Title

The site 'has never been limited to a Christian audience or to any subset,' says a company lawyer

LET'S SAY YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED AND YOU'RE THINKING of joining an Internet dating site. Wouldn't you want that site to be just a little bit picky? Wouldn't you want it to eliminate the creepy already-marrieds-and the pathological liars? Wouldn't you be grateful to meet someone who shared your values on children, money, education and God? Isn't that what your mother wants?

eHarmony, which has had 20 million users since its founding in 2000, promotes itself as the dating service your mother would approve of. Its implied promise: that in this world of hookups, eHarmony can get you hitched. Lately, though, the company has faced a public relations crisis, triggered both by a competitor's clever advertisements and by a lawsuit charging that eHarmony discriminates against gays and lesbians. Founded by a 72-year-old Christian self-help author named Neil Clark Warren, the dating site requires users to answer 256 questions about personality traits and values. Then, with the help of a complex algorithm, it matches people with much in common. Warren's philosophy is as comforting as mashed potatoes: "It is so much better to love someone who is a lot like you," he told National Review in 2005. A company spokeswoman boasts that 236 eHarmony users marry every day.

Among the young and the single-especially those with Blue State values-wariness about eHarmony runs high. For one thing, there's the association with Dr. James Dobson. Warren published several of his books under the imprint of Dobson's Focus on the Family and then, when he was first flogging eHarmony, he did it largely via Dobson's radio show. "James Dobson… did more to help us get started than any other person," Warren told NPR's Terry Gross in 2005. Because of Warren's strong evangelical bona fides, the impression persists that eHarmony is a dating service for Christians-even though the company has severed its ties with Dobson's group, and eHarmony "has never been limited to a Christian audience or any particular subset of the population," says a company lawyer.

Trickier (from a PR point of view), eHarmony rejects about 20 percent of its applicants and doesn't fully explain why. The Internet is abuzz with possible explanations, and last year a savvy competitor called Chemistry.com capitalized on these suspicions. In television ads, seemingly eligible young people face the camera and complain that they returned their library books on time or were only occasionally depressed-and still were rejected by eHarmony. These ads drew a bright line: Chemistry.com is for people who believe in love and romance; eHarmony is for squares who follow an indecipherable set of rules. An eHarmony spokeswoman explains that the site rejects people who are underage, already married or dishonest-as well as those whose answers raise flags about their mental health.

In June, a California judge will hear a plaintiffs' motion for class certification in a case that accuses eHarmony of discrimination against gays and lesbians. eHarmony does not reject gays-it simply doesn't accept them: the only choices on the site are "man seeking woman" or "woman seeking man." A company lawyer explains that eHarmony makes matches based on unique scientific research into what makes heterosexual unions work; it hasn't done the same kind of work on gay unions, though it doesn't rule out such research in the future. While this explanation may be true, it also sidesteps the real problem. eHarmony was founded eight years ago by a conservative Christian who had a passionate interest in the benefits of shared values in heterosexual marriage-and he sold this formula within the Christian world. (Warren was not available for comment.) Today, the company desires to reap the economies of scale offered by a mainstream clientele, and in the wider world, shared values are not as easy to compute.

Abstract (Summary)

Dateline, which has been operating in the UK for more than 40 years, is best known for offering one-to-one personal matches. Dateline now has launched an online dating site to rival market leaders DatingDirect and Match.com.

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Full Text (250 words)

Dateline has launched an online dating site to rival market leaders DatingDirect and Match.com.

Dateline, which has been operating in the UK for more than 40 years, is best known for offering one-to-one personal matches.

The company takes credit for the first computerised matching service but has so far failed to take advantage of the online space.

The brand already runs dateline121.com, which carries its offline business of personal matching through interviews and consultations online.

But while this specialist site has a few thousand members, dateline.co.uk has been built to reach a mass audience.

Edward Ankrett, chairman and chief executive of Dateline, said, "The online business for Dateline is going to be far bigger than any previous work we've done. The reach of online is far and we've built this site for everyone, so we're expecting amazing take-up."

Dateline.co.uk will offer users profiles, social networking, diary entries, messaging abilities and an auto-match function.

Ankrett added the site was looking to take on online dating giants DatingDirect and Match.com.

"The Dateline brand is very well known for having 40 years' worth of experience, and also for its security, which is especially important with online," he said.

