Match Group

I was notified by a user and have just confirmed that the dating site Plenty of Fish is down. I tried accessing the website from a number of countries (using proxy servers) and received a connection timeout error in all cases for both Plenty of Fish domains (www.plentyoffish.com and www.pof.com). It looks like the website has been down for at least an hour now (8:30 am EST).

A connection timeout error with a website usually indicates a problem with accessing the web server (it took too long to respond). This means something probably happened to the internet connection or with the web servers hardware. The last time POF was down for a while was June of 2009. This was due to a power failure (see Story) and resulted in about 8 hours of downtime.

On a related note the owner of Plenty of Fish, Markus Frind just got married last weekend. This may mean he is on his honeymoon and not close to home which could result in Plenty Of Fish taking a little while longer to get up and running again. I expect Plenty Of Fish to be online again sometime late morning or early afternoon.

We will update this post when we get more news. If you have any news please comment on this story.

Update #1: That didn't take too long. PlentyofFish.com is now back online as of roughly 9:58 am eastern standard time.

Match.com released a interesting study on April 20, 2010 about America's dating behavior. Back in 2009 and early 2010 Match.com commissioned Chadwick Martin Bailey to conduct 3 studies. With these studies, 3 surveys were created to collect data:

• Marriage Survey - A survey of people who were married within the last 5 years.
• Online Dating Survey - A survey of people who have used dating sites within the last 5 years.
• General Survey - A survey of people who are single or are in a new relationship.

Over 11,000 people participated in these surveys. All are 18 years or older and live in the United States. The General Survey's participants also had income of at least $30,000.

From these surveys Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB) concluded several interesting findings.

Marriage Survey - 7000 participants

• 38 percent of couples who married in the last year met through work or school.
• 27 percent of couples who married in the last year met through a friend or family.
• In the last 3 years (and year), 17 percent of couples who married met on a online dating site. (1 in 6 couples)
• Bars, Clubs and other social events counted for only 8 percent of marriages.
• Churches counted for 4 percent of marriages.

Online Dating Survey - 3000 participants

• Match.com counted for 30 percent of all marriages of people who met on dating sites. The 2nd ranked competitor was at 16%, followed by the 3rd at 15 percent.
• 35 percent of Match.com members had a relationship of 3 months or more. The 2nd ranked competitor was at 17%, followed by the 3rd at 16 percent.

General Survey - 2525 participants

• 20 percent of single people have dated someone they met on a dating site. (1 in 5 singles)
• 20 percent of people in a new committed relationship met on a dating site. (1 in 5 singles)

Click here (pdf file) for the full Match.com and Chadwick Martin Bailey study. To find out more about this dating site, read our Match.com review.

Chemistry is offering a free communication weekend starting this Friday, April 30, 2010 and ending Sunday, May 2nd, 2010. This 72 hour event allows all free members of Chemistry to not only create a profile and be matched with other singles for free, but members will be able to communicate with all members for no cost. Plus, no credit card is required!

If a dating service which matches you on your personality is of interest to you then you have no better weekend to try Chemistry out than now. These free weekends have become quite popular for them with online daters. This is because Chemistry.com's detailed personality test combined with their guided communication and dating process (called 1-2-3 Meet) is a sure-fire way to meet singles looking for a long term relationship and/or marriage.

The last Chemistry.com free weekend for communication happening in March (see Story). This new promotion marks the 7th time Chemistry has offered a free weekend for members. For further details about this online matchmaking service, please read our review of Chemistry.

Most dating websites have several landing pages for visitors (these are web pages visitors are meant to enter the dating site with). Some are completely dependent on the actual URL while others may take into consideration other criteria like what country the visitor may be coming from. I notice the other day that OkCupid has revamped their homepage. Gone are the featured profiles as seen in the right top photo. It looks like OkCupid decided to simplify things as seen in the bottom left snapshot. On the left column OkCupid has the member signup area along with 4 quotes from leading publications like Time and the New York Post. The main section of the page is reserved as a place for new members to signup. There is a hand drawn image of a woman saying "Welcome to OkCupid! We just need a few things to get started." and she is pointing at the profile questions which ask the Gender, Orientation and your Relationship Status with a Next button which continues the sign up process.

