Online Dating

With the sagging economy, lonely men and women with time on their hands and love in their hearts are finding companionship online, rather than through more traditional means.

The message from the annual iDate conference, a conference for the online dating industry, was that despite economic barriers to more traditional means of meeting a potential match, more people than ever are finding that the online dating experience provides a means for them to reach out to a potential mate, without many of the costs and worries that accompany dating.

The increase in subscribers can be explained by the unemployed having more time on their hands to surf the Web, and online dating is a relatively inexpensive way to meet people, especially since some of the most popular sites are free to meet other compatible singles.

A report from Jupiter Research projects an increase in revenue of 16% through 2012 for all dating services, especially through online means. Recent published statistics from the most popular online dating sites support this research, with eHarmony.com and Match.com leading the way in an ever expanding subscriber base.

Leading online dating provider Match.com, states that over 50 million emails are sent via their system per year, resulting over 6 million dates. 1 in approximately 1400 ‘matches’ results in marriage. At 1 million dollars per day of revenue, that’s about $80,000 dollars for every marriage that results from a relationship started on this dating site alone.

Despite the economy driving record numbers of singles to the online world of love, those numbers seem to darken the outlook for future success