Developer WhiteLabelDating has been appointed to create and provide the platform for the site.

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

The UK and Germany are Europe's largest online dating markets, worth E66m (pound 50.6m) last year, according to Jupiter. Plentyoffish, Gaydar, DatingDirect and Match dominate the UK's online dating market, according to Hitwise.Copyright: Centaur Communications Ltd. and licensors

The Houston Chronicle

May 25, 2008 Sunday
3 STAR EDITION

EHarmony says its online therapy clicks

BYLINE: JOANN KLIMKIEWICZ, Hartford Courant

SECTION: STAR; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 400 words

The online dating site eHarmony.com claims its scientific system is responsible for 118 marriages a day. Now the company has made it its business to make sure they stay that way.

The site has expanded into couples counseling in the past two years with eHarmony Marriage, an online therapy service for people who are married or in committed relationships. There's no traditional talk therapy involved. Instead, couples answer an extensive questionnaire and receive a computerized assessment of their relationship's strengths and weaknesses.

Based on that information, the service prescribes a series of self-directed exercises and interactive videos that target their trouble areas - communication, intimacy and conflict resolution, for example. Offered in 20-minute weekly sessions over three months, the site touts among its benefits at-home convenience and a $149 price tag that would otherwise buy them one, maybe two sessions with a traditional therapist.

"It was a logical extension of our matchmaking product," says Galen Buckwalter, chief scientist at eHarmony. "The intent was to have (a resource) that could be available to everyone ... that could help them make their marriage as good as possible."

The company claims the service has so far been a success, drawing between 300 to 500 new registrations daily. Its preliminary in-house study shows that 19 percent of couples considered "at risk" for serious marriage problems were no longer considered such after completing the three-month program.

The concept of online therapy has its critics, who say individuals shouldn't be left alone to hash out their problems in front of a computer screen. Computerized therapy, they say, can't match the effectiveness of in-person sessions led by trained psychologists who can root out the underlying causes of marital strife, spot important nonverbal cues and see the visual clues to more serious problems, such as domestic abuse.

EHarmony acknowledges that its service can't be a replacement for the real thing; it's intended as a practical tool to get couples talking about their relationship in a way they might not otherwise.

Sometimes it's used in concert with traditional therapy, and sometimes it leads couples to discover they need deeper work, says Les Parrott, a clinical psychologist who, with his wife, Leslie, a marriage and family therapist, helped develop the program with a team at eHarmony.

USA TODAY

February 13, 2008 Wednesday
FINAL EDITION

Matchmakers cut to the chase;
More well-heeled professionals are paying big bucks to these 'headhunters for the heart'

BYLINE: Sharon Jayson

SECTION: LIFE; Pg. 1D

LENGTH: 1522 words

Harry Green didn't tell anyone about his secret search for true love -- except his matchmaker. The 52-year-old divorced computer systems consultant from Philadelphia took a businesslike approach to seeking a soul mate.

"I don't need help meeting women. I need a shortcut to the right women," he says. "We outsource computer work for clients. Why not outsource the initial part of dating, which is meeting the right people in the first place? That's the hard part."

In a world of ubiquitous Internet dating sites, matchmaking is suddenly a trendy occupation and the focus of several new reality TV shows. Matchmakers seem to be popping up all over the country, many targeting their personalized services to eligible businessmen. They equate their businesses to executive search firms; some refer to themselves as headhunters for the heart.

For men and women with money, prestige or a wall of diplomas who want to keep their search for a mate under wraps, matchmakers offer the confidentiality they want with the hope of improving their chances of meeting the perfect partner. Green and others who are serious about marriage or a long-term relationship are willing to pay thousands of dollars for such custom help in finding love.

Green has been working with former fashion model Christie Nightingale, who considers her company, Premier Match, much like a concierge service. "It's personalized and caters to your personal and confidential search," she says. "Men love that because they feel they're being well taken care of."

Matchmaking has become such a buzzword that some dating websites use it in their marketing. In December, Match.com unveiled Match My Friends, which allows friends and family to play matchmaker. Engage.com came up with that premise when it launched in 2005. Matchmaking as a field also has grown since the 2003 opening of the Manhattan-based Matchmaking Institute, which sells a home study kit for $1,500.

"The combination of the Matchmaking Institute training and certifying people, plus more TV shows like Millionaire Matchmaker and The Bachelor, has brought matchmaking into the mainstream," says John LaRosa of Marketdata Enterprises, a Tampa company specializing in niche markets such as dating.

