Statistics

PlentyOfFish has just updated their mobile dating applications for both the iPhone and Android OSs. The big improvement with this version is speed and lower bandwidth use. This is achieved by caching the profile and picture data retrieved from POF so it is only downloaded once or when updated.

Other improvements include easier editing of both photos and profiles. Pinching and zooming profile pictures has been added along with updates to editing your location and searching for local users. Users can also now just search for mobile users near them.

The POF App on the Android Market currently has a rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars with almost 6,000 votes. According to a number of reviews the only thing missing from the app is the ability to chat via text.

For more on this story please read the press release. To find out about this dating site and what other singles think you should check out our PlentyOfFish review.

Plenty of Fish is looking to hire a Database Administrator (DBA) so if you are interested in the job and have the qualifications you should comment on their blog. Markus also released a few statistics about his dating site and what the DBA will be up against. Last year alone Plenty of Fish sent out 5.5 billion messages. This works out to about 15 million a day. He also noted that Plenty of Fish's Behavioral Matching Engine deals with almost 20 billion pieces of data from their 30 million plus registered users that is stored in their database.

What this all boils down to is POF needs some heavy duty hardware to run its website and a DBA that knows how to optimize databases and SQL statements.

For more information on this free dating service you can read our PlentyofFish.com review.

How have marriage and divorce changed over the years?

In 2009. the United States Census Bureau surveyed 39,000 households in an attempt to get a glimpse into the evolution of marriage and divorce in America. The results from the Survey of Income and program Participation (SIPP) were just released, and FlowingData.com used their findings to create visual charts of the state of America marriage. You can see the original graphs here, at their website.

Their primary finding concerns the ages at which men and women choose to marry. "In 1986," says FlowingData.com, "nearly three-quarters of women from 25 to 29 years old had married at least once, while in 2009, only about half of women in the age group have married."

In each survey year - 1986, 1996, 2001, 2004, and 2009 - the graph shows the same trend: the lowest percentage of married people fall into the 25-29 years bracket, and the percentage steadily increases through each successive age bracket until it peaks at "55 and older." The huge disparity seen in the 25-29 years category between the 1986 graph and the 2009 graph is almost completely gone by the time participants had reached the 55+ group, where the points from the two graphs nearly intersect.

In most age and race groups, according to the survey, a "lower percentage of people were married in 2009 than in 1986. However, in some groups, such as those 55 years and older, a higher percentage of people were married in 2009 then in 1986; although the differences are quite small." The SIPP results also confirmed that, in 2009, it was no longer particularly uncommon for someone, either male or female, to be married more than once.

Divided into ethnic groups, the survey found that, though in most cases fewer marriages happened for each age bracket in 2009 than in 1986, marriage in both years increased at a fairly steady rate (regardless of race) as age increased. The lowest percentage of married people for all ethnic groups fell in "25-29 years," and the highest in "55 and older." The greatest differences between 1986 and 2009 are seen in the 25-29 age bracket for all races.

And what of the infamous seven year itch? According to this survey, the idea of the seven year itch isn't completely accurate, but it isn't far from the truth either. "The median marrying age for men is 24.5," reports FlowingData.com, "and median divorce age is 32.0. For women: 22.3 and 30.1, respectively."

Here are some dating statistics from the POF Blog. I believe these numbers are for 2011 and just concern the United States.

• There are 54 million singles
• Of those 10 percent (5.5 million) are currently using a dating service
• 2.6 million pay for the service leaving 2.9 million that do not.
• Overall 8.8 million have tried online dating

According to the US Census in 2009 there were 95.9 million unmarried people in the US. So I guess about 40 percent of those must be in some sort of common law relationship and just have not married. I believe that the 10 percent figure of people who use dating sites probably has not changed much over the last 5 years. The trick now for dating sites is to get the other 49 million to try online dating.

What effects does Facebook have on our romantic lives?

Online Dating University set out to find the answer, and produced a colorful infographic that shows us exactly what happens to our relationships when we live in public. Check it out here, via All Facebook.

Some interesting facts include:

• Approximately 60% of all Facebook users report a relationship status on their profile.
• The United States, South Africa, Iceland, the UK, and Canada are the five countries with the highest percentage of users reporting a relationship status.
• The average percentage of single Facebook users, by country, is 39%.
• Jordan is home to the largest percentage of Facebook users who list themselves as single on the site.
• The highest percentage of Facebook users who state that they're in a relationship of any kind (from "it's complicated" to "married") reside in Finland.
• Ghana has the greatest percentage of single male Facebook users, but women make up a greater percentage of Facebook's user base at large.
• As of December 2010, women outnumbered men on the site at a rate of 1.28 to 1.

2010, as it turns out, might not have been a great year for relationships. 37% of Facebook users changed their relationship status to "single" during the year, and 3% found themselves in relationships that were "complicated." 24% listed themselves as "in a relationship," while 5% became "engaged" and 31% were "married."

According to the infographic, documenting your love life on Facebook can have the following effects:

1. Overanalyzing. When you spend too much time on Facebook, you run the risk of becoming intensely aware of the activity on your love interest's profile. Over analyzing everything you see him or her post is likely to lead to feelings of insecurity.
2. Oversharing. What happens if you change your relationship status on Facebook but your partner doesn't? Publically recording every detail of your relationship can lead to unwanted confrontations and awkward moments, as well as public heartbreak if the relationship ends. Plus, future partners might not appreciate being privy to every detail of your past love affairs.
3. Unhealthy concern with the remarks of others. It's easy to become excessively concerned with the comments left by other people, and equally as easy to misinterpret harmless comments as competition. Unwarranted jealousy is a side effect of social networking for many Facebook users.
4. Constant reminders of lost love. Break ups are challenging at the best of times, but the access Facebook provides to your ex, and the constant reminders of his or her new life without you, makes the end of a relationship even more difficult.

How do you deal with these problems? Continue to Part II for Online Dating University's suggestions.

To find out more on how to use this social network as an online dating tool please read our review of Facebook.com.

A dating site for singles 50-plus called OurTime.com was launched the other day by People Media. People Media is owned by IAC which also owns the popular dating services Match.com and Chemistry.

OurTime.com launched with over 1 million profiles in its database. These profiles were gathered from some of IAC's existing dating sites that had singles which matched a number of criteria, including being over the age of 50. Combining all of these profiles into one dating site makes OurTime.com one of the larger services online to cater this niche.

Singles visiting OurTime.com can expect the members to be more interested in long-term relationships and companionship rather than marriage. Members tend also to be more traditional in their thinking and much happier with their personal lives when compared to someone younger.

For more on this story you can read the press release. At the moment we do not have a review of OurTime.com but for a similar dating service you should check out our Senior People Meet review.

Update: Our new review of OurTime.com is now available online.