Online Dating

The Chicago Tribune has a story about dating when you have children. In it they discuss how the stigma has changed about single parents and dating. The author also mentions how online dating has started to change the way single parents can find dates and how it has become more socially acceptable to use. A number of interesting statistics were included:

Part of the story is the numbers. There are 12 million single parents living with children younger than 18 in the U.S., according to 2007 Census Bureau figures, a whopping 200 percent increase over 1970, when there were 4 million.

Another surprising number mentioned was, Match.com reported that 47% of its members in the United States have children.

I wonder if I should add Match.com to our Single Parent Dating Site Reviews Category?

In a really surprising move (at least IMO), Match.com has sold 100 percent of their European operations to Meetic for approximately a 27 percent share in the company. Match.com will also get a 5 million euro note plus some additional terms which has not been released. Over the last several years it has been a battle between these two companies for the European online dating market. It looks like instead of trying to beat their competition, Meetic decided to buy them out and give Match an offer that was too good to refuse. Of course, with a 27 percent share in Meetic, Match.com will still have influence in online dating in Europe.

While Match.com tends to make more partnerships with companies to increase their market share internationally, Meetic tends to buy out their competition. Currently Meetic manages ten services, including Meetic, Meetic Mobile, Meetic Affinity, Lexa, ParPerfeito, DatingDirect, Neu.de, Cleargay, Partner.de and Lexamore. According to TechCrunch:

... Meetic had revenues of 153,7 million euros (close to $195 million) in 2008 and currently counts over 696,400 registered users. The company is public and listed on NYSE Euronext, currently valued at nearly 228 million euro ($289 million).

Meanwhile because of this deal, Match.com will go from having operations in 40 countries down to 24. The countries with operations now include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, Venezuela and Vietnam. As a comparison to the Meetic numbers in the above paragraph, in 2008 Match.com had revenues of $368.8 million with 1,347,300 paid members in Q4, 2008. It will be interesting to see the number of paid members reported once the European operations have been removed. Currently 13 percent of revenues come from Europe.

The partnership between Meetic and Match.com will take several months to complete. At this moment it is unknown how this may affect members at Match.com European dating sites.

On a last note, I have to say that I am still surprised by this move from Match.com. We just did a story earlier this month which showed that Match.com UK memberships rose 26 percent in January.

Here is the gender ratios of members at ChristianCafe.com grouped by age range for January 2009:

Source: Online Personals Watch

Except for members who are 18 - 20 years old, females make up the greater percentage of members at Christian Cafe. As you move up in each age range segment, females gain a few more percentage points over the previous segment. By the 51 - 60 age rage there are twice as many females as males. Does this mean older males are less likely to consider Religion as an important factor in dating or do just more older females join dating sites in general compared to men of similar age?

For more information on this award winning dating site, read our ChristianCafe.com review.

According to Forrester Research Inc, in 2008 the online dating industry comes in as the third largest in terms of revenue.

1. Video Games - $1,866 million
2. Digital Music - $1,732 million
3. Online Dating - $957 million

Check out Robert L. Mitchell Computerworld Blog for more details.

Pasadena Weekly recently received a tour of the Pasadena-based dating website, eHarmony, and in particular eHarmony Labs were they develop the matching algorithm used by the dating site. eHarmony Labs is the research arm of the dating site. Here they:

are committed to investigating and understanding what makes relationships successful through rigorous scientific methodology.

Their mission is to conduct and support research on relationship processes using academic researchers and by gathering their findings through an established scientific process. Since eHarmony Labs has come into existence a number of studies from eHarmony's research has been submitted for peer review and has been published in such prestigious publications as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see APA Online).

As online dating has become more mainstream, dating sites have been under increased pressure to divulge how their match systems work. eHarmony has taken a bold step with eHarmony Labs. From here you can see what the Lab is currently up to, who works there and, what the current relationship studies are about. You can also take part in several online studies and even take part in research in person (if you are eligible). Some of these studies even allow you to make a bit of money. While they only tell you in broad strokes how the eHarmony matching system works (by matching personality traits, values, attitudes and interests), from eHarmony Labs you can tell the company is serious about figuring out what makes a successful relationship and by applying this research to matching singles together.

So, take the tour with Pasadena Weekly and find out more on how some of these relationship studies take place and about the researchers behind them. For more information about eHarmony, read our review.

Forbes did a story called Thrifty Singles Embrace Online Dating in which they looked at Match.com International and how it is performing in Britain. According to the article, UK memberships rose 26 percent in January when compared to the previous year. Overall traffic to the dating site grew 17 percent.

Forbes also updated us on some stats about singles in the UK. There are currently 8 million singles and they went on 24 million first dates. 69 percent of the dates were arranged through online dating sites and social networks.

For more information on this award winning dating service, read our Match.com International review.