Zoosk

This week’s round of congratulatory applause goes to Zoosk, which just filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC and announced its plans to raise $100 million in an initial public offering.

The company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ZSK, with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, and Citigroup Global Markets underwriting the IPO. Oppenheimer & Co. and William Blair will also be joining as co-managers.

As part of its filing, Zoosk provided details of its global online dating business.  The company states that the website now has 26 million members across 80 countries, including 650,000 subscribers (users who pay for access to additional features and products). The company also states that its user base grew from 18 million at the end of the year in 2012 to its current numbers, a 44% growth rate. The number of paying subscribers grew to 650,000 in 2013 from 483,000 in December 2012.

As those subscriber numbers have grown, so too has revenue. Revenue increased 63% from 2012 to 2013, rising from $109.1 million to $178.2 million. Net loss also decreased drastically during that period, from $20.7 million in 2012 to just $2.6 million at the end of 2013. Subscriptions account for much of that revenue ($153.8 million), but Zoosk also has a rapidly growing virtual currency business that jumped from $5.4 million in revenue in 2012 to $24.3 million a year later.

On top of that, Zoosk has raised more than $60 million since being founded in 2007. Investors include Crosslink Capital, Keating Capital, Canaan Partners, Bessemer Ventures, ATA Ventures, Jeff Epstein, Plug & Play Ventures, and Amidzad Partners.

While it started out on the web, Zoosk has been hugely successful in the mobile arena. In the Apple App Store it's the #1 grossing dating app and a top 25 grossing app overall. Much of that success can be chalked up to the site's proprietary Behavioral Matchmaking engine, which learns from a user's clicks, messages and other actions to produce more compatible matches. The better the data it gathers, the better its recommendations get.

Looking to the future, Zoosk knows the biggest challenges it will face. The service must optimize its strategy for retaining current members as well as its approach to attracting new members and subscribers. Zoosk must find a way to retain high levels of user engagement and subscription rates and, most importantly, must continue honing its Behavioral Matchmaking engine in order to connect users with mutual attraction.

To find out more about this service you can read our review of Zoosk.

Just in time for spring, Zoosk has announced the beta release of its new Priority Inbox feature to take Behavioral Matchmaking to the next level. The new technology will prioritize messages from members with whom you are more likely to discover mutual attraction. This update makes Zoosk the first online dating platform to offer a feature that ranks messages in members' inboxes based on the potential for compatibility.

Traditional online dating services are based on static profiles, compiled via one-time surveys and questionnaires. Zoosk, on the other hand, is powered by its dynamic and personalized Behavioral Matchmaking technology, which tracks and analyzes a member's activity on the site in order to recommend better matches. By applying this technology to inboxes, Zoosk is making its experience more effective than ever.

“At Zoosk, we are continuously working to provide the best possible experience for members to find relationship satisfaction online,” said Shayan Zadeh, Co-Founder and CEO of Zoosk. “Lots of dating websites highlight messages from people you’ve already talked to, but our technology allows us to take it a step further by prioritizing messages from new people we think you’ll want to have a conversation with.”

The new Priority Inbox feature will identify messages from members with a greater likelihood of compatibility, which it calls Priority Messages, using stars and highlights. Those messages will be driven to the top of users' inboxes so they can't be missed.

“When developing the Priority Inbox feature, we took into account the fact that sometimes people who date online, especially women, become inundated with messages,” said Alex Mehr, Co-Founder and President of Zoosk. “Priority Inbox is a very unique feature for our members who will be spared the task of having to dig through a mountain of messages to find their desired match; not only leading them to form stronger connections, but to form meaningful connections faster than ever before.”

The patent-pending Priority Inbox feature is currently only available to some Zoosk members, but the site expects to roll it out to the rest of its 25+ million members over the course of the next month. With the #1 grossing mobile dating app and a top 25 grossing app on the iPhone in the United States, Zoosk is already a market leader in the dating industry. The service can now be found in over 80 countries in 25 languages. Priority Inbox is just the latest in a long series of innovations taking matchmaking to the next level and keeping Zoosk on top of the dating game.

