Lavalife

Lavalife's latest dating service called LavalifePRIME for mature singles celebrated its first anniversary last week. Lavalife calls this site "one of the world's first social dating sites", since it is a combination of online dating and social networking features (which dating site isn't these days). This free site is geared towards singles 45 years or older and has gathered more than 40,000 members since it opened May 2007.

LavalifePRIME includes forums where members can discuss almost any topic. You can post unlimited photos, send messages, chat with other members in groups or message one on one. Since this site is free there are a fair number of ads displayed on most pages you visit. LavalifePRIME is still in beta and I have to wonder if they plan on keeping the site free (will they make enough with the online ads to cover costs) or once they have enough members will it become a paid service? This site does compete with Lavalife itself so, I wouldn't be surprised if it does become paid eventually, especially since income from paid advertising isn't as profitable as it use to be.

Related Stories: Lavalife Looking for Older Singles

ZDNet posted the results of ad spending by dating sites for quarters 1 to 3 in 2007. These figures are compiled by Nielsen. It looks like the top ten dating websites in ad spending where responsible for 91 percent of all dating site advertising. Of the over $350 million spent in ads, Match.com spent 40 percent of it or $145.5 million. eHarmony was second at $88.1 million. Since 2006, Match.com has almost doubled their ad spending while eHarmony had cut theirs by 16%. It would be interesting to see how this affected membership numbers.

The other sites that made the list in which we have dating reviews for includes, Yahoo! Personals at the sixth position with $14 million, PerfectMatch.com at position number 8 with $13.4 million and finally, Lavalife with $6.1 million at number 9.

A few other things to note is, these numbers includes both internet and TV advertising. Match.com and eHarmony have successful TV marketing campaigns which probably eats into at least half of the total amount they spent. I also have to wonder if Match.com's numbers (which really are the numbers of their parent company IAC/InterActiveCorp) includes Chemistry.com (who is also owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp). It was around Q3 of 2007 when Chemistry was spending a lot of money on those eHarmony attack TV ads.

I've decided to do a little more research of my own on the Better Business Bureau in regards to dating sites. This was after seeing an article about rising complaints (see Increased Complaints Registered Against Dating Services).

First a bit more on how the BBB works. To do a BBB search on a company visit their home page. The best way I found to find dating sites was to type in the domain name without the www prefix. Just a note here, most free or small dating sites are not found on the BBB. Once you have initiated a search, a list of companies may then come up. Some have nothing to do with what you are looking for while others may deal with separate branches or offices of the company. As an example, do a search on "yahoo.com" and you will get 22 results. Another thing to remember (which I didn't realize at first) is a company doesn't have to be a member to have a report on them. Actual BBB members are denoted with an icon and usually contain a lot more information than companies that are not members. When you click on the name of the company it will bring you to the report page of the company on the local Better Business Bureau website. These local BBB websites are not all the same and some have a lot more information available than others. All the information I am giving below seems to be how most of the BBB websites display their information. Some BBB sites like the one serving Los Angeles displays the information differently. They grade the company and actually shows some or all of the customers complaints. This seems to be an update to the service and may be how other BBB sites will soon follow.

From this Press Release, Lavalife announced the launching of a free Canadian online city guide. Called Where to Go, this guide currently has entries for 5 major Canadian cities. The cities are Toronto Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. When you visit the site once you have selected the the city, you can then view different restaurants, bars and attractions that are recommended places to take your date. For the more serious relationships there is also a travel, spa and hotel guide.

This is a good idea for probably about 20% of the singles meeting online. Most people look for matches in or near their city where both parties already know the local hot spots. This will be used more for people traveling to meet someone in a city they are both familiar with. It is much better to surprise your date than asking him or her where they would like to go. What would be nice to see is members of Lavalife make recommendations. This way you would probably get a lot more of the smaller restaurants and bars that can offer a more cosy and romantic atmosphere.

FriendFinder does something similar to the Where to Go guide but, it is actually built right into the dating site. FriendFinder goes a step further by offering member recommendations, reviews and ratings on their listings.

Recipient
Lavalife

Our choice for this years Top Pick - Canadian Award for a dating site is Lavalife. This Canadian owned and operated dating service first got it's start as a Teleclassifieds in Toronto and the quickly moved to become Telepersonals in 1988. By 2001 the company had changed its name to Lavalife and expanded it's target audience to not only in Canada but in the United States and Australia as well. Since then it has become the most popular paid online dating service in Canada and one of the more popular choices in the United States (based on several ranking systems, including Hitwise). Of all our reviewed dating services, Lavalife has, by far, the most Canadian Members.

With 20 years in the personals business, Lavalife has the experience to deliver an excellent matchmaking opportunity to its members. One of the unique features with Lavalife is the ability to create up to 3 different profiles. One for each of the following dating relationship communities: Casual Dating, Relationship and Intimate Encounters. This allows Lavalife members to receive 3 services in one. Where a lot of other dating site companies tend to create 3 different sites so they can charge members 3 different times. Another major feature of Lavalife is the ability to reply to emails as a free member, this means if someone spots your profile when you are using a trial membership and they send you a message, you are able to reply. Most sites don't allow any type of communication unless you are a full member.

Lavalife has put a lot of effort into updating their site recently with a new interface and tweaking of features (chatting, instant messenger) to make using the dating site easier for singles. As competition in the dating industry remains tough, Lavalife has stayed on top by offering a dating service that works!

Read our review of Lavalife for more information about this dating service or visit Lavalife directly.

This Years Runner Ups for this award include (in no particular order): Date.ca and Canadian Personals.

It seems like a fair number of the major dating services have been updating there services recently. The latest dating site to do this is, Lavalife. Along with new features, Lavalife has also received a facelift. Though not a major interface overhaul, Lavalife did make their site cleaner looking and easier to navigate.

The major new features which Lavalife added include:

• While you are Instant Messaging with a single, it is now easier to view profile information on the person. This was complained about before and I am glad Lavalife listen to their members.
• The photo gallery now allows you to share up to 30 photos with the ability to assign the pictures to one or more of Lavalife's 3 communities (dating, relationship and intimate encounters).
• Members are now also allowed to upload high quality videos (up to 6).

According to Hitwise (Oct. 2007) Lavalife is the top Canadian dating site and is one of the top ten worldwide. You can read our Lavalife Review and user submitted reviews or go directly too Lavalife.com for more information on this dating service.