iovation is attending the Internet Dating & Social Networking Conference in London this week and evidence of this industry’s continued growth is easy to find. Just this weekend, the Detroit News reported on the success of the online dating industry, despite, or perhaps because of the tough economic times. In fact, based on statistics from Forrester Research Inc., the article states:

Online dating is the third largest producer of revenue out of all paid content sites, generating $957 million in 2008, a figure that the firm predicts will grow 10% by 2013.

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One day before Valentine’s Day, Computerworld put out a terrific article focused on the technology used in the online dating industry, an industry growing 10% annually according to Forrester Research. This is timely news as the highest demand for internet dating sites comes just before Valentine’s Day, when most sites double their traffic, if not quadruple it.  In the article, titled “Online Dating: The Technology Behind the Attraction,” editor Robert Mitchell outlines four basic and necessary steps for the online dating business model:

1. Provide visitors with instant feedback (or matches)
2. Convert visitors from “Just Looking” to “Paid Customers”
3. Deliver high quality connections or matches
4. Keep the quality of the prospect pool high, by weeding out scammers, spammers and fraudsters. (more…)