General News

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

I found a news piece that contains some predictions that the number of singles who will pay to use online dating sites may have reach its limit. They mention several statistics to support this including one from ComScore which saw unique visitors to all dating sites fall in the month of March, even though Internet traffic grew by 6%. The author also pointed out that Match.com subscriber growth slowed and only increased by 1% in 2007 where as it increased by 25% in 2006. There was also several other points mention to support his theory.

My view on things is that the glory days of online dating in North America where the main online dating sites posted double digit subscriber growth numbers is probably over. There are so many options available now in the United States for singles to join. They have the choice now to join numerous social networks and free or paid dating sites to find a match. The thing is, It is very difficult for anyone to figure out what the best choice is for them when even a high school kid can buy a cheap but fully functional dating script, install it on a web server and make it appear that the dating web site offers everything a single needs (except other members).

I don't think it is all bad news though. Of the roughly 90 million singles in the United States, only 3 million are actively using an online dating service. 87 million customers is still a huge target market. Dating Companies now, are also expanding into Europe and Asia where online dating is just starting to catch on.

The unofficial eHarmony Blog noted a small announcement on eHarmony Canada that RelyID will be available soon. RelyID on the US eHarmony site allows members to validate their full name, age and address (see eHarmony now has an Online ID Verification Service for more info). eHarmony Blog does wonder if a company that isn’t covered by Canadian privacy laws well have success in getting Canadians to hand over their private identification information to be verified on a dating site.

Being a Canadian myself, eHarmony Blog has a good point. The thing is, I would of never of thought of the problems dealing with an American company who may not be governed under our own privacy laws. I doubt this point would have been made apparent to those who will sign up for the RelyID Canadian service. eHarmony or RelyID should make sure we are covered by our own privacy laws (maybe open an office in Canada?) or at least inform us if we are not.

From a few requests for more information on actual subscription numbers etc.. of dating services (and for me to keep track of information better as well) I decided to create a facts and statistics page of the online dating industry, including separate sections for the more popular dating services. This was originally going to be part of a wiki I am developing for online dating but I decided to try it this format first and then maybe move it to the wiki type format where others can add information as well. Right now it is only one page but this may change as the layout for this information develops.

There is limited information organized at the moment but, I am updating the page with more every day. References are included from where the facts was found. This includes newspaper articles, press releases and the actual dating services. If you have any reliable information you wish to add please drop us a note.

You can view the new page here and a permanent link is also available in the left blocks under Resources.

In Japan, 8 popular matchmaker services created a industry association that will introduce later this year a system which will certify the quality of service of matchmakers. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will be helping to create this certification system. Some of the points that this certification will address are:

... clear-cut explanations of contract documents, cancellation policies and an obligation by the service providers to obtain public documents certifying that applicants are single.

Some estimates conclude there are almost 3,700 matchmaking companies in Japan with about 600,000 customers. These include both offline and online services.

This new Matchmaking Industry Association is in response to a huge rise in complaints over the last few years in Japan. In 2007 there was 2,871 complaints up 80% since 2000.

When reading the article the one guideline that the association wants to tackle that I was surprised about was "certifying that applicants are single". I'm not sure how possible this is. They can check for marriage licenses but, what can they really do beyond that?

There is a small article at the Calgary Herald which mentions a Ipsos Reid survey about Canadians. The survey asked 1,033 Canadians several questions about relationships and love. The following conclusions where reached:

• 70 percent of Canadians are in love (80 percent of woman and 67 percent of men).
• In total 16 percent found love online. When split into age ranges, the 18 to 34 demographic leads with over 25 percent finding love online. Only 7 percent found love aged 55 or older.

So what did we find out from this poll and how does it relate to online dating? Well it seems there are approximately one third of Canadians not in love. This means online dating sites who service Canadians has a market of about 10 million people. It also appears that 84 percent of singles who are in love found it offline, with the other 16 percent finding it online. It is too bad they didn't mention how many Canadians were not successful in finding a mate online, we would then have a more complete picture on how successful online dating is.