Match

According to Metro.co.uk 7.8 million people in Britain used internet dating last year. This is up 33% over 2005. With this growth spurt, Mad.co.uk has news that Match.com UK looks to be doubling its £4 million marketing budget from last year to £8 million. This is not surprising since the North American online dating market growth has slowed. Online dating companies now have to think globally and concentrate on the double digit growths of dating services in the European and Chinese markets. This is not easy as it sounds for North American dating services since ads and the dating sites themselves have to be tailored to suit the cultural difference from country to country.

Reuters has an interview with Match.com's Chief Executive Thomas Enraght-Moony. In it they talk of the huge growth of social networking sites like Myspace and FaceBook. The results of all the visitors to these sites have only been good news for online dating in general and Match.com itself. According to the company social networking sites help singles with "their comfort level with exposing their personalities online". This means as visitors of social networking sites get use to the amount of personal information displayed on its web pages, they have less qualms of using this type of their own information with an online dating service.

The article also explores the rising competition Match.com has been receiving from rival dating services. Match.com had slower global growth last year but profits where up due to a fee increase. A large part of the profits goes into television, print and internet advertising.

Read our review of Match.com for more information.

Related Stories: Match.com and their Little Black Book, Match.com is about to launch a Facebook Application

The New York Times has had several interesting articles this past month related to online dating. This past week they published an article regarding the more popular match systems called Hitting It Off, Thanks to Algorithms of Love. The three main systems out there are from the dating sites eHarmony, Perfectmatch.com and Chemistry. The article goes on and talks about some of the published statistics behind the matching systems, their companies advertising battles and the problems with these systems not being peer reviewed.

Match.com UK will be powering Freeads.co.uk new dating service. This deal will give Freeads users access to millions of singles already on Match.com and it will offer Match.com access to the million plus monthly unique visitors at Freeads.

Duncan Horton, Freeads.co.uk chief executive, commented:

For us partnering with a company of Match.com's calibre to launch our dating section is a huge coup. Rather than relying on our users to populate this new section for us we are able to hit the ground running by offering them access to the millions of singles already registered on Match.com.

This makes sense to me since it is extremely difficult to get a new dating service off the ground these days with all the competition. There was no mention of the cost for Freeads users but I am assuming it will be the same cost as signing up normally to Match.com UK's dating service.

For more information or you can read our Match Review (match.com).

The Time website has an article called We Just Clicked. It talks mainly about the issues large online dating companies are going through when they expand from their own markets to other countries with different cultures. As example, one point talks about international dating sites having to rethink profile questions and what is culturally appropriate. In Japan, it was pointed out they don't really need to ask about hair color since almost all of the people have the same color.

I got a little bit of laugh out of this next point. eHarmony advertises on their site that marriages happen too their member on average 90 a day. According to "We Just Clicked", these unions have so far produced 100,000 children with a disproportionate number of them named Harmony.

Match.com was also talked about a fair bit in the article. It looks like in some countries Match.com is doing extremely well, while in others they have hardly made a dent. Match.com now is in 35 countries and of the 15 million, 1.3 million members pay for the full service and off those 30% live outside the United States. In the Scandinavian market, of the current 2.2 million online daters, 1.5 million have joined Match.com. It is unclear if Match.com counts the total number of members from all of Match.com branded dating sites from other countries in the 15 million they say are members. I always though, when Match.com US said they had 15 million members, that was the total number of members who joined the US site. The reason for my thinking this is Match.com dating sites for other countries look different and they don't allow you to use your US member account if you try to login.

In the U.S. alone, there are close to 1,000 dating sites. With competition so furious and with the growth in the North American market slowing, these sites are looking abroad for more revenue streams. For more information about eHarmony, check out our review and for Match.com please read this review.

Online Dating Insider has an article about Match.com's new service called MatchStudios. The cost is a one time fee of $40 and includes a review of your profile by Matches experienced profile writer staff. After a review, Match.com will contact you via phone and discuss any text changes with your profile that is recommended. You can either add in these changes yourself or Match.com will do it for you.

Match.com may also recommend you use their Match Photo Review service. The review is no cost, but if changes are recommend, they will put you in contact with a company called LookBetterOnline.com. Look Better Online offer easy access to photo professionals across North America (over 6000 cities). The service costs $149 which seems a little steep, but they do offer a 100% Risk Free Guarantee. There are terms to this guarantee, but they are not too bad. If you don't think the photos will give you more emails than before, then you can ask for a reshoot or your money back. If you ask for your money back, it is less a sitting fee of $60 to $75. For more information about this photo service, click here. There have been a lot of these type of services over the last few years and most of them seem to have disappeared. Look Better Online is one of the few popular ones and has been around for a while.

MatchStudios is designed to make your profile more attractive to other members. I'm sure the service works well, but I think you would most likely get as good advice from your friends and family regarding your profile. According to our poll Do you tell your friends you're Dating Online?, over 55% of 330 votes by our readers don't tell people they use online dating. I guess these singles could use MatchStudios if they feel their profile is inadequate. As far as profile photos are concerned I think most people's picks are pretty good. A picture of you laughing or at a family gathering tells a potential match much more than a professional model shot. Then again, members of sites for Wealthy Singles may want to use a service such as this.

For more information on Match please read our review.