What inspires seniors to venture into the brave new world of online dating?

The same things that inspire everyone else, of course! (You didn't think seniors would really be so different, did you?) According to AARP, the top three reasons people over 50 turn to online dating are:

1. A serious relationship (48%)
2. Friendship/Companionship (26%)
3. Casual dating (14%)

Amongst seniors, gender, age, income, occupation, and education play a role in what brings singles to online dating services.

Women are significantly more likely to be looking for friendship and companionship, while more men than women are looking for intimacy and sexual relations. Younger seniors, age 50-59, are looking for serious relationships more often than older seniors, age 60-69, who are primarily looking for companionship.

Looking at external factors, half of those with incomes greater than $50K are primarily in search of serious relationships. Those making more than $100K choose relationships based on physical intimacy instead. The more educated a senior single is, the more likely he/she is looking for a serious relationship and the less likely he/she is to want something casual or platonic.

Employment shows similar stats: those who are employed use online dating to enter serious relationships more often than those who are retired. Retirees, on the other hand, more commonly use online dating services to meet new friends.

Of course, not all seniors are interested in incorporating the Internet into their love lives. The top 3 reasons people over 50 don't try online dating, other than that they are currently dating someone, are:

1. Online dating does not fit their lifestyle (18%)
2. They've heard too many negative stories about online dating (13%)
3. They feel it's too risky to talk to strangers online (12%)

Again, these reasons can be divided further by other factors.

Men are more likely to feel that online dating doesn't fit their lifestyle, while women are more likely to fear negative consequences from talking to strangers online. Mid income levels are also more likely to say online dating doesn't fit their lifestyle than lower income levels. By employment, retirees tend to feel the same way and by location, seniors living in the West agree.

Education levels reveal slightly different results. Those with high school diplomas or some college are more likely to believe it's too risky to talk to strangers online. Those who have graduated from college, on the other hand, are more likely to skip online dating because they believe there is no trusted site geared specifically to the over-50 age group.

If you are interested in finding out more about a great seniors dating site you should read our Our Time review.

Recipient of Gold
Match.com

Recipient of Silver
eHarmony

Recipient of Bronze
Zoosk

The 2012 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll was closed on January 1st, 2012. It ran for 3 months and received just over 650 votes. The first question of this poll asked which paid dating site would you recommend for our Single’s Choice Award. This post takes a look at the results. In our opinion this award is our most important award and this is why it is the last one we give out. This award is voted on by our visitors which collectively spend much more time on dating sites and run into many more situations than we do. We deal with online dating sites everyday here at DSR but our visitors experiences make them the true experts.

For 2012 we listed the top online dating sites for you to vote on. There was eight in the list in which three will receive an award, Gold for first, Silver for second and Bronze for the third most votes.

The recipient of the Gold 2012 Single's Choice Award is Match.com. They received 30.5 percent of the vote which works out to 199 votes. 5 of the dating sites received under 10 percent of the vote which shows Match.com has a huge lead in popularity. Match.com also received our Editor's Top Pick - Overall award earlier this year.

The recipient of the Silver 2012 Single's Choice Award is eHarmony. This matchmaking site received 23 percent of the vote which is a half percent more than last year. eHarmony also received an award for Editor's Top Pick - Match System which is no surprise. This is eHarmony’s 5th year in a row winning this award.

The recipient of the Bronze 2012 Single's Choice Award is Zoosk. Zoosk has been around since 2007 and has won this award once before in 2010. This year Zoosk received 78 votes which is 12 percent of the total vote.

Here are this year's standings for the Single's Choice award for all dating sites in the poll.

1. Match.com
2. eHarmony
3. Zoosk
4. Chemistry
5. Lavalife
6. Badoo
7. PerfectMatch.com
8. Date.com

We here at Dating Sites Reviews (DSR) would like to thank everyone who voted for the 2012 Single's Choice Award. The results of the poll help our visitors in 2013 to figure out which service is best for them. It also helps us tailor the needs of our users and better report on the sites and services that interest them.

We all know the power of social media, especially Facebook. Which is why it's interesting that Facebook has developed its own service similar to an online dating search, helping people to connect with each other.

While Facebook has generally tried to distance itself from online dating in the past, Graph Search seems to be a move in that direction. Graph Search is a search engine (like main competitor Google), which harnesses the power of Facebook information. So you can search for recommendations for people, places, and businesses and gather information about them. For dating purposes, you can type in "friends of my friends who are single and living in Boston," and in theory the service will provide you with some choices and basic information.

Traditionally, people have used Facebook to find and "friend" people they know. But with Graph Search, people can find others outside their social circles and potentially connect.

Some online dating sites have already taken advantage of Facebook's social connections by harnessing the power of Facebook itself, like CoffeeMeetsBagel and Circl.es among others. When you sign up, the services pull information from your Facebook page and match you with friends of friends, so you stay within your particular networks. But with Graph Search, the field can open up. You can search for other single users and filter the results based on their interests, education, age, hometown, and current city for example.

Of course, online dating sites do have an advantage over Facebook's Graph Search: the people who join online dating sites are definitely interested in dating.

Facebook can filter lists of people who are single to contact, but that doesn't mean these singles are in the dating market. If you don't want to be approached by virtual strangers for potential dates, Graph Search might be a motivation for you to shut down your Facebook profile if you start getting unwanted messages. With online dating sites, everyone is there for the same reason, so it's easier to approach people and to get responses.