LaRosa's research suggests there are about 1,600 matchmakers in the USA, and about 100 are added each year. "It's very easy to get into the business and call themselves a matchmaker," he says. "There's no certification needed."

Though Green says he has been happy with his matches, some matchmakers' clients are not. Clients often have unrealistic expectations, matchmakers say. These disputes, some of which end up in court, shed new light on a field that many say is ripe for scrutiny.

"The matchmaking industry is filled with a lot of fraud and a lot of litigation. People are ripping each other off," says Matt Titus, founder of Matt's Little Black Book in New York, star of Matched in Manhattan on Lifetime TV and co-author of Why Hasn't He Called?. "Matchmaking is a very, very difficult business because you're dealing with emotional currency and extreme expectations."

In the dating-assistance business, matchmakers provide the most customized -- and costliest -- services. Websites where photos and profiles are posted are the most widely accessible and least expensive. In between are dating services, such as national chains Great Expectations or It's Just Lunch, some of which existed before the Internet. Dating services conduct personal interviews and match within their pool of members.

The client pool: Men vs. women

Nightingale accepts male and female clients; some matchmakers confine their business to men, sometimes including gay men. Nightingale serves both men and women because she believes there's a higher level of commitment if both parties pay.

Others disagree. "If you have two paying members, and she wants one thing and hasn't had a date, and she starts squawking, you may be tempted to pacify her," says Melinda Maximova, founder of Perfect Search, based in San Francisco.

The Matchmaking Institute's co-founder, Lisa Clampitt, also owns two services catering to men only. "They kind of allow a little bit more guidance in their life," she says. "They're used to having assistants."

Janis Spindel started her New York City matchmaking business in 1993 and takes credit for 805 marriages and thousands of committed relationships. About 7 1/2 years ago, she dropped women as clients.

"The women were very needy, very high-maintenance, and they seemed to nag," says Spindel, author of How to Date Men, released in September.

Generally, matchmakers meet prospective clients for sessions of one to five hours, learning what the client wants in a mate and what the client can offer in return. A matchmaker's database includes paying clients and pools of candidates who often are recruited at events where single professionals gather.

"I almost went broke the first year because I had to join every upper-end organization there was," Titus says. "Box seats at sporting events -- I went everywhere wealthy men went. I still walk up to guys in elevators."

Last month, matchmaker and attorney Leora Hoffman of Bethesda, Md., held an information session for Professionals in the City, a social networking group for singles in Washington, D.C. "My goal is to have the client involved in an exclusive relationship as a result of this process. It's about getting to know the client, listening to feedback and refining the search," she says.

Fees are based on time, she says, and vary according to how matchmakers set up their operations and the services they offer. Some offer year-long memberships with a guaranteed number of introductions. Most charge a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands and occasionally more than $100,000 for a national search. Some charge fees for prospective candidates.

Spindel's fee for male clients starts at $25,000. She will go on a simulated date, usually a lunch that can last several hours, to observe the prospective client at a location he selects. In addition to criminal background checks, clients must see a therapist to make sure they are "emotionally available" and an image consultant before any matching occurs. She even goes on home visits -- as many homes as the client has.

Although some states, including New York, limit charges for social referral services to $1,000, Clampitt says most upscale matchmakers circumvent that cap for introductions with other more expensive services under separate contract, such as consultations, criminal and financial background checks, psychological assessment, image consulting and date coaching.

"A lot of matchmakers are charging tens of thousands of dollars," Titus says. "They do that because it's a very difficult business, and they're not receiving repeating dollars. People are very hard to please."

Clampitt says she created Matchmaking Institute to instill a level of accountability in a field largely without regulation. So far, 120 matchmakers have received certificates with a seal of approval that can be displayed on their websites.

But the value of that certificate underscores the questions about an industry that is feeling its way without much oversight.

The institute is a private body operating much like a professional organization that Clampitt says wants to create ethics and standards for the field.

LaRosa's company estimated in a 2006 report that the "average" matchmaker grosses $200,000 a year, and some make as much as $5million. Overall, the company suggests that matchmaking is a $236-million-a-year industry.

It isn't always smooth sailing

Earlier this month, the Better Business Bureau warned that complaints against dating services, including matchmakers and online services, increased 73% in 2006 over the previous year. In the matchmaking category, 35% of complaints dealt with disputes over the caliber of the matches; 15.1% were dissatisfied with the number of dates.