According to recent research, online dating is now the most popular way to meet prospective romantic partners. If you're considering joining a dating site but aren't sure what to do or what to expect, it's a good idea to proceed with both an open mind for meeting people and a little precaution.

Online dating safety is a concern, and the U.S. Attorney General's office has taken a stand to encourage people to exercise caution when searching for a relationship online because of the recent dating scams, especially when online daters misrepresent themselves in order to extract financial favors.

Zoosk, which markets itself as the number one dating app, has put together a few quick tips for online dating safety, so keep them in mind when you begin your own search:

Create an Alias - Create a new username and use a different email account from your main email when signing up for a dating site to protect your privacy.

Stay Online - Don't give out your personal cell phone number right away, especially if you are feeling pressured. Keep your messages and chats online through the dating site until you meet in-person.

Keep Personal Info Private - Do not share sensitive personal or financial information with someone whom you haven't met. This includes your last name, address, home or work phone numbers in addition to any financial information.

Go Out in Public - Always choose a public venue for your first few in-person dates, such as a restaurant or coffee shop. Never meet for the first time at your/their home, and don't arrange to have your date pick you up. Plan to meet each other at a restaurant or other public location instead.

Tell a Friend - Always let a friend or family member know who, when and where you're meeting for an in-person date with someone you met online.

Here are a few more things to keep in mind when you're online dating:

Meet sooner rather than later. Many problems for daters occur because they form a virtual relationship with their online match and become emotionally invested before they've seen each other face-to-face. Before you get intimate through emails and phone calls, plan to meet each other for coffee in person. Often, a scammer will try to avoid in-person meetings and keep things going online. If your date keeps making excuses for why he can't get together, then move on.

Keep drinking to a minimum. Some people like to have a glass of wine to loosen up on a date. Keep in mind your tolerance levels. If you get tipsy after a drink or two, you might want to consider not drinking at all. Don't make yourself vulnerable to your online dates, especially when you don't know them.

The Super Bowl has come and gone. The bets have been paid out. The hot wings have been eaten. The hangovers have been nursed. New Yorkers can stop not caring about the Super Bowl and go back to not caring about the Super Bowl (wait a minute...).

As the nation recovers from Super Bowl XLVIII, there's one way America's biggest sporting event might still have an impact on your life. Zoosk crunched the numbers to find out how your chances of finding love online improve or decrease depending on whether your football team wins or loses.

During last year's Super Bowl, the number of messages sent between users was 17% less than the average Sunday evening. On non-mobile devices, there were 20% less messages sent than on average. And on mobile devices, 11% less messages were sent than average. What all that means is that online daters take the big game seriously - so seriously that it impacts their dating game.

Looking at activity in each of the cities that participated in conference championship games, Zoosk found:

• When your team wins, you spend Monday talking about football among friends and co-workers.
• When your team loses, you seek comfort in companionship and turn your attention to your love life.
• Denver users sent 15% less messages and view 32% less profiles than average on the Mondays after their playoff wins.
• Seattle users sent 51% less messages and view 60% less profiles than average on the Mondays after their playoff wins.
• San Francisco users sent 40% more messages and viewed 32% more profiles on the Monday after their loss to Seattle than on the Mondays following their playoff wins on Jan. 5 and Jan. 12.
• Boston users sent out 79% more messages and viewed 73% more profiles on the Monday after their loss to Denver than on the Monday against their playoff victory over Indianapolis.

That means, if the pattern continues, that folks in Seattle are currently way too busy celebrating their smashing victory to spare a thought for online dating. It's good news for football fans, but not such good news for singles.

On the other hand, Denver's bad luck on the football field might mean good luck for its daters. The Broncos may have lost, but their bummed-out supporters are more likely to turn to online dating to cheer themselves up. Nothing eases the pain of a loss like meeting someone special!

If you're looking to join an online dating site, the first two weeks after Christmas are the best time to do it. At least according to Zoosk, the dating website which typically sees a 26% increase in sign-ups during that time. According to Match.com, the busiest time of year for dating is between Christmas and February 14th.

