Statistics

The Chicago Tribune has a story about dating when you have children. In it they discuss how the stigma has changed about single parents and dating. The author also mentions how online dating has started to change the way single parents can find dates and how it has become more socially acceptable to use. A number of interesting statistics were included:

Part of the story is the numbers. There are 12 million single parents living with children younger than 18 in the U.S., according to 2007 Census Bureau figures, a whopping 200 percent increase over 1970, when there were 4 million.

Another surprising number mentioned was, Match.com reported that 47% of its members in the United States have children.

I wonder if I should add Match.com to our Single Parent Dating Site Reviews Category?

In a really surprising move (at least IMO), Match.com has sold 100 percent of their European operations to Meetic for approximately a 27 percent share in the company. Match.com will also get a 5 million euro note plus some additional terms which has not been released. Over the last several years it has been a battle between these two companies for the European online dating market. It looks like instead of trying to beat their competition, Meetic decided to buy them out and give Match an offer that was too good to refuse. Of course, with a 27 percent share in Meetic, Match.com will still have influence in online dating in Europe.

While Match.com tends to make more partnerships with companies to increase their market share internationally, Meetic tends to buy out their competition. Currently Meetic manages ten services, including Meetic, Meetic Mobile, Meetic Affinity, Lexa, ParPerfeito, DatingDirect, Neu.de, Cleargay, Partner.de and Lexamore. According to TechCrunch:

... Meetic had revenues of 153,7 million euros (close to $195 million) in 2008 and currently counts over 696,400 registered users. The company is public and listed on NYSE Euronext, currently valued at nearly 228 million euro ($289 million).

Meanwhile because of this deal, Match.com will go from having operations in 40 countries down to 24. The countries with operations now include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, Venezuela and Vietnam. As a comparison to the Meetic numbers in the above paragraph, in 2008 Match.com had revenues of $368.8 million with 1,347,300 paid members in Q4, 2008. It will be interesting to see the number of paid members reported once the European operations have been removed. Currently 13 percent of revenues come from Europe.

The partnership between Meetic and Match.com will take several months to complete. At this moment it is unknown how this may affect members at Match.com European dating sites.

On a last note, I have to say that I am still surprised by this move from Match.com. We just did a story earlier this month which showed that Match.com UK memberships rose 26 percent in January.

Here is the gender ratios of members at ChristianCafe.com grouped by age range for January 2009:

Age Range	% of Males	% of Females
18 - 20	50.7%	49.3%
21 - 30	42.8%	57.2%
31 - 40	40.8%	59.2%
41 - 50	37.5%	62.5%
51 - 60	33%	67%
61+	31.9%	68.1%
Avg. Overall	39.9%	60.1%

Source: Online Personals Watch

Except for members who are 18 - 20 years old, females make up the greater percentage of members at Christian Cafe. As you move up in each age range segment, females gain a few more percentage points over the previous segment. By the 51 - 60 age rage there are twice as many females as males. Does this mean older males are less likely to consider Religion as an important factor in dating or do just more older females join dating sites in general compared to men of similar age?

For more information on this award winning dating site, read our ChristianCafe.com review.

Forbes did a story called Thrifty Singles Embrace Online Dating in which they looked at Match.com International and how it is performing in Britain. According to the article, UK memberships rose 26 percent in January when compared to the previous year. Overall traffic to the dating site grew 17 percent.

Forbes also updated us on some stats about singles in the UK. There are currently 8 million singles and they went on 24 million first dates. 69 percent of the dates were arranged through online dating sites and social networks.

For more information on this award winning dating service, read our Match.com International review.

On Wednesday Avalanche (the owners of Date.com, Matchmaker.com, and Amor) announced that they will be offering virtual gifts for sale on their dating sites. Just in time for Valentine's Day, members of these dating communities can send a $1 virtual gift to help make an impression with a potential date. To send a virtual gift:

Members purchase tokens that can be converted immediately, or at a later date, into Virtual Gifts. Online gifts, which range in price and start at $1, run the gamut from romantic to flirty. Everything from roses, hearts, Cupids and boxes of chocolates to martini glasses, food, stuffed animals, and even a shiny red sports car are available for purchase. Specialty items and limited edition items will be introduced in future updates of the feature.

Branded Virtual Gifts will also be available to advertisers that are looking for innovative ways to market products to online daters. Singles do not have to be paying subscribers of the sites to purchase, send or to receive Virtual Gifts. Virtual Gifts can be purchased using all major credit cards as well as via PayPal.

Virtual Gifts are currently very popular on social networking sites. The industry is estimated to be worth $1.5 billion in 2008.

According to Hitwise, there are currently around 1,400 dating sites in North America. This gives singles a lot of choice and many of them join multiple dating services at the same time. Mark Brooks of Online Personals Watch refers to this as serial online dating and compares it to bar and nightclub hopping. Some people see it as a simple math equation. The more dating sites you join the more chances you have of finding Mr. or Mrs. Right. Of course the problem you run into when you do this is, you end up not spending quality time on any one of the dating sites. You end up not thinking through the messages you are sending to singles and end up doing a cookie cutter operation by cutting and pasting the same email message to multiple people. This makes you look less interested in the person you are sending the message too. It is fairly easy to see when a message or a reply sent to you on a dating site has not been tailored to your previous message or the information in your profile. That is not a very good first impression!

Initially I think you should signup to multiple site, but there is a reason for this. You should sign up to 2 or 3 dating sites using their free trials to see the type of members they have to offer and if they live an acceptable distance away. If there is no one in your area then try another site. Once you find one with what you think is a good selection of members that meet your location requirements then that is the one site you need to upgrade your membership for.