Match Group

I found a news piece that contains some predictions that the number of singles who will pay to use online dating sites may have reach its limit. They mention several statistics to support this including one from ComScore which saw unique visitors to all dating sites fall in the month of March, even though Internet traffic grew by 6%. The author also pointed out that Match.com subscriber growth slowed and only increased by 1% in 2007 where as it increased by 25% in 2006. There was also several other points mention to support his theory.

My view on things is that the glory days of online dating in North America where the main online dating sites posted double digit subscriber growth numbers is probably over. There are so many options available now in the United States for singles to join. They have the choice now to join numerous social networks and free or paid dating sites to find a match. The thing is, It is very difficult for anyone to figure out what the best choice is for them when even a high school kid can buy a cheap but fully functional dating script, install it on a web server and make it appear that the dating web site offers everything a single needs (except other members).

I don't think it is all bad news though. Of the roughly 90 million singles in the United States, only 3 million are actively using an online dating service. 87 million customers is still a huge target market. Dating Companies now, are also expanding into Europe and Asia where online dating is just starting to catch on.

According to Reuters, Match.com has partnered with two more companies to exclusively offer their internet visitors an online dating service. The first partnership is with the Latin America web portal called Terra. This web portal serves 7 countries and is considered the largest in the region.

The second multimillion dollar partnership is with NineMSN in Australia. This web portal owned by Microsoft and PBL Media receives almost 8 million visitors a month. Match.com also powers the dating service for MSN here in the United States.

This is a smart move by Match.com as internet dating becomes more crowded here at home. It's difficult to start a new business in a foreign country and attract visitors quickly. It is a lot easier and smarter to find a web site with a large amount of traffic in your demographic and partner with them to offer your service. Match.com has the software and knowledge of what works with online dating while the other companies offer their traffic and website. Match.com has been quite successful in the international arena. In the first quarter of this year their international subscribers grew by 8%.

Read our Match Review (match.com) or our Match.com UK Review to find out more information about this service.

Match.com launched the Insiders' Guide this week. It's a place where you can get free, reliable advice from current Match.com members. Before I checked it out I thought it would just another online dating advice magazine that most dating services have, except it is written by members. Even this is not a new idea, since for a few years now FriendFinder already has an online magazine that allows for member submission. Plus, Match.com already has an advice magazine called happen.

When I logged into Match to check the Insiders Guide (accessible from the top members menu) I was pleasantly surprised. While the information given was nothing new or ground breaking the presentation of the dating tips was very well done. Everything is animated and the 7 dating tips are presented in videos by Match.com members. While the videos are playing tip bubbles pop up reinforcing the members message. I think a lot more people will take the time to view the dating tips in this type of format instead of reading a dating advice article that contains the same information.

I thought there would be more tips, but the ones they have are explained in detail and there probably is one or two tips here that someone who hasn't been into online dating for more than a year could use. Other season daters probably don't need to visit the guide. With only 7 tips available I am sure Match.com has a few more on the way if it becomes a popular destination for their members.

For more information about Match.com, please read our review.

It appears that Jangl is going out of business according to Mashable, but nothing has been posted on their website yet. Most readers of this dating reviews site and blog may not know what Jangl is. They offer text and voice messaging and chatting to dating and social networking websites. Jangl is pretty popular and had numerous large websites as clients. I am not totally sure how much they charged the companies using their service (if anything) but from my understanding is they made most of their money from audio ads inserted into the voice calls and text ads inserted into text messaging. Obviously this revenue model did not pan out since they are closing.

In a blog post one of the founders of Jangl, Michael Cerda, talks a bit more of the demise of Jangl. He also stated his opinion that Jangl:

... needed another 18-24 months worth of runway to realize its fullest potential ...

I guess the venture capitalist didn't see it that way.

Match.com uses Jangl for their anonymous calling, so does FriendFinder and Friendster. PlentyofFish also used it but, according to the owner Markus Find he is removing the links for the service from his site right now.

You can also use Jangl on Facebook and it was coming soon to MySpace.

I wonder what business Match.com and the others will be switching too now? Maybe they will develop an in house service instead? Voice chatting is pretty important to a dating service and I hope these companies have a contingency plan in place. When you use 3rd party services for important aspects of your business you always need a backup plan if something unforeseen should happen.

Well it looks like Match.com made $90.5 million in the first quarter this year. This is up from the same time last year by 10 percent according too Gigaom. The Online Dating Insider also mentions while commenting on the same story that international subscribers increased by 12 percent while North American subscribers declined slightly. Even so, Match.com was able to increase revenue by 6 percent per subscriber.

While internet dating does continue to grow in North America (but not at the same numbers as in previous years) even the large dating services like Match.com are feeling the pinch from the increasing number of dating services and social networking sites out there. I wouldn't be surprised if the next couple of financial quarters show similar results for Match.com.

Find more information about Match.com here.

ZDNet posted the results of ad spending by dating sites for quarters 1 to 3 in 2007. These figures are compiled by Nielsen. It looks like the top ten dating websites in ad spending where responsible for 91 percent of all dating site advertising. Of the over $350 million spent in ads, Match.com spent 40 percent of it or $145.5 million. eHarmony was second at $88.1 million. Since 2006, Match.com has almost doubled their ad spending while eHarmony had cut theirs by 16%. It would be interesting to see how this affected membership numbers.

The other sites that made the list in which we have dating reviews for includes, Yahoo! Personals at the sixth position with $14 million, PerfectMatch.com at position number 8 with $13.4 million and finally, Lavalife with $6.1 million at number 9.

A few other things to note is, these numbers includes both internet and TV advertising. Match.com and eHarmony have successful TV marketing campaigns which probably eats into at least half of the total amount they spent. I also have to wonder if Match.com's numbers (which really are the numbers of their parent company IAC/InterActiveCorp) includes Chemistry.com (who is also owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp). It was around Q3 of 2007 when Chemistry was spending a lot of money on those eHarmony attack TV ads.