"We're saying there is a trend, and there may be some specific problems associated with the industry," says Better Business Bureau spokesman Steve Cox.

The higher the fees, the more likely there are to be disputes. "Just about all of them at some point have had some disputes or lawsuits or settlements," LaRosa says. "It's almost inevitable. When you have someone paying $10,000 or $20,000 or $30,000, if they haven't found the person of their dreams after six months or a year -- whether it's their fault or not -- they're going to be (ticked) off. They're a litigious group of customers because they've got big money at stake."

In 2006, a jury ordered Beverly Hills matchmaker Orly Hadida to pay $2.1 million to a disgruntled client who had paid her $125,000. They reached a settlement last year. In 2006, a lawsuit against Spindel, also a high-profile matchmaker, was settled.

Clampitt, whose book Make Me a Match was released in October, says matchmakers have to be smart and reject clients who may be difficult to match. Prospective clients need to watch out, as well.

"When you're dealing with an industry growing so quickly and with a big income potential, you have to be really aware of what you're buying into."

Love machines rev up;
Matchmakers, souped-up Web sites make play for lonely hearts

BYLINE: Tina Traster

SECTION: SMALL BUSINESS REPORT; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 1514 words

Love may be blind, but those with enough money to spend can find some useful guideposts. Newly single Tom Morgan found that out after he dabbled in Internet dating, only to discover that people will say anything online for love.

In frustration, the busy real estate entrepreneur turned to Great Date Now, a Manhattan-based personal matchmaker. Three months later, his $3,000 investment paid off when he met a woman who shares his love of sailing and travel. Today, nearly a year later, they are still together.

``With a matchmaker, you know that people are real because they've been interviewed and photographed and have been given background checks,'' Mr. Morgan says.

More than a decade after the dawn of Internet dating and the ensuing predictions that traditional dating services would go the way of the woolly mastodon, a funny thing is happening: Both types of services are thriving.

Given that more people are delaying marriage into their 30s and beyond--and that 60% of all marriages now end in divorce--the singles market has become a rich feeding ground for entrepreneurs of all stripes. The number of online dating sites has exploded. In the process, they've boosted business for matchmakers by making it more acceptable to search for companionship with the help of outside parties.

``Ten years ago, personal matchmaking services had a stigma,'' says Lisa Clampitt, a former social worker who became a professional matchmaker and co-founded the Manhattan-based Matchmaking Institute in 2003 to help create standards for the industry. ``Using one meant that you were a desperate loser who needed help.''

Thanks to reality shows like Confessions of a Matchmaker, scores of high-profile advice books written by professional matchmakers and a barrage of late-night television ads for online dating, the $1.5 billion dating industry is growing at a ratio of 25% annually.

At the low end, love-starved New Yorkers can get help for free online. Those using professional matchmakers pay anywhere up to a quarter of a million dollars. For $3,000 to $7,000, they typically get a series of matches over six months to a year. For $10,000 and up, they're generally entitled to boutique services including advice, coaching and access to the cream of the global crop.

Interestingly, the lower-priced online dating services are facing the biggest hurdles as competition increases. Operators of these sites, which commonly charge between $30 and $60 a month, are being forced to rethink their strategies as the host of new players pushes down prices.

In response, established sites--including Match.com, which is owned by Manhattan-based IAC/ InterActiveCorp

Enhanced Coverage Linking

IAC/ InterActiveCorp -Search using:

--are scrambling to offer users better results for their bucks. They are tightening controls by conducting background checks, using new software based on sophisticated algorithms to deliver higher-quality matches, and in some cases adding interactive Web functions and cell phones to the tools in Cupid's arsenal. Some are even hiring traditional matchmakers to work with online customers, in an effort to personalize their services.

Following are snapshots of two traditional outfits, including a high-end industry pioneer and a fast-growing rival. In addition, there are three online enterprises: a pair that charge no fees whatsoever, and a subscription service that revolves around text messaging.

OKCUPID.COM AND CRAZY BLIND DATE

Founded 2004 and 2007, respectively

Fees None

Clientele Twenty- and thirtysomething singles

``The only sites on the Internet that charge for content are porn and gambling. Dating should be free.'' --Sam Yagan, CEO

With its free site, OkCupid.com is trying to change the business model for online dating services. The operators of the Manhattan-based startup rely on advertising revenues--and on what they think is a growing disillusionment over online dating sites' rising monthly rates.

