SNAP Interactive, the company behind social dating app Are You Interested, recently released the results from a study that gauges which cities have the most active online dating communities. The results, some of which may surprise you, are based on usage data collected from AreYouInterested.com and from a survey of 500 fans of the Are You Interested Facebook page.
Are You Interested is currently one of the largest Facebook dating applications. With it users can browse through other Facebook members who have the app and answer the question "Are you interested?" about users they come across. If the person you professed interest in is also interested in you, you both get a message saying so. If only one of you is interested, no message is sent. In 2009, SNAP Interactive expanded Are You Interested to include a location based iPhone app, which lets you browse users in your area.
SNAP Interactive didn't release the survey or the how they determined whether a city was "active", but it's interesting to note that only three of the cities on its list corresponded with Travel + Leisure's July 2011 list of the top ten cities for singles. The Travel + Leisure list looked at how open people were to meeting new singles, whether they be at boutique hotels, in coffee shops, on mass transit, or in bars. The study also considered the diversity of each of its 20 highest-ranked cities were. According to these measures, New Orleans is the best place for singles, followed by Austin, Las Vegas and New York. (Interestingly, New Orleans also ranked #7 on a July 2011 list of the 10 least social cities in America, according to NetProspex.)
To see how SNAP's results differ, check out the slideshow (below). Then, see if these cities compare to NetProspex's list of the most social and least social cities in the U.S.
