Seniors

Lavalife is in the midst of testing their new site for older and senior singles called Lavallife Prime. Officially to launch on May 23, 2007, Lavalife Prime looks to combine social networking (friends and interest groups) and online dating. They plan to offer people the freedom to add to your profile any life experiences, goals and interests you have along with any audio, pictures and videos that go with it. An interesting idea, most social networking sites are geared towards the younger generation, I wonder if this will be the one for the older?

Currently you can only create a profile on Lavalife Prime. You will have to wait to May 23rd to be able to log in and try it out.

While online dating is still dominated by singles who are in their 20s or 30s the highest growing demographic in online dating is the Baby Boomer generation. These 50+ singles are more tech savvy, have more time and more money than previous generations so it is a perfect fit. Also, a lot of these senior singles children have left home which also frees up both time and money for them to do other things.

According to a Media Life article called "Finding silver in the silver singles set", over 53% of visitors to Yahoo! Personals where over the age of 45 in February, 2007. This high percentage of older singles also holds true for the other major dating sites like AmericanSingles.com, True and eHarmony. Their percentages ranged from the high 30s and 40s.

The full Media Life article is here.

I just read an interesting article regarding Match.com. They are one of the largest dating services on the internet, and this success is due partly to their marketing towards singles between the ages of 45 and 59 (Baby Boomers). These singles make up over 1.7 million members of Match.com's 15 million total membership, this is a 350% increase over the last 6 years. Another interesting thing to note is 7 out of 10 of these members are divorcees.

For more information, see the full article here.