Date.com Information, Statistics, Facts and History

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Date.com Facts By Year

Date.com was founded in 1997 by Avalanche LLC. As one of the first dating sites online, Date.com quickly grew in popularity and had millions of members in only a couple of years. Flushed with cash and looking to repeat their success early in 2006 Avalanche acquired Matchmaker.com from Lycos for an undisclosed sum. Lycos had purchased Matchmaker in 2000 for $44.5 million from the original founders. Matchmaker is considered the oldest dating site since it initially got started as a Bulletin Board System (BBS) in 1986. By 1996 Matchmaker.com went live on the internet and by 1998 the BBS portion of the dating service had closed. In 2007 Avalanche open a third dating service called Amor.com for Hispanic singles. These 3 dating sites are considered Avalanche's most popular brands. In all at their peak Avalanche had over 20 dating sites.

All of Avalanche's dating properties started off as a paid service. Users could sign up for free and search for members. They could also view profiles for free but if they wished to send them a message they would have to pay a monthly subscription fee. By the late 2000's most of Avalanches brands supported multiple languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, and German). By 2010 Avalanche dating sites had over 10 million members. Unfortunately Date.com and Avalanche's other dating properties were unsuccessful competing in the era of smart phones and dating apps. By 2016 Avalanche was in financial trouble and by October of 2016 all of their dating sites went offline.

Surprisingly in 2017 Avalanche corporate site and a few dating brands like Date.com and Matchmaker have returned. While the sites seem to be functional they are missing pages and contain broken links. They do not appear very usable.

2016

• General Information
  • Avalanche LLC appears to have gone out of business. Currently Date.com, Matchmaker.com, Amor, GayDating.com and all of their other 20+ dating services are not accessible online. [1]

References

1. Goodbye Date.com and Matchmaker.com - Avalanche Has Gone Out Of Business

2009

• General Information
  • Date.com, Matchmaker.com and Amor now offer virtual gifts for sale. [1]
  • Date.com is now Free in India. [2]
• Members
  • Members inactive for consecutive 365 days are purged from their database. [3]

References

1. Date.com Now Offering Virtual Gifts
2. Date.com is Free in India Now
3. Legal Issues Date.com Reviewed with Virtual Gifts

2008

• General Information
  • Avalanche currently operates Date.com, Matchmaker.com and Amor.com. [1]
    • Date.com
      • Launched in 1997 on Valentine's Day. [1]
    • Matchmaker.com
      • First started as a Bulletin Board System in 1986. Is now the oldest dating site? [1]
      • Acquired in 2006. [1]
    • Amor.com
      • Launched in 2007 for Hispanic singles. [1]
  • Experiencing double digit growth (17%) in first 2 quarters when compared to 2007. [2]
  • All sites now offer a Paypal payment option. [3]
  • Languages now available include Spanish, Portuguese and German. [3]
  • Plans to offer dating sites in 18 languages by 2010 with the first 3 being available by the end of 2008. [4]
• Members
  • Hosts more than 10 million members worldwide. Adds over 100,000 members each month. [1]
  • 26% increase in member activity in first 2 quarters of 2008. [2]

References

1. Avalanche Press Release
2. Date.com Experiences Double Digit Growth
3. Date.com - New Languages and Paypal Payments
4. Date.com soon to be Available in 18 Languages

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