Online Dating

On November 9th Meetic released the financial results for the first 9 months of 2009. Revenue earned during this period totalled 117.2 million Euros (over $174 million USD). This is a 20 percent increase over the same period last year. From this income, the purchase of Match.com's UK site this year added 19 million Euros in revenue. 96 percent of all revenue was from sources in Europe.

Meetic's dating sites subscriber base totalled 970,623 as of September 30th, 2009. This is an increase of about 25,000 subscribers from the same date in 2008. No mention of Match.com's UK site is here so it is unsure if their subscriber numbers have been included in the Meetic 2009 numbers. We estimated that Match.com UK had about 291,000 paying subscribers as of quarter 2, 2009, at the time of the sale (see Story).

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes and Amortization (EBITDA) came to 24.1 million Euros over the first 9 months. This is an EBITDA margin of 20.5 percent. As of September 30th, 2009 Meetic had a net cash surplus of 41 million Euros and the only debt on the books was from the Match acquisition which is estimated at €7.1 million.

Expect the quarter 4 2009 financials and annual revenue for Meetic to be published on the 11th of February 2010.

News first spotted on OPW. For more information, read the full Meetic Q3 2009 Financial report.

OKCupid has released some interesting detailed reports and stats about their members. It looks like a member of Plenty of Fish (see the blog) is following suit by using a built in tool on PlentyofFish to check out the different demographics based on an interest you can type in. This tool is intended to inform potential Advertisers of Plenty Of Fish on what type of people use the site, so they can better target their ads.

POF will return a percentage result for the following attributes for any interest. This information is compiled straight from the members dating profiles and the percentages are based on the answers members have chosen for each profile attribute.

Choose one or two dating sites, no more. I recommend one free and one paid, but that’s up to you and your budget. Why two sites? You’ll find that the vibe and the membership of your sites will be a bit different and eventually, you’ll figure out which one works best for you. Oftentimes, people start with one site and throw up their hands in frustration after three months of little to no luck. “Online dating sucks!” they claim. “The people I want to date don’t write me back and the people who write me I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole!”

I tried several sites when I was making my rounds as a single girl looking for love. I found that Match provided the best results for me, eHarmony often matched me with the same folks I found on Match (for double the price!), PlentyOfFish was full of folks wanting no-strings sex, PerfectMatch didn’t live up to its name, and OkCupid just didn’t quite have the right people.

Your mileage, of course, will vary. I have clients for whom the exact opposite is true. Match and eHarmony don’t have the right people and OkCupid is swarming with folks that they are attracted to and want to date. Don’t judge a dating site by the review of one or two people who found it useless for them. Get a balanced view by reading and asking around before choosing two sites to try. Don’t forget to look for special coupons for free weeks!

Sites I recommend include:

• Traditional Online Dating: Match.com (read Review)
• Free Online Dating: OkCupid (read Review)
• Matchmaking/Personality Test Based Online Dating: Chemistry (read Review), eHarmony (read Review)
• Niche/Religious Online Dating: SoulGeek (geek dating), ChristianCafe (Christian Dating), JDate (Jewish dating)

Just because I don’t personally recommend a site doesn’t mean it’s not good. My biggest advice would be to avoid the tiny niche and white label dating sites (see Story). Stick with the well-known sites, pick two sites to focus your attention on, and start writing that profile!

Related Stories:
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 2: The Perfect Profile
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 3: Before You Send Any Emails
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 4: Emails and Winks
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 5: The Daily Grind

It looks like Facebook has decided to get into the online dating business by in part funding the dating site Thread.com. This dating site is unique in a few ways. First of all, it is built on the Facebook platform. This means if you have a Facebook account you can login right away to Thread and once you have given Thread permission to access your Facebook information, you can begin using the dating service. This brings me to the second unique point of Thread, it allows you to meet your friends of friends. Other Facebook dating applications allow you to search for Facebook members who are using the app, not Thread. Thread gives you easy search access to all of your friend's friends. So the first thing you have to do when you join Thread is to get at least a few of your friends to join as well or you will have nobody to search for. On average (if I remember correctly) a typical diehard Facebook member has about 200 friends. This means if you invite 5 of your friends to join Thread (and they accept), you potentially have 1000 singles to search for in your social circle.

