For a long time, dating sites and social networks have been two very different beasts, rarely co-mingling as users maintained two entirely separate online identities. But that’s starting to change. Zoosk, a social dating site, has largely passed under our radar until now, but it’s posting some serious stats: the service sees an average of 12 million unique users a month, and has a member base totaling over 40 million. Based on last month’s performance, the company says it has a $30 million run rate, and expects to close out this year with $18-$20 million in revenue.
Zoosk launched back in 2007, and has been showing some strong growth recently, particularly on social networks. Zoosk co-founders Alex Mehr and Shayan Zadeh say that the site differentiates itself from other dating sites like Match.com by tapping into your social graph. The site has a strong presence across social networks including Facebok, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, and Friendster, and users can also sign in through the site’s web portal at Zoosk.com. And if that’s not enough, you can reach Zoosk through a desktop AIR client and a mobile app. To help build your Zoosk profile, you can import information from whichever social network you’re using Zoosk on. You can also tie it together with services like Last.fm and Netflix, to give potential matches an idea of your music and movie taste.
The site itself has a friendly and not-overly-serious atmosphere. Mehr and Zadeh say that part of the site’s success has stemmed from the fact that many of its users are in the 25-35 year old demographic, with many members who aren’t neccesarily looking for a long-term serious relationship, which stands in contrast with more serious dating sites like eHarmony. In other words, a successful match on Zoosk may well result in a return visit from the user — a successful match on eHarmony might lead to that user getting hitched.
To generate revenue, Zoosk offers a premium subscription model for $25 a month (you pay less if you buy multiple months of a time), or you can purchase features using the site’s virtual currency. Dubbed “Zoosk coins”, these can be used to either buy Facebook-like virtual gifts, or to buy premium features a la carte, like the ability to see if someone has read a message you’ve sent them. While much of the site’s traffic comes from the social networks, the site’s homepage tends to monetize more effectively, with around 50% of revenue coming from each. The site also earns money through advertising.
For another service that combines dating with your social graph, check out Thread, which launched as part of Facebook’s fbFund over the summer.
According to a sentiment analysis on the Twittersphere, the best social dating sites are : http://bit.ly/4lR2KQ
Zoosk is ranked 33th
Dating is a tricky game. You know already.
Hard to take this “sentiment analysis” seriously, since the “number one” ranking is JustSayHi, a notorious blackhat SEO abuser that had to merge its traffic into Mingle2 in order to restart its traffic growth.
No doubt it is a very nice site..i am using it for last four months and find some great friends.It is very impressive that it achieved another landmark of 40 million members…:)))))))))
great monetizing story.
What are the actual earnings??? Revenues are meaningless without some context around them. Dating is a high churn business and just reporting revenues says absolutely nothing.
Nice to see a Startup actually making money. Any idea of what they keep from those 18 $ -20$ millions revenue?
great question Charly. you just asked for the Holy Grail.
$25/month is s steep. profile info by zoosk is poor. number of paid users to free users ratio must be massive (for every 98 free users, there are 2 paid users) – and so the steep subscription price. otherwise their model doesn’t make sense.
in addition, largely an churn-and-burn business.
Great post Jason, very though-provoking.
If a premium service works so well for social network add-ons, it’s hard to understand why the social networks themselves don’t try that revenue model on for size…
Because people are used to and expect to get these types of services for free. If you look at their revenue against their member base the numbers aren’t so good. Match.com and Eharmony generate 150-200 plus million with similar sized networks. If you go to their Facebook app as I have most of the reviews revolve around folks giving up because they have to pay.
Word in the online dating sphere is that the site is rampant with Spam, Nigerian Scammers, and Profiles of married people. Additionally, I belive they also claim people who have added the Facebook app to their member count, regardless if they’ve actually filled out a profile on Zoosk.com or not. Which isn’t surprising given that they claim they’ve gone from 0 to 40 million in 2 yrs.
Total users isn’t the right number to be looking at anyway. 12 million monthly active is what really matters.
active because they added the facebook app or active as in they actually use the site regularly? Again, there numbers are probably padded because of the way they count facebook integrations. To me, Facebook integrations shouldn’t count, because it’s most likely a one-time thing of someone wondering what the app is about and then abandoning shortly afterwards.
25-35 year old demographic? Sounds like they are going head to head against okcupid.
It does seem that people prefer the free OkCupid or plenty of fish sites. But it would make more sense for the social networks to officially partner with a dating site so they don’t lose the traffic revenue.
In the same category there are http://www.thread.com and http://www.sofamous.com
flirting social network it s new
Don’t forget gelato and Best Friends and Lovers app on Facebook and of course Are You Interested, which is Zoosk’s competition yet not pulling in nearly as much revenue.
Dating sites are paying attention to social networks. Last fall Match had a deal where they injected their profiles into the Are You Interested browsing stream. Most sites are watching the competition, testing the waters and mostly using social nets for the cheap advertising.
Very nice site. Dating can be a zoo! Zoosk is a good name for a dating website.
One of the latest addition to Facebook dating scene is SecondLove:
“SecondLove connects you with singles from across the world. It gives you excellent quality free online dating experience on Facebook. ”
SecondLove makes it simple and easy for millions of singles to find love on Facebook.
SecondLove is different from Zoosk and Thread in certain ways.
1. Thread is built on the concept of connecting a user with ‘friends-of-friends’, and thus limiting them to a narrow target. SecondLove brings the traditional online dating to Facebook in its simplest form. People create a short profile and they can start searching and flirting with other users in no time.
2. SecondLove has more light and clean user interface as compared to Zoosk. Conceptually SecondLove is similar to Zoosk, except that its more simple, fast, easy to use and only available on Facebook platform
3. SecondLove tries to blend its user interface as similar to Facebook as possible, where as Zoosk has quite ‘odd’ user interface which doesn’t blend at all with Facebook. Thread is a independent Facebook Connect site, so its a different bread in that sense when compared to Zoosk and SecondLove.
Check it out:
http://www.face...id=158860325538
I saw another “social dating” app which just appeared on Facebook; but I don’t think it’s officially launched. It’s called “Social Connect”. I just went through it and this app looks really cool. Very visual, creative and user-friendly. The name of the developer is VisionSync, Inc.? I think the app is in Beta or testing mode. Maybe not as detailed as Zoosk, but it’s got great potential. Great name too for social dating and social media sites (Social Connect).
Zoosk is a rip off. It doesn’t even work. I cancelled within 24 hours and demanded a full refund after their system said I had unread mails and when I paid they mysteriously vanished. It’s just a scam and a money making machine.
Leave well alone