Online Dating

As with North American dating sites (see Story), the European online dating sites have seen a boost in memberships during the downturn in the economy. Match.com International UK and European dating sites saw a pre-tax profit of £3.67m ($5.6 million US) in the year to December 31 2007. The year before they saw a loss of £2.19m ($3.4 million US). In the third quarter this year Match International saw a 6 percent increase in paying members. For the next few years Match foresees Europe driving it's growth as the North American online dating market slows. Last year the UK and Scandinavia was where Match.com International saw its best growth.

Other dating services like those run by WhiteLabelDating.com saw members grow over the last year in the United Kingdom by 250 percent to over 1 million members. Nielsen Online is also reporting a 15 percent increase in unique visitors to online dating site November 2008, when compared to 2007. For European dating sites in the last year the total number of visitors have increased by 20 percent. The year before it was 9 percent.

For the full story visit The Telegraph. Read our Match.com UK review for more information on this popular dating service.

On Wednesday January 7th Lavalife announced their search for Canada's 10 most eligible singles. This is the third year in a row for the event.

All singles have to do is sign up for free to become a member of Lavalife.com, have a great photo and a creative and engaging "In My Own Words" profile. The deadline to enter is Tuesday, February 3, 2009.

On February 18, the judges will announce 30 semi-finalists. At this point the public can visit Lavalife and vote for Lavalife's 2009 Top 10 finalists. On March 11th Lavalife will announce the 10 winners.

The winners will receive a 3 day trip to Toronto and tickets to Lavalife's Red Hot Affair. The grand prize is $10,000 and the runner up will receive a all-inclusive trip for two to Negril, Jamaica, courtesy of Bel Air Travel.

For the full press release, read it at Newswire. For more information on this online dating site, read our Lavalife review.

CNN has a humorous look at 5 online dating types woman should avoid in men. Here are the dating types and a summary of what each one is:

• Ayn Rand fan - The guy who lists "The Fountainhead" as his favorite book.
• Carpet bomber - The man who is looking for absolutely anyone.
• Finicky freak- The 45 year old man who is only interested in someone under 27 and who is a perfect 10.
• Kliché King - A guy who uses all of the dating clichés in his profile. As example, he likes long walks on a beach.
• Torso Tossor - The guy that shows only his abs and not his face in photos.He is married and/or only interested in sex.

For more details on these online dating types, visit CNN Living.

MillionaireMatch.com now displays a member count on their homepage. As of writing, there are 1,071,634 member profiles available on this dating service. Since it is free to place a lifetime ad at MillionaireMatch.com, this number shouldn't be confused with the number of active members. The number being displayed is the number of members who have joined MillionaireMatch.com since it started, which was around 2001. Active members refers to members who routinely log in and use the site. Unfortunately there is no standard measurement for this so some dating sites count an active member as someone who has logged in within 2 years while others count a member as active when someone logs in at least once a month.

While this number is not the number of active members it still represents a large number of profiles. This probably means that Millionaire Match has tens of thousands active members. You should also remember that all free members can reply to a paid members email so this can greatly increase your chances of finding a match when you compare Millionaire Match to other Sugar Daddy dating sites.

Read our full Millionaire Match review for more information on this popular and award winning dating service.

As the economy continues its downward trend in December, singles continue to use online dating sites in increasing numbers. Are people trying to save money on dates by finding a better match first through a dating service rather than trolling bars? A night out on the town with your single friends is expensive when you add up all the costs, cab fare, drinks and cover charge. For probably much less than a night out with friends, you can join a dating site for a month. Some statistics from an article by the Los Angeles Times seem to back up this thinking:

Craigslist personals postings and eHarmony.com registrations have each seen 20% increases in 2008. Match.com has seen an even larger spike; its memberships were 22% higher in December than they were in the same period last year. Even more interesting, both eHarmony and Match.com reported especially high traffic on days when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted.

Match.com also reported a 50% increase in profile views for the month of December when compared to November. Remember, November also saw its share of increases as well, where dating sites like Match.com, Perfectmatch.com and Date.com all saw more members joining and/or participating in the month of November, when compared to the same month from previous years. Match.com also performed a survey of 1,500 members and found 84 percent of them were "being more selective about first dates in today's economy."

For more information about the online dating sites and how they are performing in the recession, read this article from the Los Angeles Times. Check out our reviews of Match.com, PerfectMatch.com and Date.com for more information on these successful dating services.

I've been sick lately (and still am) so I have some catching up to do on news posting.

On December 23, 2008 FriendFinder Networks filed for a $460 million IPO. My first thought was it is an interesting time to file with the downturn of the economy. Adult FriendFinder is the major revenue generator of the FriendFinder Networks and with the latest posts about dating sites doing better in these market conditions, maybe the recession is not as much a concern. Still, there are less people out there with money to invest.

The other big issue is the proceeds of this will be used for the most part to pay off debt. Most investors tend not to like this type of scenario. I'm not sure where this debt came from. FriendFinder Networks was bought last December (see Story) by Penthouse for $500 million. I assume at this point, the FriendFinder accounting books where in a positive territory. I can't see Penthouse buying them for so much money if FriendFinder had a huge debt. This new debt must of come from Penthouse.