So once you sign up for an online dating site, how do you attract the attention of other members?

Because of the expected rush of new sign-ups, Zoosk also put together data combed from over 4,000 members of the site to see what kind of profiles and pictures get the most responses. Why not make the most of your online dating experience this New Year?

Here are a few facts Zoosk shared to help you get a little more attention and increase your response rate:

Use a full-body picture. While you might feel a little self-conscious, users who post full body photos (both for males and females) typically receive three times as many messages as the average dater, and 33% more responses to their messages. It's not about looking perfect - it's showing who you are and that you have nothing to hide.

It's not all about work. People who talk about their hobbies in their online dating profiles fare better than those who don't. Exercise is always a winner. If you mention jogging, running, lifting weights or yoga, you get 21% more messages. If you say book, read or write, you also get 21% more messages. And if you mention music, guitar, or singing? You'll notice a 15% increase in your messages.

Be positive. Using words like "alone" won't help you in your online dating quest - in fact, you'll see 24% fewer messages. However, if you use words like creative, ambitious, laugh or healthy, you'll see a definite boost of 33% more messages.

Don't include pets or friends in your photos. Online daters want to know who they are dating - and if you pose with others in the picture, it takes the focus off of you. Zoosk found that having more than one person in your photo resulted in 42% fewer messages. Not only that - including pets isn't such a great idea either, even if you are looking for a pet-friendly date. Zoosk found that those who posed with animals received a whopping 53% fewer messages.

Selfies are gender-biased. If you're a guy and you want to take a selfie in the bathroom mirror, think again. You'll receive 8% fewer messages with selfie photos than your female counterparts - who receive a 4% uptick in messages with their selfies.

Happy dating!

Things we were into in 2013: Nelson Mandela, the iPhone 5s, bingewatching, twerking, Bitcoin, Bat-Kid, Breaking Bad, the royal baby, Grumpy Cat, and screaming goats.

Earlier this month Google released its annual Zeitgeist List, a collection of the top Google searches for the last 365 days that reveal what defined the year in pop culture, politics, technology, and more. "Every day, around the world, we search," Amit Singhal, senior vice president and Google Fellow, wrote in a Dec. 17 blog post. "We want to find out more about our heroes, explore far-away destinations or settle a dinner-table dispute between friends."

Because of that compulsive urge to search anything and everything online, Google is given unprecedented access to what captures the public imagination. The year-end Zeitgeist list uses Google Trends and other internal data tools to tap into the top trending searches of 2013 from 72 countries, and create a snapshot of the biggest people, places, moments, companies, and gadgets of the year.

Online dating plays an increasingly large role in the way we meet and choose our partners, so naturally Google included the year's most popular online dating services on the list. According to Google Zeitgeist, 2013's top ten dating services are:

1. Match.com
2. Chemistry.com
3. PlentyOfFish.com
4. Zoosk.com
5. eHarmony.com
6. FriendFinder.com
7. Tinder
8. Hinge
9. OurTime.com
10. OkCupid

Many of last year's entries are back again, though none retained the same positions. Match moved up a spot from #2 to #1, while PlentyOfFish dropped from the first place to third. OkCupid took a major hit in 2013, falling to #10 from #3 in 2012. Zoosk climbed a couple of spots to the forth position, and eHarmony fell slightly to fifth.

DateHookup, ChristianMingle, AdultFriendFinder, JDate, and SinglesNet all ranked last year but failed to make it on the 2013 Zeitgeist list. Instead, FriendFinder, OurTime, Chemistry, Tinder, and Hinge came from behind to take their place.

The most interesting additions to the list are, without a doubt, those last two. Tinder uses Facebook profiles to match members who respond with a simple left or right swipe to say "Yes" or "No." Hinge appears similar at first glance, but uses a "romance graph" to pair you with friends of friends that best suit your style - in other words, Tinder might get you a great hookup, but Hinge will find you a great relationship. Mobile dating took off in a big way this year, and shows no sign of stopping, so expect to see even more mobile services on the 2014 Zeitgeist report.