Spark Networks, Inc. provides online personals services in the United States and internationally. The company’s core properties are primarily online singles desktop and mobile Web sites that enable adults to meet, participate in a community, and form relationships with like-minded individuals. It provides this opportunity through various features on its Web sites, such as profiles, onsite email centers, real-time chat rooms, instant messaging services and offline singles events. The company’s main Web sites include ChristianMingle.com and JDate.com. It also operates international Web sites and maintains physical operations in both the United States and Israel. Online Personals Services The company’s online personals services offer single adults a secure setting for meeting other singles. Visitors to its Web sites are encouraged to become registered members and post profiles. Posting a profile is a process in which visitors are asked various questions about themselves, including information such as their tastes in food, hobbies and desired attributes of potential partners. Members may also post photos of themselves. Members can perform detailed searches of other profiles and save their preferences, and their profiles can be viewed by other members. A subscription affords access to the paying subscribers’ on-site email, instant messaging systems, message boards and chat rooms, enabling such subscribers to communicate with other members and paying subscribers. Online Personals Web Sites: The company operates Web sites primarily targeted at specific religious, ethnic, geographic and special interest groups. The company offers Web sites in English, Hebrew and French. Web Site Features: The company offers different ways for its members to communicate including the following: On-Site Email: The company provides all paying subscribers with private message centers. These personal on-site email boxes offer features, such as customizable folders for storing correspondence, the ability to know when sent messages were read, as well as block and ignore functions, which allow a paying subscriber to control future messages from specific paying subscribers. Hot Lists and Favorites: ‘Hot Lists’ enable members to see who is interested in them and to save those favorite members in whom they are interested. Lists include who has viewed your profile, your favorites and who has emailed you. Members can also group their favorites into customized folders and add their own notes, including details included in a member’s profile. Message Boards: Message Boards enable paying subscribers to communicate in a group environment with suggested topics for discussion. Real-Time Chat Rooms: Paying subscribers can use its exclusive chat rooms to mix and mingle in real-time, building a sense of community through group discussions. Additional features enable users to add customized graphics such as emoticons to their conversations. Ice Breakers: Members can send pre-packaged opening remarks, referred to on the Web sites as ‘flirts’ and ‘smiles,’ to other members or paying subscribers. Click!: The company’s patented Click! feature connects members who think they would be compatible with each other. A member clicks ‘yes,’ ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ in another member’s profile. When two members click ‘yes’ in each other’s profiles, its patented feature sends an email to both of them alerting them of the match. Travel and Events: As a complement to its online services, the company offers travel and other promotional events which allow individuals to meet in a more personal environment. The company’s travel and events are typically weekend getaways, dinners, speed dating events or other mixers designed to facilitate social interaction. Business Strategy The company intends to grow revenue by driving additional traffic to its Web sites, increasing the number and percentage of its members who convert to paying subscribers, launching new or acquiring existing businesses, and implementing advertising sales on select Web sites. Intellectual Property Spark Networks, Spark, ChristianMingle, JDate, and BlackSingles.com are some of the company’s trademarks, whether registered or not, in the United States and several other countries. Spark Networks, Spark, ChristianMingle, JDate, and BlackSingles.com are registered trademarks in the United States. Spark Networks, ChristianMingle and JDate are registered trademarks in the European Union. ChristianMingle and JDate are registered trademarks in Australia. JDate is also a registered trademark in Israel and Canada. The company holds two United States patents for its Click! technology, the first of which expires January 24, 2017. Competition The company’s principal online personal services competitors include Match.com and OkCupid, two wholly-owned subsidiaries of InterActiveCorp and eHarmony. In addition, the company faces competition from social networking sites, such as Facebook. History Spark Networks, Inc. was incorporated in 2007.