Jonas Luster: Finding your Sweetheart

Jonas Luster has conducted a study of 1404 online dating consumers. He's posted some preliminary results on his blog, with the promise of more to come in the future.

Though there are many interesting findings, I'm quite interested in the relative levels of interest generated by theses systems, security, and perceived value from the consumer, as seen from each gender's point of view. Here are some of those numbers:

• 94 percent of all males seeking female companionship and 98 percent of all males seeking male companionship stated they were “highly likely” or “definitely” willing to meet online matches in person after a brief online acquaintanceship. Of those, 92 percent stated they were comfortable meeting partners even without an online courtship period.
• In contrast, 34 percent of all females seeking males, and 26 percent of all females seeking female contact online, stated they were “highly unlikely” or “definitely not” willing to meet online matches in person after a brief online courtship. Only 34 percent of those stated they were more likely to meet an online partner in person after a lengthy courtship.
• 64 percent of all interviewees seeking partners online stated they were using search engines, such as Google, and other means to verify identities of their respective matches. Less than one percent stated they would also enlist the paid services of online detective agencies.
• Of those responding, females reposted a weekly average of 130 initial emails from male matches, and 45 emails from female matches respectively. Males stated an average of four initial contacts per email per week from female peers and 89 emails per week on average from male peers.

Jonas Luster, "Finding your Sweetheart"

Thanks to the Social Software Weblog