in the iTunes Store. The app has all of the functionality of the website, with a GPS location tagging feature.

For more information on the service which won the award Best Mobile Dating Site, please read our Zoosk review. For other dating sites which also offer their services over a phone, check out our Mobile Phone Dating category.

Back in July we mentioned that the PlentyOfFish iPhone App would be here in a few weeks. Well it is now December and I must confess, I forgot all about it.

It looks like the iPhone PlentyOfFish Mobile App has been available on iTunes since August. The current version is 1.02 which was released on Oct 22, 2010. It is compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad as long as they have iOS 3.0 or later installed on them. Most of the reviews of this iPhone dating app seem to indicate that is okay (it has a 3 out of 5 star rating) but lacks a few features and should just be used as a supplement if you can't use your laptop at the moment.

Features of the app include searching, checking your matches and sending and receiving PlentyOfFish email messages.

For more information on this dating site, read our review of PlentyOfFish.

I am not sure what the woman from Australia was thinking, who was mentioned in this article about her being scammed from someone she met on a dating site? Let's go over the facts:

• Her husband died 11 years ago
• She has 2 teenage kids
• She never met the guy in person
• He promised her marriage and $28 million
• She sold her home and investment property for $600,000 and sent him the money to "invest"

At the moment she is warning women to avoid dating sites because of her experience. First of all, this could have happened to her with a person she met in real life, I do not see how it is the fault of online dating. She should be warning women about not sending men they just met online, money. In her story there are huge warning flags and I think the women choose to ignore them just because she was being greedy, especially when she thought she was getting $28 million out of it. I think the real victims here are her two children, she should have been thinking about them. Now I don't think anyone deserves to be scammed, she just should have thought things through.

It looks like PlentyofFish.com has a new payment option that enables members to purchase credits to use on gifts and other features of the dating site. To buy these Goldfish Credits (they are also called PlentyOfFish Credits or POF Credits on the site) you will need to try sending a Gift, Ice Breaker or attempt to view the Sent Message Status. From any of these pages you will be shown your Goldfish Credit status and have the option to visit a page to buy some.

POF updated their site a few days ago with this new credit system. There was no official word as far as I could find on the topic so I am sure it caught a few members off guard. I think members will probably complain most about requiring credits for the View Sent Message Status. Since, this means free members of POF will now not be able to tell if a member has read or deleted their message anymore unless they pay for the privilege first.

The cost of Goldfish credits vary on the amount you buy. The costs listed are in USD:

• 100 credits for $9.95 (10 cents a credit)
• 215 credits for $18.95 (9 cents a credit)
• 500 credits for $37.95 (8 cents a credit)

Now don't confuse Goldfish credits with POF points. Points still do exist and are earned by doing certain activities on the site like creating an account, and every time you login.

On a related note, the first time POF wasn't 100% free happened in March 2009 when they first offered the Serious Member Profile Upgrade (see Story).

For more information on this story you can visit Bonny's Dating Blog who got the scoop first. To find out more about this popular dating site, you can read our PlentyOfFish review.

Lavalife has a gift for singles this holiday season. It is a coupon code that gives members 20 percent off on a subscription to Lavalife during the month of December, 2010.

Save 20% on Lavalife (coupon code: XMAS20)

If you are interested in finding out more about this popular online dating site you can read our review of Lavalife.

It looks like Barry Diller will be turning over his CEO job at InteractiveCorp (IAC) soon to Match.com's Greg Blatt. Barry Diller will still remain IAC's chairman and their biggest shareholder. Greg Blatt has been in charge at Match.com since the beginning of 2009. There is no word yet who will take over at Match.com.

For more on the story, read the WSJ and to find out more about some of the dating sites IAC owns, read our Match.com review and our Chemistry.com review.