Statistics

On March 4th, 2010 Spark Networks reported quarter 4 earnings for 2009 and their year end results (which was on Dec. 31, 2009). Revenue for the fourth quarter was $11.1 million which was a decrease of 16% from the same quarter last year. Spark Networks reported a lost for this quarter of $9.6 million and for the full year, a net loss of $6.4 million. Total revenue for 2009 was $45.4 million; in 2008 it was $53.7 million. CEO Adam Berger is quoted in the press release about this the losses:

It’s no surprise to anyone following us this past year that 2009 was extremely challenging for us as revenue declined by 21% with nearly half of the decline coming from our highly profitable Jewish Networks segment ... We accelerated our cost cutting program to offset the revenue decline but were unable to overcome the $8.9 million contribution1 decline and ended up suffering a $5.7 million decline in Adjusted EBITDA

Average paying subscribers for Spark Networks was 168,646 for quarter 4 2009 which is a 5 percent decrease when compared to quarter 4 in 2008. For the full year, average paying subscribers was 166,267. This is down 11 percent from 186,957 in 2008.

While Jewish Networks revenue fell 11 percent to $7.1 million, their subscribers grew by 4 percent to 90,567 in quarter 4. Average paying subscribers for General Market Networks (Spark.com and others) was 9,594. This is a decrease of 58 percent when compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. The Other Affinity Networks (MingleMatch) had better subscriber news and posted a 4 percent increase in subscribers to 67,725 during quarter 4 2009.

While Spark Networks continues to struggle, their balance sheet shows as of December 31, 2009 cash and cash equivalents of $6.2 million with no outstanding debt.

For the full 2009 Q4 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks Third Quarter 2009 Financials

Since Zoosk received $30 million in funding in December (see Story), their dating site traffic has increased by 3 times according to Compete's estimate. In the graph below it shows that in August of 2009 unique visitors had just crossed the 500,000 mark for Zoosk. In January of this year they had reached 2.7 million unique visitors.

It looks like Zoosk is spending at least some of the money they raised on advertising to increase traffic to their dating site. In an interview with Online Personals Watch, Alex Mehr, CEO Of Zoosk also mentions that their dating site has just reached 50 million members. Just 5 months ago Zoosk members numbered around 40 million. That is a lot of growth, which goes to show how using Facebook and its users to spread information about the dating site has really worked for them.

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

I was surprised when I learned that 80 percent of members at the dating site Mate1.com have never been married and have remained single. On the flip side this means on average at Mate1, 19% of men and 21% of women have been divorced. When you look at the data by country Ireland comes out on top at 94 percent for men and 91 percent for women who have never been married. Let's look at the data for other Countries:

• United States - 76% of men and women have never been married.
• Canada - 86% of men and 79% of women have never tied the knot.
• United Kingdom - 88% of men and 80% of women.

One other thing that I did find interesting was for all countries, there was always a higher percentage of men who were never married than women. Also, since Mate1 has such a high percentage of members who have never been married this seems to suggest that Mate1 members are more likely to be in their twenties and thirties.

For more on the story (including data for other countries) read Date Daily and to find further details about this dating site, read our review of Mate1.com.

I found an article which talks about the trouble with web traffic numbers. I have talked about this issue before but it is interesting to see it from the point for view of a large dating site like OkCupid. In January comScore reported that OKCupid had 735,000 unique visitors in January, 2010. This was an increase of about 200,000 from a year ago according to comScore. Sam Yagan, OKCupid chief executive stated that:

... comScore was significantly undercounting the site’s traffic.

For proof he gave the author of the article, Carl Bialik a Google Analytics report for OkCupid which showed almost 4.3 million unique visitors last month. This shows that comScore's estimate is off by 600 percent. All I can say is I am not surprised. Web traffic estimates from these types of traffic sites are usually way off the mark. For example our review site is vastly under estimated as well, in most cases over 4 times as much. The other statistic in which Sam Yagan mentioned was that during a normal day in February (Feb 18th I believe) they had 270,000 unique logins to their dating site. With almost a couple hundred thousand people logging in during a 24 hour period, this makes comScore's estimate of 735,000 unique visitors in a month seem laughably low.

