General News

The Forbes website wrote an article called "The Top Online Meat Markets" which talks a bit about some current online dating statistics and lists the top ten dating sites according to unique visitors in the month of June from a tracking company called Nielsen (more famously known for tracking TV viewers). I wasn't really impressed with the title since they are referring to dating sites as meat markets. The term meat market is not meant as a compliment and it tells me the author is not very interested in the story and doesn't think much of the concept of online dating. He further expresses his point of view in this sentence:

Call it calculating, unromantic and maybe even a bit unnatural ...

For a media company whose authors are suppose to leave their opinions at the door unless the topic calls for it, I wonder how this piece got past the editor's desk.

The company which owns the Australian dating site RSVP, didn't perform very well last year. Fairfax Media's revenue for the year which ended in June, fell 27 percent to $605 million AUD when compared to the previous year. The online division of Fairfax which includes RSVP, TradeMe (auctions) and Stayz (accommodation) suffered a 8 percent fall in earnings for the last half of the year. In the several year before 2007 the online division had experienced double digit growth.

The loss of income from online job ads was the cause listed for the earnings drop in Fairfax's online division. It is not mentioned how the dating site RSVP actually performed but from reading between the lines it appears to experienced a marginal decrease in revenue as well.

For more on this news, read The Australian Business and to find out more about the most popular dating site in Australia, check out our RSVP review.

It seems that the dating site Shaadi.com is becoming fairly popular with British Asian singles. The Guardian in the UK wrote an article about the dating site and included several success stories and a few not so successful ones. No dating site is perfect and when I see a article written which includes information about what the site may be lacking or has problems with I tend to give it more weight than a story that is all positive.

Shaadi.com now claims 15 million people have signed up for their service since the website launched in 1997. Currently they have 5 million members using the site at any given time which generates about 300 million page views every month and 6,000 new profiles a day. This dating site:

is tailored to the typical criteria of traditional matchmakers, with questions about family values (traditional, moderate or liberal), profession and even complexion.

Shaadi's search engine allows members to be incredibly detailed about the type of person they wish to find or be matched with.

To find out more about this India dating and matrimonial website, read our review of Shaadi.com.

In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina reported rape cases are up 16 percent this year. The county has a population of almost 1 million people and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police are blaming "Internet dating and online classifieds offering sexual services" as one of the main reasons for the rise in rape cases. Across America the number of reported rapes has increased by 30 percent since 1993. Part of these increases are attributed to less shame in the social stigma of being a victim and in the city of Charlotte's case, stepped up outreach programs.

The Charlotte police have also contacted Craigslist,

... asking the online posting company to warn women advertising personal services that Charlotte had become too dangerous for them.

In Mecklenburg, the previous 2 years saw a downward trend in rape cases but with the rise this year, the police are for some reason pointing the finger at adult Internet dating services. Online dating is not, new and has been very popular over the last 5 years. With Craigslist in the news lately (see Story) I think they were just an easy target for the police to lay blame. Craigslist is of course not completely blameless here and it is well known they are having problems with illegal services being posted in their online personals category, it's just that these problems have been going on for a number of years, not just in the last year when Mecklenburg County has seen the rise in reported rapes.

People Media, in association with Chicago market researcher Synovate, released the results of a national wide survey of 1,000 people conducted last month which shows 49% of Americans knows of someone who found a date online. This statistic has almost doubled since a 2006 survey done by Pew Internet & American Life. It was also found, in the age demographic of Americans who goes online the least, people 65 or more, that almost a third (31 percent) knew of someone who had found a date online.

From the survey, it was also found that 28 percent of the respondents knew more than one person who found at least one date online:

• 3.4% knew more than 5 people
• 4% knew 4 or 5 people
• 20.7% knew 2 or 3 people
• 20.6% knew 1 person

A few more interesting details from the results include, singles are more likely to know someone who dated someone they found online, when compared to a person who is married (55% compared to 44%). Similarly Caucasians were more likely than other ethnicities to know someone who found a date on the internet (51% compared to 40%).

To find out more about a few of People Media's dating sites, read our review of BlackPeopleMeet.com and our review of SeniorPeopleMeet.com.

Match.com released a list of the top 25 most affordable cities in America for dating. In each city the average cost of a typical date was compared, which was a casual dinner for two plus two movie tickets. Pittsburgh came out on top, since it was the cheapest at just over $77 for a typical date. Los Angeles rounding off the list at number 25, with a couple needing to spend $126 for the same date. Here is the complete list of the top 25 most affordable cities for dating:

1. Pittsburgh
2. Detroit
3. Sacramento, Calif.
4. Phoenix
5. Indianapolis
6. St. Louis, Mo.
7. Tampa
8. Orlando
9. Houston
10. Charlotte, N.C.
11. Atlanta
12. Denver
13. Cleveland
14. Miami
15. Portland, Ore.
16. Minneapolis
17. Seattle
18. Philadelphia
19. Boston/li>
20. Dallas
21. Washington, D.C.
22. Chicago
23. New York
24. San Francisco
25. Los Angeles

For more information on the topic, read the press release. To find out further details about the dating service, read our Match.com review.