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The owner of DateHookup.com, Dustin, wanted to find out if sending a Virtual Gift with your mail message to a member would increase the chance that the member would reply back. He took about 1 million first contact messages from last month (first contact refers to the fact that the member hasn't communicated with the person before) and compared the ones which included a virtual gift with ones that did not.

He found out that it did greatly improve your chances of getting a response. Your average mail message sent on DateHookup without a gift will have a 14 percent chance of getting replied to. With a virtual gift your chances nearly double to 26 percent. It sounds like if you really like the person, it would be stupid not to include a virtual gift to increase your chances of a reply.

I was surprised at the results. I figured that virtual gifts would improve the chance of someone replying, but not by almost 100 percent. Another thing I was surprised about was the actually reply percentage of 14 to 26 percent. I do not know the overall average reply rate, but if an equal number of virtual gift messages were compared with messages without virtual gifts then it would be 20 percent. This means 80 percent of all messages sent that are first contacts go unanswered. Is this reply percentage rate (which feels low to me) a DateHookup problem, or does this average reflect most dating sites which operate similar to DateHookup? I bet this average reply rate is similar across most free sites.

For more on the story visit the new DateHookup Blog. For more about this dating site you can read our review of DateHookup.com.

On March 4th, 2010 Spark Networks reported quarter 4 earnings for 2009 and their year end results (which was on Dec. 31, 2009). Revenue for the fourth quarter was $11.1 million which was a decrease of 16% from the same quarter last year. Spark Networks reported a lost for this quarter of $9.6 million and for the full year, a net loss of $6.4 million. Total revenue for 2009 was $45.4 million; in 2008 it was $53.7 million. CEO Adam Berger is quoted in the press release about this the losses:

It’s no surprise to anyone following us this past year that 2009 was extremely challenging for us as revenue declined by 21% with nearly half of the decline coming from our highly profitable Jewish Networks segment ... We accelerated our cost cutting program to offset the revenue decline but were unable to overcome the $8.9 million contribution1 decline and ended up suffering a $5.7 million decline in Adjusted EBITDA

Average paying subscribers for Spark Networks was 168,646 for quarter 4 2009 which is a 5 percent decrease when compared to quarter 4 in 2008. For the full year, average paying subscribers was 166,267. This is down 11 percent from 186,957 in 2008.

While Jewish Networks revenue fell 11 percent to $7.1 million, their subscribers grew by 4 percent to 90,567 in quarter 4. Average paying subscribers for General Market Networks (Spark.com and others) was 9,594. This is a decrease of 58 percent when compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. The Other Affinity Networks (MingleMatch) had better subscriber news and posted a 4 percent increase in subscribers to 67,725 during quarter 4 2009.

While Spark Networks continues to struggle, their balance sheet shows as of December 31, 2009 cash and cash equivalents of $6.2 million with no outstanding debt.

For the full 2009 Q4 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks Third Quarter 2009 Financials

I see OKCupid is the first popular dating site (that I know of) which offers visitors the ability to use Facebook Connect to login. Great stuff!

Dating sites should leverage information of members from other sources and social networks are a great place to start. I know I get tired of re-entering the same information into a dating site as a new user for review purposes.

Other popular external login APIs which allows users to bring their identifies and information to another site include Sign in with Twitter, Windows Live ID, Google Friend Connect and OpenID. Of these I know of only one other dating site which offers an alternate login method, Match.com. They allow users to login in using their Windows Live ID account.

Facebook Connect is also something I am looking to integrate into our site. I hope to have this feature go live In a couple of months.

For more information on this dating site, read our OKCupid.com review.

The United States and Canada have more than 85 million baby boomers (people over 50) and over 25 billion are single. To help these singles navigate the world of relationships and online dating, SeniorPeopleMeet.com recently launched a free online magazine. Senior singles will benefit from articles on love, dating and relationships. They can also expect advice and guidance from marriage and family therapist Dr. Terri Orbuch.

Readers of this senior dating online magazine can expect regular updates and an online interactive experience as well. Polls are available to users and you can submit your dating related question online for Dr. Terri Orbuch.

To find out more about this dating site read our SeniorPeopleMeet.com review.

A British wedding website conducted a survey of 4,000 couples. On the survey the couples had to indicate the levels of happiness during the different stages of their marriage. From the results researchers pinpointed the happiest day at 2 years, 11 months and 8 days after the marriage. During this time, British couples had the most sex, best social life, vacations and romantic meals. This is also the time when the couples have the longest heart to heart conversations and when wives receive the most compliments.

Here are a few things that the researchers found which led to those happy marriages:

• Spend 24 minutes having a heart to heart a day.
• Allow for 75 minutes of alone time a day.
• Never go to bed with an argument unresolved.
• 5 cuddles a day and say "I Love You." at least once.
• Spend 3 nights a week curled up on the sofa together.
• 4 phone calls / emails / text messages a day.

Spark Networks decided to change the name of "BBW Personals Plus" to "More to Love" back in October of 2009 (see Story). It looks like the old name resonated more with visitors so Spark Networks has decided to change the name of the niche dating site for heavier singles back to BBWPersonalsPlus.com.

To find out more about this dating site and what it has to offer, read our review of BBW Personal Plus.