Read more about this topic on the WSJ Blogs. To find out about this dating site, read our review of OKCupid.

If you missed installment one of this article series on OKCupid’s report on age-based dating practices, click here to read OKCupids Asks: Why Aren’t Men Into Older Women?

According to OKCupid, men are pretty much missing the boat when it comes to the women available in the dating pool. Why? Because they skew their age preferences toward women significantly younger and pay little attention to those even marginally older. Men would do much better, they say, at meeting their goals for a healthy, happy relationship if they didn’t rule out the “older woman.” OKCupid used a sample set of 100,000 female users in their study and narrowed down the case for older women into three key areas: sexuality, attitude and looks.

It’s incredible what OKCupid’s user data revealed about sexual preferences for the female population. The original post has a really cool “heat map” that shows, by sliding a slider from age 18 to 40, how female users’ sexual preferences change with age. The younger lean towards preferring sex once per week, while that preference distinctly changes as you approach and move beyond women in their 30s. (Guys – take note. No more complaints about lacking an active sex life if you’re ruling out women who may be a bit older than you!)

Older women also have healthier perspectives on sexual issues like contraception and STD testing according to the post, with older women feeling more strongly about protected sex and frequent STD testing. In a nutshell, younger females seem to want less frequent sex, do it unprotected and are less interested in regular STD testing. (Guys?)

The overall attitude of the older woman is better adjusted as well, according to OKCupid. Their member profile data indicated that women in their 40s have significantly high levels of self-confidence, are happier with their lives overall and feel that the best days of their lives are ahead of them. Now that’s a refreshing outlook, isn’t it? If you’re worried about getting marched to the altar, however, fear no more. 96% of women in their 40s are content being in a relationship that may not end in marriage, but only 62% of 18-year-old women can say the same.

The final area of comparison: looks. OKCupid cites a misconception that women become less attractive as they get older. They also rule-out those who are in long-term relationships or already married and may tend to pay less attention to their appearances. They concluded: women are equally as attractive, regardless of age. Want a real shocker? Check out the fabulous photos of actual OKCupid users at the end of the article. We think you’ll have a hard time guessing who’s the “older woman!”

Bottom line for the guys: maybe you want to take another look at your age preferences in your online dating profile. If you’re willing to pass up a great sex life with an attractive woman with a killer sense of self-confidence, well – your loss! But they’re out there and waiting – all you have to do is click. For more information on the dating site, check out our review of OkCupid.

Popular online dating website OKCupid recently dug into its member base and asked the question: why are men not seeking women of their equal age or older? According to their post-Valentine’s Day blog entry, the typical user on their site aged 22-30 states age preferences for female matches to be younger. Now, that was worth a deeper look by their staff and what they found might surprise you.

OKCupid’s user base peaks at about 7 million users aged 24 and drops significantly as age increases. This could simply be a factor of OKCupid having developed into an online dating site that caters to a younger crowd or that membership over age 30 decreases because people in those age brackets are in relationships/married. So herein lies the question that OKCupid set out to answer: why are older women on the site having a more difficult time matching-up than their male counterparts?

It all comes down to age preferences stated in the male user’s online dating profile, they say.

While the male to female user ratio on OKCupid stays fairly balanced across the age brackets, men consistently indicate in their user profiles that they prefer dating younger women. While they do indicate that they are open to older women, it’s with much narrower limits. For example: OKCupid’s average 31-year-old male user sets his age range preference for women as 22 to 35 – a full nine years younger but a mere 4 years older. And here’s the shocker – as male age increases, age preferences toward younger women skew even further. They give the example of their median 42-year-old male user typically looking for women up to fifteen years younger but only three years their senior.

Interestingly enough, when OKCupid flipped the coin, they found women to be much more tolerant of age ranges. Women on the site typically message those younger and older than themselves with equal frequency. They also become more open to dating older men after age 29 according to messaging practices tracked on the site.

So with the skew in view, where does that leave men and women in the quest to find a match when age enters the equation? Check out the second installment of this article: OKCupid Says Men Are Looking for Older Women and Just Don’t Know It. For more information on the dating site, check out our review of OkCupid.