Online Dating

Online dating may be on the rise, but so are sites which compete with eHarmony's stronghold on the market. CEO Greg Waldorf recently spoke to The Wall Street Journal about their plans for the future, including a thirty-million dollar ad campaign aimed at trying to increase growth in subscriptions.

In the article, Waldorf points out that the recession has actually increased consumer interest in eHarmony. In a study the company did in September and October of 2009, researchers found that when the Dow dropped 100 points, the site saw a 2% increase in the number of pages viewed on each site compared to days when the Dow rose.

However, subscriber growth has been slowing. Waldorf maintains that singles are still looking for long-term relationships, but they are likely exhausting other methods first, like trying to meet other singles on their own rather than through a dating website.

Spark Networks 2010 3rd quarter financials are in so let's see how they did. Overall revenue is down $1.2 million this quarter to $9.9 million when compared to the same quarter last year. Net income for quarter 3 was $1.2 million. This is up 20% over quarter 3, 2009.

The Jewish Networks revenue was $6.8 million for the 3rd quarter this year. This was 4 percent less when compared to last year. The other Affinity Networks revenue was down 14 percent to $2.7 million and the General Market Networks earned $264,000, a 54 percent decrease over last year.

Average paying subscribers for Spark Networks, as a whole, in the 3rd quarter of 2010 were 158,422. This is a decrease of 4 percent compared to 165,206 for the 3rd quarter of 2009. Subscribers for the Jewish Networks were at 89,792 for the 3rd quarter. This is up 4 percent when compared to the 3rd quarter of last year. The Other Affinity Networks subscribers were down 7 percent to 62,026 and the General Market Networks decrease was 49 percent to 5,888 subscribers.

For the full 2010 Q3 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks Second Quarter 2010 Financials

Chemistry is having a free weekend again soon. It runs for 3 days and starts Friday November 19 and ends Sunday November 21. During this free communication weekend all users will be able to communicate by sending emails at no cost and with no credit card required. Creating a profile and receiving matches are also always free at Chemistry.com.

These free weekends at Chemistry always means it will be extra busy at the dating site since more singles will be visiting to take advantage of the free promotion. Chemistry also steps up their marketing efforts by advertising the free weekend on TV.

The last free communication weekend was held in October (see Story). This upcoming one will be Chemistry.com's 11th they have run. For more information on this online dating site that matches you with members based on personality, you can read our Chemistry.com review.

eHarmony.com is having a free communication event and it starts today! The event is 10 days long and will run to Sunday November 14th ending at midnight (Pacific Time).

For this event, members will be able to create a profile, review matches and be able to connect with those matches using the eHarmony Guided Communication process. At no point will you need a credit card. The only things not included are Fasttracking the guided communication process, eHarmony Mail and viewing of members profile pictures.

This current free communication event will be eHarmony's 30th. The last one occurred in October (see Story).

On a related note, eHarmony Canada is also having free communication event. It is a month long and it starts Nov 1st and ends Nov 30th at midnight.

To find out more about this online dating site designed for people looking for long-term relationships, you can read our review of eHarmony.

According to FriendFinder Networks Inc in a press release on Thursday, they have raised $551 million in debt financing. Any further details of this transaction were not disclosed.

For more on the story read the press release and to find out more about one of their dating sites, read our [staticpage: 010000100-FriendFinder FriendFinder review].

Yup your eyes do not deceive you - eHarmony Canada is having a 30 day free communication event.

Free guided communication events usually last either 4 or 10 days but this next one for Canada is a month long. For the entire month of November (over 7 times longer than a normal 4 day FCW event), eHarmony Canada members will be able to review their matches and communicate with them at no cost and with no credit card required. This will certainly be a busy time for members of eHarmony Canada. With free members being able to use the guided communication process it gives all members a chance to find out a lot more about their matches. Just remember Fasttracking the guided communication process, eHarmony mail, and viewing of members profile pictures is only available to paid members.

According to our records this upcoming free event will be eHarmony's 30th. The last eHarmony free guided communication weekend for Canada occurred on Thanksgiving Weekend (see Story).

For more details on why this is such a great dating site, please read our review of eHarmony.com.