Hip, edgy and aimed at younger singles, OkCupid takes its tools from the cyberfrontier. ``It is tied to the advent of Web 2.0 technology, which means it's defined by democratic, user-generated content, active participants and the fact that it is free,'' says Sam Yagan, who co-founded the site with some of the same friends with whom he earlier launched SparkNotes.

Daters who go on OkCupid are encouraged to create and post their own quizzes, like ``The How Redneck Are You Test.'' Mr. Yagan acknowledges that the quizzes are totally unscientific, but says they create a fun, social nexus, much as MySpace does.

OkCupid's revenues are expected to reach $2 million in 2008. The site has 600,000 active users.

Homing in on the mobile generation, Mr. Yagan and his partners have created a second free option, Crazy Blind Date, which arranges blind dates at a moment's notice in New York and six other major cities. Users simply go to Crazy Blind Date's Web site and punch in their criteria for a date, and the staff reaches out to candidates who fit the bill. If a potential match agrees, Crazy Blind Date arranges the hookup through text messaging, so that it can occur almost instantly.

JANIS SPINDEL SERIOUS MATCHMAKING INC.

Founded 1993

Fees $25,000 to $250,000

Clientele America's wealthiest bachelors

``If I have to travel the country looking for a wife, my clients have to pay for that'' --Janis Spindel, president

Janis spindel's clients have important jobs, big portfolios, jet-set lives and a willingness to pay big bucks--including a marriage bonus of $25,000 and up--for the right mate. They come to her via word-of-mouth and in response to sophisticated public relations efforts.

As the author of books including Get Serious About Getting Married: 365 Proven Ways to Find Love in Less Than a Year, the Manhattan-based professional matchmaker regularly appears on talk shows around the country. When she flies into a city in search of Ms. Right, a press release to the local media frequently helps draw scores of candidates.

``These men want handpicked women who have looks, brains, the body and values,'' says Ms. Spindel, a former fashion executive and retailer.

One of her first steps in finding the right matches for her bachelors is to meet with potential clients for lunch or dinner.

``I take these prospects through a dating test-run,'' she says.

Working with two assistants, Ms. Spindel then scours the world for the right women. She serves an average of 100 clients a year and is responsible for more than 700 marriages.

GREAT DATE NOW

Founded 2003

Fees $3,000 to $7,500

Clientele Urban and suburban singles from 25 to 75

``I plan to open an office in every major market.'' -Gary Ferone, president

When it comes to selling love, Gary Ferone believes in advertising, whether in local papers and magazines or on ferries and billboards. In five years, the stockbroker-turned-romance broker has built a matchmaking empire that runs from Long Island, where he started out, to New Jersey, Connecticut, Westchester and New York City. He recently moved his headquarters to Manhattan.

Great Date Now boasts a database of 4,500 clients. Each of the company's nine offices has its own professional matchmaker, many of whom have taken the Matchmaking Institute's certification course.

``Our edge is volume,'' says Mr. Ferone.

Great Date Now charges $3,000 for eight intros. Each client is interviewed in person for 90 minutes. Matchmakers delve into individuals' dating or marital histories for clues to what has worked and what has failed.

After each date, clients must call in with feedback.

``We act as a liaison in the early stages,'' says Mr. Ferone. ``We'll offer suggestions and make reservations for a restaurant that's located midway between our clients' homes.''

The company has helped spawn 100 marriages. Mr. Ferone--who projects that his firm will bring in $5 million in revenues in 2008, up from $3 million in 2007--plans to open offices within the next few years in Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; and Jupiter, Fla.

MEETMOI

Founded 2007

Fees $9.99 per month plus $1 per call

Clientele Tech-savvy singles in their 20s through 40s comfortable with text messaging and spontaneity

``Why not use the phone for dating?'' --Andrew Weinreich, CEO

Meetmoi offers lightning-fast dating, for a fee. This new mobile dating service allows users to make dates wherever they are at any given moment.

It's a bit like using a global positioning device to find love. A user text-messages his or her location to MeetMoi.com, which generates a list of candidates and sends it back via cell phone. When the user contacts a prospect, the site charges a $1 connection fee. The $9.99 monthly subscription is payable through major carriers that have signed up to carry the service, including Sprint Nextel, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

The service is available nationwide. MeetMoi's chief executive, serial entrepreneur Andrew Weinreich, expects revenues to flow from advertising as well as subscriptions.

