Statistics

The 50 plus singles crowd is not necessarily looking for casual dates. They are looking for a long term relationships that offer companionship. This group of online daters still is being reported as the fastest growing group of singles on dating sites. In the last U.S. Census, seniors are also a growing demographic. It was reported that there are 95.9 million single people in America. 15.8 million (16.5 %) of these people are 65 years or older (see Story). Let's see how some of the more popular dating sites are performing in this demographic.

Match.com is reporting 16 percent of men and 17 percent of women members are 50 or older. Match.com also reported 1,403 million paying subscribers in quarter 3 of this year so this means there are about 236,000 members on Match who are at least 50.

eHarmony's first quarter of 2009 saw a 20 percent growth in users 60 and over when compared to 2008. While we don't have any actual subscriber numbers, we do know that the average age on eHarmony is 35 and that they have been getting about 3.6 million unique visitors per month on their dating sites (US, UK, and Canada).

In the last 5 years Lavalife.com more than doubled its members who are 45 or older. In response to this surge in members, LavalifePRIME was launched in 2007 and now has more than 70,000 members.

To find out more about the dating sites listed here please read our eHarmony review, Match.com review, and our LavalifePRIME review. For more dating site specifically for seniors, check out our Dating Over 50 category.

CEO Noel Biderman is the face of Ashley Madison, and he has taken the marketing of the affairs dating site to the next level. He has a partnership with the Howard Stern's Sirius XM radio show, has ads on billboards and has created TV commercials (that most never seem to be allowed on air, see Story). He has even started to market AshleyMadison.com as a place where the married can pursue their same-sex attractions.

Currently The Ashley Madison Agency has between 4.6 and 4.7 million members who have logged on seeking and extramarital affair (I assume since the site launched in 2001). 30 percent (or 1.41 million) of these members are women. Also, about 150 thousand members are looking for a same-sex affair with two thirds being women looking for women. From a survey run on the affairs site, 50 percent of all respondents (both men and women) are not first timers and admit to cheating within a relationship at least once.

It is estimated that Ashley Madison generates tens of millions in revenue a year. People who have created a membership on the website can search for other members for free but must buy credits to message or chat. Ashley Madison even guarantees an affair with their most expensive subscription package. For $249 USD it is guaranteed you will find someone in 3 months to have an affair with, or you will get your money refunded. Currently AshleyMadison.com is the leading extramarital affairs dating site in the United States, Canada and Australia.

For more on this story, read MSN Money.

On November 5th, 2009 Spark Networks reported their third quarter results which ended on September 30, 2009. For Q3, 2009 Spark Networks revenue was $11.1 million. This is a 21 percent decrease from Q3, 2008 of $14 million and a 2 percent decrease from last quarter. For the first 9 months of this year total revenue is now at $34.3 million which is a 22 percent decrease from last year of $44.1 million.

The Jewish Networks saw revenue fall to $7.1 million for Q3. For the same quarter last year, revenue was 16 percent more at $8.4 million. Some good news is to be found though, for the first time in a few quarters, the Jewish Networks had an increase of subscribers to 86,051. This is a decrease of 6 percent from Q3, 2008 but a 4 percent increase from the prior quarter.

The Other Affinity Networks (MingleMatch) saw a decrease of 9% in revenue to $3.2 million when compared to last year. This is 3 percent less than the last quarter. Subscriber wise for the third quarter, there was 66,786. This is virtually identical to Q3 in 2008 and a 2 percent increase from last quarter.

Online Dating in the UK is booming. Last year more than five million adults in the UK used the internet to find their partner and the money these online daters spent on dating sites was over £80 million. Now days, one in five people who marry, met that person online. By next year (2010) it is estimated that there will be 16 million singles in the UK, which means there is only room for online dating to grow.

One segment of the dating industry which is becoming more popular are services that offer psychological questionnaires. Dating sites like Match.com UK, Chemistry (North America), DatingDirect.com and eHarmony all offer services that use science to determine matches. Each of these sites will ask you dozens (or hundreds) of questions on your values, attitudes, emotions and personality traits. These questions help the dating site to scientifically analyze how you interpret situations, how you react to problems and how you make decisions. With this information in hand the service then pairs you with potential partners who you should be highly compatible with. This goes beyond love at first sight.

But where did psychometric testing come from?

Developed in the early 20th century by scientists, these tests are detailed questions assessing your intellect, personality traits and knowledge. They were used to recruit spies by the British during World War II and were then later taken up by the CIA.

In the Sixties, Professor Raymond Cattell invented questionnaires that looked at a range of personality traits in the workplace. The Civil Service still uses the system today both in recruiting and to help its managers find the best way to manage their staff according to their psychometric profiles.

Psychometric testing does work but it is still only part of the matching process. People need to be honest with themselves about who they are or they are not going to get real compatible matches from these sites. Members also need to realize that what their perceived ideal match may be, it may not be what the science of matching has found to be the most highly compatible with their personality type. Members of these dating sites need to take a chance and go into online dating with an open mind.

For more on the story, read the Mail Online. To find further details about the dating sites mentioned in this story which offer psychometric assessments, read our Match.com UK review, Chemistry review, DatingDirect.com review and eHarmony review.

Free dating site OkCupid recently did several studies about online dating emails, looking at over a million of their members. They took a look first at the words that people wrote to one another and how those words correlated to response rate. (Here's a hint: Use proper English and not netspeak if you want replies.) But probably their most controversial article related to how your race determines the amount of replies you will receive.

We all want to assume that people are a lot more colorblind than they used to be, but OkCupid has found that's simply not the case. Even if we say that race doesn't matter, the numbers don't lie - it really does.

OkCupid's CEO, Sam Yagan, told NPR's Michel Martin that they were intrigued by the idea that they could get some answers to the questions people have about the role race plays in online dating. After all, when people are asked to state their dating preferences in their profile, they check off certain boxes. Do those boxes match up to the emails they deem worthy of a reply?

Some people have this vision of the type of people on your average online dating site. Assuming the very worst version of this vision, here's what the legions of online daters are:

• Losers
• Freaks
• Geeks/Nerds
• Psychopaths/Murderers/Con Artists
• Depressed People
• The Mentally Ill
• Ugly People
• Fat People
• People with No Social Skills
• People with No Friends
• People with No Life
• Etc, etc, etc.

While ANY subset of the population will include the people above, it is unfair to assume that online dating contains a majority of the "undesirables" of society. Let me give you a little example of who is really doing online dating: