Milestones

eHarmony launched a new dating site called Jazzed late last month. The site is currently free but we expect it to go paid once enough members have joined. In the past eHarmony usually keeps the site free for the first 3 months of operation.

So how is Jazzed.com different from eHarmony? Well, think of it as a less complicated version of eHarmony with searching. eHarmony is a very successful dating site but it is designed for someone looking for a serious relationship. The in-depth profile questions, communication process and matchmaking is not for everyone and eHarmony realizes this. Jazzed.com is more conventional, like the dating sites Match.com and PlentyofFish. The dating tools are simpler (when compared to eHarmony) and members are expected to search for their own matches.

You can expect a review of this new online dating site to be available soon.

To find out more about the parent dating site of Jazzed, please read our eHarmony.com review.

ChristianMingle.com launched a new faith-based content website late last month that is a destination designed to serve the Christian community. The website is called Believe.com and it allows Christians to obtain advice, insights and to interact with other community members. Believe.com also features:

sermons in written, audio and video formats from Christian leaders of congregations and organizations across the United States. Topics include encouraging relationship advice, raising children God's way, following biblical financial principles to successful stewardship and many more.

Additional notable features of Believe.com include a Prayer Wall and a searchable Bible. Christian Testimonials can also be found from other visitors and well known Christians that describe life changing experiences and how their faith grew as a result.

To find out more about the dating site, you can check out our review of ChristianMingle.

Almost 2 months ago Zoosk reported that their Facebook Fan page had over 1 million fans. I checked today and they currently have 1,612,923 Facebook Fans. Here is a YouTube video that Zoosk put together to mark the milestone.

That certainly is a large number of fans and the increase of 600 thousand fans in under 2 months is an achievement itself (that is roughly 10,000 Facebook Fans a day). This is by far the largest number of Fans any dating site has on Facebook. Two other popular online dating sites only have about 6,000 each.

For more information on this popular dating site, read our review of Zoosk.com.

Zoosk is a dating site which has grown in popularity thanks in large part to them embracing Social Networks like Facebook (they are the number one dating app on Facebook). In January of 2009 Zoosk had 15 million members and in little over a year they have seen tremendous growth. Today, Zoosk has 50 million users worldwide. To expand their network of members further, Zoosk has announced a free iPhone Dating Application which supports multiple languages. Languages supported include English, French, Italian and Spanish. The Zoosk App also allows members to see who has viewed their profile and also allows members to use the iPhone's GPS for location based matching. Since its release the Zoosk iPhone dating application has become the third most popular dating app for the iPhone.

Zoosk also has released an instant messenger program for both Mac and PC computers. The Zoosk Messenger allows for desktop chat with other Zooskers and was developed on the Adobe Air platform to bring a richer, more interactive experience. This online chat program fully integrates into Zoosk and lets you instantly connect with singles in your area. The program also notifies you when your friends come online.

Zoosk must have been one of the fastest growing dating sites last year. This is due to the additional funding they have received (see Zoosk Funding Story) which allowed them to expand their network to multiple platforms and advertise much more extensively online (I am seeing their ads everywhere now). Zoosk wants to cover all platforms of communication it seems and are hoping to own a bigger piece of the $4 billion worldwide online dating industry.

For more on this story, read the press release. You can also checkout our review of Zoosk.

Match.com launched April 21, 1995, this was 15 years ago exactly last Wednesday. They were owned by Electric Classifieds and a membership cost $9.95 per month. In a little over a year they had 100,000 registrations. In 1997 CUC International Inc. acquires Match.com and by the next year a monthly membership rose to $12.95. By 1999 memberships was $16.95 a month and Match.com purchased one of their competitors, the One & Only Network.

In 2000 Match.com had 156,945 paying subscribers and by 2001 they had partnered with AOL and MSN. A membership price at this point was $24.95 a month. In 2002 Match.com was then available in 40 countries thanks to in part by acquiring the international dating site Soulmates.com. In 2003 Match.com entered the cell phone dating market by launching MatchMobile. 2005 was a big year for Match.com when they launched the MindFindBind program. This program was created in part by the famous TV talk show host and relationship expert Dr. Phil. During this year Chemistry.com was launched as well.

In 2009 Match.com sold their European operations to Meetic and buys People Media from American Capital Ltd.. People Media run several niche dating services with the most popular ones being for Seniors, Black Americans and Christians. During this year Match.com also launches Dating Applications on the iPhone, Palm Pre and Palm Pixi cell phones.

In 2010 Match.com releases Dating Apps for the Blackberry and Android mobile phones. Match.com also acquires Singlesnet.com. At this point a monthly membership at Match.com costs $34.99.

The top picture on the right is what Match.com looked like in 2000 (thanks to the WayBackMachine). The bottom right photo is a snapshot of what Match.com looked like in 2009.

For a more detailed timeline visit Fox Business or read our own recorded history of Match.com. To find more information on this dating site, read out review of Match.com.

The internet traffic audience measuring service, comScore, issued a press release which covered the top growing websites and site categories for February 2010. Since February is usually considered the top month for dating sites (thanks to Valentine's Day) I thought we should take a look.

Traffic to online dating sites in February grew 5 percent to 24.2 million visitors when compared to January. The top 4 dating sites in America for February were:

1. eHarmony with 5 million visitors (up 82 percent) - Read Review
2. Match.com with 3.4 million visitors. - Read Review
3. PlentyofFish.com with 2.8 million visitors. - Read Review
4. SinglesNet.com with 2.6 million visitors. - Read Review

For comparison, other Valentine's Day categories like Flowers/Gifts/Greetings websites saw traffic increase by 7 percent to 32.3 visitors. In this category AmericanGreetings took the number 1 spot at 10.6 million visitors. The e-Cards category grew by 7 percent as well to 23.1 million visitors with MyFunCards.com leading the category with 6.3 million visitors. MyFunCards was up 75 percent when compared to January.