``Mobile dating will change the dating paradigm,'' says Mr. Weinreich, whose earlier businesses include social networking site Sixdegrees.com. ``It's right here, right now--not three weeks from the time you started e-mailing someone.''

Chemistry.com Reinforces Formula with $40M Effort.
Source:	Brandweek [1064-4318] Facenda, Vanessa L. yr:2008 vol:49 iss:13 pg:17

ADVERTISING

'Come as you are' mantra makes dating site a hot spot for singles.

AS SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES continue to steal visitors from dating sites, Chemistry.com is sticking with the formula that helped grow its traffic by 72%.

Last year's "Rejected by eHarmony" ads took a direct swipe at its competitor. This year, the two-year-old Chemistry.com is continuing to promote itself as "a progressive, non-judgmental brand," said Mandy Ginsberg, gm/vp of Chemistry.com, Dallas, albeit without mentioning its competitors by name. "Our mantra is come as you are."

On April 14, the brand is launching a $40-plus million campaign centering around four new TV spots. The ads feature different couples, including one homosexual couple reciting mock wedding vows. One shows a man and woman talking at a sushi restaurant. "I promise not to discuss politics in bed," he says. "I promise not to tell anyone you pluck your eyebrows," she says. Voiceover: "Isn't it about time you found great chemistry with someone? Take our personality test and get your first five Chemistry-inspired matches free."

The campaign will run primarily on cable stations such as Bravo, Food Network and TNT. "Cable is a great medium for us," said Ginsberg. Radio supports. Chemistry.com spent $21 million in measured media in 2007, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Agency hanft raboy and partners, New York, handles.

Chemistry.com, which is owned by Match.com, 500,000 unique visitors last month compared to the year prior--a 72% spike--per comScore MediaMetrix, Reston, Va. It has 4.2 million registered members.

Traffic at dating sites fell 5% for the month of February compared to the year prior. Match.com's sites lead the category with 3.9 million unique visitors, followed by Yahoo! Personals, Singlesnet.com and eHarmony.

MySpace and Facebook are to blame for the drop in visitors, said Com-Score analyst Andrew Lipsman. "We're seeing a migration to social networking sites. Personals sites are being affected."

So what impact did Chemistry.com's attack ads have on eHarmony? Apparently, a positive one. eHarmony saw its February unique visitor total rise to 2.8 million from 1.8 million the year prior.