I think the idea of searching your friends of friends for a date is smart, as each person is known by someone you already know and who can vouch for them. This virtually eliminates the scammer and fake dating profile problem that plagues other online dating sites.

Thread first launched in early September 2009, so it is not very old. Two weeks into launch they had 4000 registrations and the site continues to grow. The Thread software developers are busy coding new features for the site so expect a number of updates in the near future. Everything on Thread is currently free, including messaging (which is handled by Facebook). They do plan to offer some premium products though. Some potential examples include paying for information to see who has viewed you, find out which of your photos received the most clicks, and virtual gifts. Paying for endorsement badges may also be a possibility which will allow your friends to endorse you as a great match.

The one major thing I would change about Thread is I think they should allow you the option to search for other Thread members as possible matches. I am not saying to search the friends of these members (as I am sure this would violate Facebook privacy terms), but just them. This way members have more access to people who are single. Plus, you would have access to members you can search for right away since you don't have to wait for your friends to approve your Thread invite request.

For more on this story, including an interview with CEO of Thread, Brian Phillips, visit VatorNews. You can also find the Thread.com website here.

For a list of other Facebook dating services, you can checkout our Facebook Dating category.

The 50 plus singles crowd is not necessarily looking for casual dates. They are looking for a long term relationships that offer companionship. This group of online daters still is being reported as the fastest growing group of singles on dating sites. In the last U.S. Census, seniors are also a growing demographic. It was reported that there are 95.9 million single people in America. 15.8 million (16.5 %) of these people are 65 years or older (see Story). Let's see how some of the more popular dating sites are performing in this demographic.

Match.com is reporting 16 percent of men and 17 percent of women members are 50 or older. Match.com also reported 1,403 million paying subscribers in quarter 3 of this year so this means there are about 236,000 members on Match who are at least 50.

eHarmony's first quarter of 2009 saw a 20 percent growth in users 60 and over when compared to 2008. While we don't have any actual subscriber numbers, we do know that the average age on eHarmony is 35 and that they have been getting about 3.6 million unique visitors per month on their dating sites (US, UK, and Canada).

In the last 5 years Lavalife.com more than doubled its members who are 45 or older. In response to this surge in members, LavalifePRIME was launched in 2007 and now has more than 70,000 members.

To find out more about the dating sites listed here please read our eHarmony review, Match.com review, and our LavalifePRIME review. For more dating site specifically for seniors, check out our Dating Over 50 category.

Many online dating sites are all about service. They’ll email you new members, people who match your search criteria and make it easy for your to contact them just by clicking on a link in that friendly, service-oriented email.

But you shouldn’t. And here’s why:

The only information you have at that point is a face you find attractive. Is that really worth a click?

It is no different than when you are out with your best guy or gal pals for an evening of fun and you spot someone across the room. Even in this case, you have more than just a pretty face. You have body language, their entire physical appearance and whether or not they seem to be having fun. However, you’re still in “just a pretty face” until you get into the meat of who that person is and actually have the chance to learn about all the things below the surface.

Next time you get one of those update emails from your online dating site of choice, thin before you click to “wink” or “send a message.” Instead, why not click through to their profile and give it a read? They’re putting it out there for your review, so by golly – give it a go! You may find out that he or she is, indeed, your dream girl. Or better yet, that pretty face may not want to date someone with kids and you’ve got two that you adore. Why waste your time? Move on to someone who’s a better fit right from the start instead of starting a conversation that isn’t going to go anywhere.

The bottom line is you should always be reading the profiles for anyone you wish to contact at an online dating site before initiating a conversation. Not only does it give you common ground to build a conversation around, it’s polite. Remember how you felt when the last person who obviously hadn’t read your profile sent you a message or a wink? You were probably a bit annoyed because they weren’t anything like you were looking for. If only they’d read your profile, right?