Statistics

Spark Networks second quarter financial report was released last week (the quarter ended June 30). Overall revenue for this quarter was $10.3 million with a net income of $0.9 million. When these values are compared to quarter 2 last year, revenue is down by 8 percent and net income is down by 47 percent. Total costs this quarter is $8.6 million which is a decrease of 8 percent when compared to the same time last year of $9.3 million. As a whole the company had 160,239 subscribers. This is a decrease of 2 percent from Q2, 2009.

The Jewish Networks (mostly JDate) revenue for quarter 2 was $6.7 million. This is a decrease of 6 percent when compared to last year. On the upside average paying subscribers was 89,055 which is an 8 percent increase for JDate when compared to the same time in 2009.

The Other Affinity Networks (MingleMatch dating sites) saw revenue reach $2.8 million this quarter. This is down by 16 percent when compared to last year. The average paying subscriber did not fall as hard and was only down 2 percent to 64,083.

Lastly, the General Market Networks revenue is $298,000. This is 57 percent less revenue that they earned, when compared to the same quarter last year. Subscribers fared no better and fell 54 percent to 6,434.

For the full 2010 Q2 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks First Quarter 2010 Financials

Almost 2 months ago Zoosk reported that their Facebook Fan page had over 1 million fans. I checked today and they currently have 1,612,923 Facebook Fans. Here is a YouTube video that Zoosk put together to mark the milestone.

That certainly is a large number of fans and the increase of 600 thousand fans in under 2 months is an achievement itself (that is roughly 10,000 Facebook Fans a day). This is by far the largest number of Fans any dating site has on Facebook. Two other popular online dating sites only have about 6,000 each.

For more information on this popular dating site, read our review of Zoosk.com.

Religious singles who are looking for love are turning to niche online dating sites for help in their searches. According to a recent article in The Denver Post, these singles are looking for someone to marry who shares their faith and values.

Dating website CatholicMatch.com boasts 150,000 active members and is the largest online dating pool of single Catholics. Its founder Brian Barcaro explains, "I think because of the high divorce rate and number of broken families, there is a resurgence in people looking carefully at what makes a successful marriage. They are turning back to their faith."

Barcaro says the website tries to serve a broad spectrum of Catholics, but it does include important religious questions such as mass attendance and adherence to church teachings on issues like contraception and premarital sex.

Some subscribers such as Erin McCabe, who has been on the site for four years, say that their faith and religious life have been enhanced since joining.

Barcaro was a law student looking to meet people when he launched the dating website back in 2003. Its tagline, "Grow in faith, Fall in love" is the reason Catholic singles find this option so appealing.

As Christina Newman states, before she married a man she met through CatholicMatch.com, "I was having a really hard time finding a young Catholic man who was willing to go to Mass with me and practice the faith." Also, many of her friends had divorced, and Newman wanted more reassurance her union would last.

Religious dating sites seem to fill a void for those who are looking for commitment and shared values. Turning to faith provides them more opportunities in finding love.

For more information on this dating service, read our review of CatholicMatch.com.

Catholic singles who are looking to marry are turning to their religious roots, according to a recent article in The Denver Post. Rather than looking for matches based on similar interests or careers, they look for people who hold the same faith, values, and outlook.

When it comes to dating, Catholics do have a lot of choice. In 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life estimated there were 22.6 million single Catholics in the U.S.

Anastasia Northrop, who founded the National Catholic Singles Conference in 2005, explains the high numbers of single Catholics. She believes that "endless choices" have made it easy for people to shy away from marriage. She maintains, "people hesitate to commit because they want to keep their options open."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Northrop could be right. In the past five decades, the percentage of married men ages 35 to 44 has fallen from 88% in 1960 to 69% in 2007. For women, it has fallen from 87% to 72%. However, the popularity of online dating shows that people seem to be looking for partners, and a growing percentage of online daters are turning to religious dating sites such as CatholicMatch.com.

Perhaps the uncertainty of dating today plays a part. With the number of people remaining single through their thirties and forties, coupled with the high rates of divorce and broken families, people turn to religion for guidance and stability.

This is especially true for Catholic singles. As of 2008, the Pew Forum states that 78 percent of married Catholics were married to other Catholics. The only religious affiliations with higher same-faith unions were Hindus, 90 percent, and Mormons, 83 percent.

According to founders of religious dating sites like CatholicMatch.com, people look to religion because shared faith seems to boost chances of marital success.

Match.com in Australia (Match.com.au) has been in operation for 15 years now. They launched back in April of 2002 after buying out Soulmates Technology. To celebrate this milestone they have released some Aussie statistics about Match.com:

• More than 80,000 profiles are viewed every day.
• Everyday 16,000 winks and messages are sent. This equals to 6.5 million communications a year.
• 67% of Australian singles have never been married.
• 59% of members are looking for a non-smoker.
• 90% of members are okay with a partner who drinks on occasion.
• Gold Coast members are 45% more likely to have children than those members from Sydney.
• 64% of men are looking for a partner who has some tertiary education. With women it is 71%.

To find out more information about this dating site, read our review of Match.com.

Quepasa.com is a social network website with over 13 million members that services the Latino online community. According to Compete their traffic has increased 5 times to 275,000 unique visitors a month, over the last 6 months. Last week an announcement was made that Quepasa has partnered with the dating site Zoosk to make their service for singles the primary option to all of Quepasa members. This partnership benefits both companies. It gives Zoosk a large, new, and relatively untapped singles market and it gives Quepasa an additional revenue generating service.

Members of Quepasa can expect the dating service from Zoosk to go live by the end of this month.

To find out more about the dating site you can read our Zoosk review.