PHOTO (COLOR): Promises, promises: Couple in Chemistry.com ads.

~~~~~~~~

By Vanessa L. Facenda

Singles flock to Myspace, leaving Match.com and others looking for love

The honeymoon's over for online dating.

After years of torrid double-digit growth, the $516 million market has cooled to about a 9% pace, just as social-networking behemoths like MySpace.com and risque hookup sites like SexSearch.com flourish.

To combat their shrinking market share, traditional online-dating sites are responding with fresh features: ongoing couples counseling, group-dating programs, new advertising campaigns and offshoot sites serving specific segments of singles.

It's only been about six years since the phenomenon of online dating caught fire with U.S. singles, a group that's estimated to be 89 million strong. Their quest for love has proven profitable for companies like Match.com and Yahoo Personals: The market leaders each have nearly 15 million members. The revenue from online dating was $516 million last year, one of the largest categories of paid content online, according to Jupiter Research.

During peak years-2002 and 2003-the market grew by more than 70%, but for the first time last year, online dating sites started losing more users than they were attracting, Jupiter Research said.

Why the sudden decrease in popularity? The novelty has worn off, some industry watchers say, and sites like News Corp.'s MySpace have siphoned off some of the younger demographic whose main interest is fun, hanging out and hooking up.

Time and price are also factors. Sites like eHarmony and PerfectMatch ask hundreds of questions to build a personality profile and charge about $50 a month, while the fast-growing Craigslist has no such barrier to entry and is free.

"[On Craigslist] you don't have to go through some approval process-it's instant gratification," said Lisa Skriloff, president of Multicultural Marketing Resources and author of "Men are from Cyberspace," a book on online dating. "It's quick and easy, and it's drawing traffic away from the more traditional sites."

Ray Doustdar, president of a six-month-old site called TeamDating.com, said people have become disillusioned with traditional dating sites that promise matches based on compatibility tests and other mathematical algorithms. "People realize that love is not formulaic," Mr. Doustdar said. "They've spent inordinate amounts of time on these sites, and they feel misled."

Marketing that says a site can find a person's soul mate without actually delivering has caused "frustration and disenchantment," he said. Jupiter Research backs that opinion, saying that barely one-third of users reported being very satisfied or satisfied with online personals sites.

Mr. Doustdar's site aims to address the wasted-time issue, along with safety concerns, by matching up groups of friends with other groups of friends. Even if there's no love connection between any of the friends, at least the night won't be wasted because there's built-in fun with your own social circle, he said.

"We're trying to mimic people's social lives," Mr. Doustdar said. "We're trying to be the anti-scientific approach."

One of the few traditional sites to see growth has been three-year-old PerfectMatch.com, which has relied heavily on product integration and cross-promotions with Hollywood entertainment to build awareness and membership. It attracts a 27-to-65-year-old demographic, with the core being in their mid-30s.

Market Range's PerfectMatch also drafts off the millions spent by its much larger competitors-Interactive Corp.'s Match.com spent $54.2 million on ads last year, while eHarmony spent $61.6 million, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Duane Dahl, PerfectMatch CEO, said online daters churn through some of the massive casual dating sites and eventually graduate to a more specialized site like his as they age and become more dedicated to finding a long-term relationship.

"They want to drill down faster and find people like themselves," Mr. Dahl said. "They want a more qualified group."

In response to the flattening market, some sites have created specialized offshoots to attract new members. Yahoo now has Yahoo Personals Premiere, which has shown solid early growth over the past 18 months. Match.com recently launched a new service called Chemistry.com, with Rutgers University anthropologist Helen Fisher as its chief scientific adviser.

The site grew out of studies launched in late 2004. Jim Safka had recently become CEO at Match.com and was looking to get the company back on track (profits had dropped 37% and 10% of the workers had been laid off). Mr. Safka told analysts early this year, shortly after the site launched, that Chemistry.com is intended to draw in affluent individuals who haven't online dated before. DR. PHIL

Also this year, the flagship site, Match.com, kicked off a new ad campaign from Hanft Raboy & Partners, New York, featuring Dr. Phil. The popular TV personality created a self-evaluation and advice service, dubbed MindBindFind, that has been selling well as an add-on to existing Match memberships, the site's spokeswoman said.

As some of the first online marriages are beginning to dissolve, a number of sites like JDate.com, eHarmony.com and others are launching services that aim to keep couples together. Those products will serve dual purposes-they'll keep the members active (read: paying) even after they're in a relationship, and they could boost the success testimonials that the sites use in their marketing. EHarmony, for one, has built entire ad campaigns around those couples.

Industry executives have noted that there's no evidence that online marriages end in divorce more frequently than the general population, but sites are responding to the issue as a way of creating a more attractive picture for online matching.

• Online dating market: $516 million

• Annual growth at its peak in 2002: More than 70%

• Annual growth today: 9%

• Ad spending by leading sites in '05: $115.8 million

• Potential pool of U.S. singles to sign up for online love: 89 million

Section: News

ADVERTISING

'Come as you are' mantra makes dating site a hot spot for singles.

AS SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES continue to steal visitors from dating sites, Chemistry.com is sticking with the formula that helped grow its traffic by 72%.

