Romancing the Phone: Mobile Dating Climbs as Summer Heats Up

SEATTLE, Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- New data from Ground Truth™ reveals that mobile romance is heating up as temperatures climb in the summer months. According to the mobile media measurement firm, the number of visitors to mobile dating sites increased by 92 percent from the first week in June to the last week in July.

The study illustrates a steady climb in usage throughout the summer months. The number of visitors in the last week of June increased by 31 percent from the first week of June; and by the end of July, by 46 percent from the first week of the month.

Flirtomatic, a mobile-optimized dating site, is the category leader, accounting for 65 percent of the audience for mobile dating for the week ending August 8.  Popular online sites, such as match.com and eHarmony are less frequented on mobile, ranking at 7 and 17, respectively, for the same time period.

"As people become more active during the summer months, their social lives—including dating—become more mobile," observed Evan Neufeld, vice president, marketing, Ground Truth. "The idea of poring over profiles tethered to a home computer is much less appealing when the weather is pleasant and social activities tend to gravitate toward outdoor activities. It's also worth noting that dating sites which are designed around the mobile experience, such as Flirtomatic, are attracting the most users."

Overall, the average visitor to mobile dating sites spends a total of 12 minutes and 44 seconds per week, and 49 seconds per session.

"The mobile dating experience is clearly differentiated from that of the wired Web," said Neufeld. "What we see is short spurts of time spent per session, presenting mobile dating publishers an opportunity to engage and advertise to them in an entirely new way."

Because Ground Truth can accurately measure any mobile Web site using True View™, its patent-pending, census-based methodology, the firm provides precise site-level usage metrics across several measures, including sessions per subscriber, pages per subscriber, pages per session and time per subscriber, on a weekly basis.  The Ground Truth syndicated data service delivers precise, actionable metrics through a dynamic, rich and user-friendly online interface.

About Ground Truth: Ground Truth is a mobile measurement firm that delivers the precise, timely and actionable mobile intelligence required for operators, advertisers and publishers to measure, optimize and grow their businesses.  As the sole provider of actual usage data aggregated from millions of subscribers using True View™, a patent-pending census-based methodology, Ground Truth sets the benchmark for Mobile Internet measurement.  Ground Truth is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and is venture-backed by Emergence Capital Partners, OPENAIR Ventures, Steamboat Ventures and Voyager Capital. For more information about the company, please visit www.groundtruth.com.

SOURCE Ground Truth