Partnerships

The online personals site, Match.com has recently partnered with eBay Australia. So from now on, when you click on the dating menu item at eBay's Australian website you will be directed to Match.com's Australian dating service. eBay AU has about 8 million members and Match.com wanted to tap into this pool of internet users.

To visit eBay Dating, see this page and for more information on the dating site and how it works, read our Match.com review.

Match.com has recently partnered with Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef. The Jamie Oliver website receives over 1.4 million visitors, with an equal gender split and, with almost 70 percent being 35 years or older. This is the ideal target market for a dating site like Match.com. The Jamie Oliver dating page even has hot dinner dating tips with several ideas for making everything from the starter to the dessert, so you can impress your date. You can even win a dinner for two at Jamie's Italian restaurant (United Kingdom residents only).

The new service can be found here and targets the food lovers among the dating community. For more information on Match.com in the United Kingdom, you can read our review.

White Label Dating announced that they have partnered with the Cosmopolitan magazine website in the UK to offer a dating service for their readers. The link to the new service is found under the "Love & Sex" menu, titled Cosmo Dating on their website. Cosmopolitan magazine target demographic is females aged 24 to 34. This is good news for the White Label Dating Network since it means more female profiles in this age group for their network of dating sites (WLD share profiles between most partner sites). This demographic is usually the one sought after in the dating industry since, where the women are, the men will surely follow.

If the UK Cosmopolitan partnership goes well, I am sure White Label Dating is hoping to partner with the US Cosmopolitan website. White Label Dating is the most popular branded dating service for companies in the UK and I bet they are hoping to repeat this success in North America.

I found a press release that announces the partnership of DatingHeadshots and Honesty Online to be a little over the top. In the first sentence they compare Justin Timberlake being sexy to the two dating companies new partnership. 😲

What the two companies are now offering is a complete Verification Package. On the photo side you get a professional photographer and a photo shoot. Government ID is checked to ensure the person who ordered the photos is the one at the photo shoot. Afterwards the person can then complete the Honesty Online verification process. This process uses information from your past to verify the person's identity by asking you multiple choice questions. A more thorough background, job and education check can also be completed at an additional cost.

This is an ideal merger of these two services, having your photos and background information being verified together. Plus, with the photos you get recent professional shots that helps give a strong first impression. Unfortunately I went to both sites and could not find any additional information on this partnership or service. I have a feeling it may be more money than people are willing to spend. It is also unclear on the Honesty Online website which dating sites use their services. I know they have a Facebook application but, it does me no good to get a verification package if I can't show myself as being verified on my favorite dating site.

On June 5th, 2009, IAC completed the deal previously announced in early May with Meetic (see Story). IAC sold Match.com European operations for 27 percent equity stake in Meetic along with a 5 million Euro promissory note.

Online Personals Watch posted a short summary of an interview they had with the CEO of Meetic, Marc Simoncini. Among the things they discussed was the recent purchase of Match.com European operations (see Story). Currently Meetic in the UK runs the following dating sites; Meetic, DatingDirect and now Match. From the interview It looks like Meetic will be promoting only one brand per country or market. This means the Meetic dating site will be the only one of the three which is actively promoted in the United Kingdom. Will this affect DatingDirect and its membership numbers? Not really, since both sites look and function identically and they share the same member database. This means, if you sign up for one of the above mentioned dating sites, you really are then signing up for all of them as your profile will be available on all sites. On a related note, I am working on another article which I plan to further dissect how the large Dating Networks like Meetic work and if the end result is good for its members.

Here are a few more details from the eight year agreement that IAC (Match.com) and Meetic have:

1. Match has no right to manage the daily business in Europe. It will be managed by Meetic
2. There's a reciprocal right of first refusal for acquisition
3. And there will be two members on the board of Meetic, from IAC] Another interesting fact in the summary is Match Europe (not sure if this includes the UK) will have their member database merge with Meetic.

For the full interview of Marc Simoncini, check out Online Personals Watch