I wonder if this new homepage is converting better for them than the old one. Does straight to the point quotes like "The Google of online dating" and the start of the create a profile form get more people to sign up for the dating service than seeing a bunch of members profiles in a gallery format? It seems like a lot of sites now days have moved away from the show what members we have approach. Most now usually show a stock photo of a couple having fun along with the initial questions for the profile.

To find out more about this dating site, read our OkCupid review.

The OkCupid blog has been a hit lately in the media with such posts about Picture Myths and how Race Affects Dating. Their recent post about why you shouldn't pay for online dating garnered a number of negative blog posts in return about OkCupids research on the subject (and not from other dating sites).

The Strange to Say blog has a well written post called "OKCupid’s Misfired Arrow". In it he points out several flaws in OkCupids thinking. The first thing he points out is that OKCupid offers a paid component to their service as well called the A-List. This omission on OkCupids part in the article is surprising and makes you wonder what is OKCupid really trying to say here? Are they saying that you're stupid to pay for a dating service, except if it is theirs? Strange to Say had a good comparison for this. To them it would be like GM saying not to buy cars from Ford or Chrysler since they are American made and then not telling the public that their cars (GM) are American made as well.

Another good point that the Strange to Say blog presented was that OKCupid says paid dating sites do not have the interest of their members in mind when they join their site. OkCupid says their main goal is to keep you paying for a membership as long as possible instead of finding the member a match as quick as possible. The funny thing is this logic also works against supposedly free dating sites. Free dating sites make most of their money from Ads being displayed on their site. The more members viewing ads, the more money they will make. Because of this, it seems free dating sites may have a conflict of interest as well. A good example of this is when PlentyOfFish removed the instant messenger from their site (see Story) just over a year ago. The reason POF did this was because they wanted members using the website and mail system (where they can increase ad impressions) instead of communicating with other members via Instant Messenger.

The Unofficial eHarmony Blog also has a good article on the OkCupid blog post. While their post deals with more on what OkCupid says about eHarmony it does poke a few additional holes in OkCupids theory.

Match.com launched April 21, 1995, this was 15 years ago exactly last Wednesday. They were owned by Electric Classifieds and a membership cost $9.95 per month. In a little over a year they had 100,000 registrations. In 1997 CUC International Inc. acquires Match.com and by the next year a monthly membership rose to $12.95. By 1999 memberships was $16.95 a month and Match.com purchased one of their competitors, the One & Only Network.

In 2000 Match.com had 156,945 paying subscribers and by 2001 they had partnered with AOL and MSN. A membership price at this point was $24.95 a month. In 2002 Match.com was then available in 40 countries thanks to in part by acquiring the international dating site Soulmates.com. In 2003 Match.com entered the cell phone dating market by launching MatchMobile. 2005 was a big year for Match.com when they launched the MindFindBind program. This program was created in part by the famous TV talk show host and relationship expert Dr. Phil. During this year Chemistry.com was launched as well.

In 2009 Match.com sold their European operations to Meetic and buys People Media from American Capital Ltd.. People Media run several niche dating services with the most popular ones being for Seniors, Black Americans and Christians. During this year Match.com also launches Dating Applications on the iPhone, Palm Pre and Palm Pixi cell phones.

In 2010 Match.com releases Dating Apps for the Blackberry and Android mobile phones. Match.com also acquires Singlesnet.com. At this point a monthly membership at Match.com costs $34.99.

The top picture on the right is what Match.com looked like in 2000 (thanks to the WayBackMachine). The bottom right photo is a snapshot of what Match.com looked like in 2009.

For a more detailed timeline visit Fox Business or read our own recorded history of Match.com. To find more information on this dating site, read out review of Match.com.