Another benefit of online dating sites is the ability to cater your profile specifically to romantic searches. People use their Facebook pages for a variety of reasons - some personal, some professional. Facebook "Likes" don't equate with a detailed profile on a site like OkCupid where you can list your favorite music and movies, or write a description of yourself in a flirtatious manner that your mother or boss won't be able to read.

Either way, it's good to have more choices available to meet people and widen your social circles. Let's see how Graph Search will evolve when it comes to online dating.

Once Facebook Graph Search is out of beta and available to the general public we will have to update our dating review for Facebook to include this new tool.

You may think that OkCupid is crazy enough as is. You would be wrong.

OkCupid is about to get even crazier, with the launch of a new app called Crazy Blind Date. It's not a new idea - Crazy Blind Date was originally launched back in 2007 and was taken down shortly thereafter - but it promises to be better this time around.

The blind date has been around for...well...probably as long as dating has. It's a staple of many people's love lives, but the Internet has not yet been able to recreate its magic. OkCupid is hoping to fill that void, by setting singles up on blind dates with only a few hours' notice.

Traditional online dating requires hours of work spent writing profiles, searching through potential candidates, and crafting intriguing messages. Crazy Blind Date takes only a few minutes so users can get straight to what matters most: meeting face to face.

Using the app couldn't get any easier:

• Download the app for iPhone or Android.
• Choose which nights of the week you're available for dates
• Pick your favorite bar or coffee shop.
• Let Crazy Blind Date do the rest.

Once the app finds a compatible date, it sends confirmations to the parties involved and the date is booked. An hour before the date is scheduled, an anonymous IM window is opened so the participants can start communicating and find each other easily.

Once the date is complete, Crazy Blind Date asks users to give feedback on the experience. If you had a good time, you're offered the opportunity to vouch for your date by purchasing credits, called "Kudos," on their behalf. One will cost $0.99 and ten, for really spectacular dates, will cost $2.99. The more Kudos a person collects, the higher priority they are given for future date assignments.

From a user's point of view, the Kudos system helps make sure that everyone is on his or her best behavior during the date. From OkCupid's point of view, the system is an innovation. "Never before has a dating app allowed singles to pay on a per-date basis, and to vary that payment based on the quality of the date itself," says Sam Yagan, Co-Founder of OkCupid.

Is a blind date the best way to lead to lasting love? Well...maybe not. But that's ok, because that's not the point. Crazy Blind Date isn't about helping you find your future spouse - it's about having fun. "A lot of dates aren't going to work, but you are going to meet someone interesting," Yagan told Mashable in an interview last month. "And you're going to have a lot of stories."

Ladies and gentlemen, the match is about to begin.

In this corner we have POF, a popular free dating site since 2003 that claimed 40,000,000 members as of February 2012.

And in this corner we have OkCupid, a free dating and social networking legend that The Boston Globe once called "The Google of online dating."

This fight is gonna be a tough one, folks.

Looking at it by the numbers, POF comes out on top. Its many millions of members dwarf the member base of OkCupid, which gives its users access to many more potential dates. On the other hand, OkCupid offers more ways to find a match who meets your dating requirements. OkCupid's features include a greater variety of search options and a range of other fun tools, like quizzes, to assess compatibility.

At the end of round one, it looks like POF wins the battle for quantity and OkCupid wins the battle for quality.

Round two requires you to think seriously about what you're looking for in your online dating experience. Is it simplicity? Go for POF. Is it an aesthetically pleasing site? Go for OkCupid. Is it older singles? Try POF, which has a higher number of users in the 35-49 age range. Is it hip younger singles? Try OkCupid, which targets the 25-35 audience.

At the end of round two we've got another even split, depending on what kind of date you're looking for.

It all comes down to round three. This is the make or break moment for OkCupid and POF. How do you want to be matched with potential partners? And what kind of relationship are you looking for?

POF determines compatibility using the Chemistry Test and the Relationship Needs Assessment, which matches you with dates who think and act the same way you do in relationships. Outside of that, POF primarily matches users based on age range and area, which doesn't provide a very accurate picture of whether or not they'll click romantically.

OkCupid has a few more tricks up its sleeve. There are its famous member quizzes, a whole bunch of funny and weird questions, and also the additional option of creating unique profile questions that are tailored to your exact personality. Not only are they entertaining, but OkCupids matching features are more effective at judging real compatibility.

So, although it was a close one, at the end of round three I'm going to have to call this one in favor of OkCupid.

To find out more about these 2 free dating sites you can read our Plenty of fish review and our Okcupid review. For more related services you can check our the free dating sites category.

eHarmony first offered free communication on Tuesdays in December and it must have gone well since the dating site is now offering it again today and for the next 2 Tuesdays in the United States. On January 22nd, January 29th and February 5th at 3:00pm to 11:59pm (PST) eHarmony members will be able to communicate with their matches for free. This is a great way to get members excited about online dating and a great lead up to Valentine's Day, which is one of the busiest weeks in the online dating industry.

To participate in free communication at eHarmony.com all you need to do is signup as a member and create a profile. This process does not require a credit card and should take you no more than an hour to complete. Most of this time is taken up by the questions you will be answering about yourself which eHarmony will use in their matching system to determine the best matches for you. Once completed you will receive your first set of matches and from their you can communicate with any of them for free. During this promotion members will not be able to, Skip to Email (of the guided communication process), use Secure Call (a phone service) or view photos.

The last free eHarmony communication event was held at the beginning of this month (see Story). To find out more about this matchmaking service designed to help form long-term relationships you can read our review of eHarmony.com.