It looks like Match.com UK mascots Cupid and Fate will be around for another year. Starting December 26, 2008 Match.com will begin its new multi million pound marketing campaign in the United Kingdom. This campaign will dedicate 50 percent of the available air time to creative's for the new matchmaking personality test (see Story). The new ads will use humour and are targeted primary at women between the ages of 25 to 34.
The economy is in reverse but online dating site Match.com is speeding ahead. They had their largest membership growth for November in 7 years. Match.com started 13 years ago in 1995. According to a press release Match.com attribute the growth to:
The combination of a new matching service, the Daily5, and the daily drumbeat of bad economics sent consumers to Match.com looking for love.
Match.com members initiated over 400,000 more connections this November (when compared to Nov 07) thanks to in part the new Daily 5 feature (see Story). November also produced the third busiest week of the year. Usually the weeks in January and February leading up to Valentine's Day see the heaviest use of dating sites.
For more information on this popular dating site, read our Match.com review.
Instead of launching Chemistry in the United Kingdom (which is available only in the US and Canada) Match.com has decided to include a personality test called Match Insights as part of the UK Match.com dating site. After reviewing the 2 tests I found them almost exactly the same (at least with the way I answered the questions). For existing Match.com members you can find the personality test in the My Profile section. According to the press release about this news:
... the self analysis is available free to all match.com online dating members in the UK. This will be followed by a premium service available early next year which will deliver every ’match insights’ user their best matches each day based on their personality type.
It looks like this will become an additional paid service that will most likely continue to be a part of Match.com instead of becoming a whole new dating site.
Once again Match.com is the winner of the Editor's Top Pick - Over All, Award. This is the second year in a row for Match.com and, there are good reasons for this.
While not as strong a pick as last year due to only marginal growth of members this year in North America, Match.com offers the largest number of high quality profiles by far. Internationally, Match has lept a head due in large to successful partnerships with a number of popular websites in South America and Europe. International members get a modified version of the dating site from North America. They tailor profile questions and searching criteria depending on what is important to singles in these countries and/or cultures.
Match.com continues to innovate. Starting from last December, examples of this are; Match My Friends with testimonials, their foray into Facebook with the Little Black Book, the profile service MatchStudios, expanded cell service for Match Mobile, the Insiders Guide, and the Daily 5. Not everything was a success (The Little Black Book comes to mind) but they are one of the few dating sites to consistently offer their members major new features.
Website design and interface improvements. Match.com's recent website redesign and their interface tweaks through out the year continue to improve usability. Their web interface offers new members a simple to use layout that doesn't get confusing, while still offering more experienced members the control they require over searching and profiles.
Match.com offers members a premium dating service. This has been their business for 13 years now, and year after year they have consistently been the dating site to join. People who choose Match.com will get the online dating tools required and access to one of the largest membership pools of singles looking to find their potential partner.
Read our review of Match.com for more information about this online dating service or visit Match.com directly.
In the beginning of the year we took a look at a new Facebook application called the Little Black Book from Match.com. We were not overly impressed but, felt it did hold some promise. Being maybe a few weeks old at the time, the Little Black Book had 67 daily active users with about 600 total installed users. Our main complaints involved around the clunky user interface and browser compatibility problems.
A month later, David from the Online Dating Insider took a look at the application as well. At this time there was 240 daily active users. While not impressive numbers for a Facebook application, it was an improvement from when I had looked at it. In his review, David had a wish list of improvements and found the browser issues were still present.
Flash forward 11 months and the Little Black Book has disappeared from Facebooks application list. The last appearance I can find of it is a Google Cache page which was capture September 29, 2008. At this time there was only 100 monthly active users with a 1.6 out of 5 star rating. The reviews of the application were not pretty.
Did Match.com take down the application to redevelop and fix its problems or is it gone for good? I think it is in Match.com's best interest to forget about Facebook applications. A search for the term "Dating" on Facebook revealed that the most popular application has over 12 thousand active monthly users. Not a lot when you consider the 1.3 million paid users Match.com website had this past quarter. Match.com employees time would be better spent on other projects.
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