Statistics

An article at the Globe & Mail looks at the increased popularity of online dating since the downturn in the economy which started in the fall. They include a couple of reasons for this. The main point mentioned is, people rather use online dating first to filter out the duds (their word) before spending good money on an expensive dinner.

It's a pretty good deal at $25 a month to go out and meet people online, versus going out and spending 50 to 100 bucks per night and possibly not meeting anyone.

The other reason they suggest is bad times makes people re-prioritize what is important in life. I agree with both of these points, plus I think online dating is also a good distraction from bad times. Nothing legal gives you a better high than when you find someone that gives you that butterfly feeling in your stomach.

The article also gave us a few more statistics of some of our reviewed dating sites. Lavalife member registrations are up 11 percent from November with Toronto leading the charge with a 20 percent increase (Lavalife is based in Toronto). Messaging among members on Lavalife is also at a 6 month high. At the same time Plenty of Fish has had a banner year with a 77 percent increase from December 2007 until December 2008. Apparently about 900,000 people log in every day. A poll at Date.com also discovered that almost 50 percent of members are now spending more time on their dating site making sure they have found Mr or Miss Right before they go out on a date.

I wasn't sure at first why Logitech released a press release about online dating called Sex, Lies and Internet Dates for St. Valentines Day since they are mostly a hardware manufacture. According to the release, Logitech commissioned the European study to "establish how much difference a video call with a prospective date would make". Ok, I guess this study makes a little more sense now since Logitech is one of the world's largest supplier of web video cameras.

What did Logitech's report reveal? First, that 58 percent of Europeans have been victims of online dating dishonesty. This breaks down by country:

• Italians at 72 percent
• Germans with 58 percent
• French and British at 55 percent
• Dutch at 48 percent

The number one thing singles lied about was attractiveness. Now this is a subject attribute so I'm not sure how accurate it is. Plus it is not mentioned if singles told Logitech that they lied or if people have said they have been lied too. In second place about things singles lied about in their dating profile was weight. One of the things lease lied about was the lack of hair someone may have had.

For the complete press release visit Response Source.

Dr. Helen Fisher was at the iDate conference which was recently held in Miami. Dr. Helen Fisher is Chemistry's chief scientific advisor for their match system. David Evans of The Online Dating Insider shared with us some information he learned from her keynote speech:

• Dr. Helen Fisher studied 178k people on Chemistry.com.
• The Chemistry questionnaire has been taken by 7 million in 39 countries.

Chemistry currently has 4 million paid and registered users (info from their about us page on IAC) so it looks like just under half never signed up after the profile questionnaire.

For more information on this personality matching dating site, read our [staticpage: Chemistry review].

The Times Online (UK version) published an article called 10 things to know about internet dating. It is like most other dating safety lists with tips about talking on the phone first before meeting in person and, as point 7 suggests, your first date should always be in daylight and take place around other people. The Times first point is about reading between the lines to see if your potential match is married or even separated. They cite a statistic from MSNBC which says:

one third of people using online dating services are married

While I have no doubts that married people use dating sites, I don't believe a third of all online daters are married. Free dating sites do tend to have more married people and scammers on them since there is no cost to entry. Plus a married man or woman is much less likely to use a paid dating site since they don't want to have to explain to their partner about the dating site charge on their credit card.

David Evans of the Online Dating Insider, had an interview with Mandy Ginsberg who is the Match.com GM for North America. She let David know about a few things that will be coming to Match.com in 2009. The main thing we have to look forward too is the new Platinum membership package. Not much is know yet, but apparently Platinum members will be able to contact all member types, including free users. This means members now have the ability to communicate with anyone on Match.com and they will not have to worry if the user can reply back or not without paying first. Other dating sites have started to allow this and I am glad to see Match.com following suit.

I could of sworn I wrote about Match.com's Platinum package before but I couldn't find anything mentioned on my site. Through a Google search I did find what I was looking for. Match.com currently does have a Platinum package. You can find it here and I believe it was started a couple years ago. It currently is a premium matchmaking service offered by Match.com but is not directly tied to the dating site. The service is only available in Dallas, Texas where the Match.com head office is located. This is a personalized service where you and a matchmaker work one on one to find your ideal match. I wonder if Match.com will be either dropping this service or renaming it to avoid confusion?

As with North American dating sites (see Story), the European online dating sites have seen a boost in memberships during the downturn in the economy. Match.com International UK and European dating sites saw a pre-tax profit of £3.67m ($5.6 million US) in the year to December 31 2007. The year before they saw a loss of £2.19m ($3.4 million US). In the third quarter this year Match International saw a 6 percent increase in paying members. For the next few years Match foresees Europe driving it's growth as the North American online dating market slows. Last year the UK and Scandinavia was where Match.com International saw its best growth.

Other dating services like those run by WhiteLabelDating.com saw members grow over the last year in the United Kingdom by 250 percent to over 1 million members. Nielsen Online is also reporting a 15 percent increase in unique visitors to online dating site November 2008, when compared to 2007. For European dating sites in the last year the total number of visitors have increased by 20 percent. The year before it was 9 percent.

For the full story visit The Telegraph. Read our Match.com UK review for more information on this popular dating service.