Chemistry.com, which is owned by Match.com, 500,000 unique visitors last month compared to the year prior--a 72% spike--per comScore MediaMetrix, Reston, Va. It has 4.2 million registered members.

MySpace and Facebook are to blame for the drop in visitors, said Com-Score analyst Andrew Lipsman. "We're seeing a migration to social networking sites. Personals sites are being affected."

So what impact did Chemistry.com's attack ads have on eHarmony? Apparently, a positive one. eHarmony saw its February unique visitor total rise to 2.8 million from 1.8 million the year prior.

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By Vanessa L. Facenda

Section: THE BACK PAGES

help

Single women don't need 'fixing' to meet a man. They just need to pay a little attention.

"I would rather have found the right woman and had a long, hearty marriage like my parents. But it didn't work out that way and the years of searching taught me a lot," writes J.M. Kearns in his excellent new book Why Mr. Right Can't Find You. Unlike other self-helps for the single woman, Kearns starts with the premise that there is nothing wrong with you. You do not need to be "fixed." Kearns, a Canadian, has a Ph.D. in philosophy and has worked as a crisis counsellor. And whereas other how-tos portray men as unknowable aliens interested only in hard-to-get women, Kearns has a different take. A lot of men are just like women, he says. They want a meaningful relationship. "Contrary to the dating books," he writes, "if you get into a conversation with the right man you won't have a problem knowing what to say!"

Kearns says single women don't allow themselves enough choice. Worse, they mistakenly wait for destiny to deliver Mr. Right. "Ask yourself, is finding a good mate any less important than finding a good job? Of course not. Yet many people wait passively for the right person to come along." Single women must be proactive, Kearns urges.

Take, for example, the woman home from work with nothing healthy in the fridge for dinner. She rushes to the grocery store in sweatpants, her hair tied up "in a shape resembling an extinct bird." She notices a man noticing her. What does she do? Nothing. Why not? Kearns believes too many women take the attitude, "this is not an Official Meeting Occasion," and because you are a "Highly Organized Professional, this is not a time slot you had allotted to the purpose of encountering anyone." Men, on the other hand, are not so rigid. If a guy notices you, "he already likes you." "Just be friendly, give him a chance. It takes very little interaction to determine whether you'd like to see this person again."

One of Kearns's must-read chapters is "How Men Choose Women." The appeal of a woman's face is totally subjective, he writes. "The same woman can look feminine and pretty to one man and just the opposite to another." What's more, not all North American men lust after slender, athletic female figures. "Some men don't really care that much about body shape and size." Here's another tip: "The most confident, forward man in the group is not always the one who's most interested in you. He may be confident because he's not interested, and therefore has nothing to lose. The one who can't get a word out may be the one who is stricken with attraction."

Beyond chance encounters, women should venture into the real world to broaden the net, he says. Kearns suggests hanging out in bookstores and libraries, and if you see a prospect, smile. "Even Mr. Right needs encouragement. Your smile can be any smile. I don't care if it is nervous, pale or twitchy. If it is a smile, he will know he is allowed to interrupt your reading and speak to you." If the venue is an art gallery, even better, writes Kearns. An art gallery is one of the few places where you can circulate comfortably alone. "Approach him with respect and optimism," advises Kearns. "Maybe he isn't gay. Maybe he is a whole lot of things you might like."

Not all encounters need to be in a cerebral environment. Kearns is all for single women checking for prospects in a "desirable bar" -- desirable meaning "people who are not alcoholics frequent it," and "people with all their teeth frequent it."

For men, "beer is the maternal tit of adulthood," he writes. Single, lonely men don't stay home all the time. "They head out to a place where they can make no effort, receive immediate gratification, and have warm bodies around them. That is called a bar." If you don't feel comfortable going alone, plan to meet a friend, he says, but arrive an hour early, keeping in mind that "the one who isn't alone should approach the one who is."

Lastly, online dating. "The answer to your prayers," says Kearns, who met the woman of his dreams online. His book steers readers to the best dating sites and includes his advice on how to write an effective headline. For instance, "Not into Games" carries a big "victim sign." Kearns likes headlines that are positive, specific and optimistic. "Chemist seeks lab assistant" is intriguing, he says. "Is she really a chemist or is it a metaphor?"

According to Kearns, studies report that couples who meet online are more satisfied and more in love than those who didn't. "And the reason for that may be the one I gave earlier," he writes. "They had more of a choice."

PHOTO (COLOR): WOMEN TEND TO designate 'official meeting occasions.' Men aren't so rigid. If a guy notices you, 'he already likes you,' says J.M. Kearns.

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By Julia McKinnell

Section: Garfield's AdReview

Thanks to the world of online dating, we are pretty much besotted.

No, not in some icky, physical way. This is a kind of spiritual heart meld between us and Dr. Neil Clark Warren, that kindly white-haired fellow behind eHarmony.com.

It's not just that he empowers people with the knowledge and inspiration needed to grow and strengthen their most important relationships for a lifetime of happiness. It's not just that the couples in his ads are such love cherubs and soul mates. It's not even that his questionnaire is based on Christian principles.

It's just that he's so nice, and so smiley and friendly and totally sincere (-looking). His service doesn't just computer match; it measures 29 dimensions of compatibility, making eHarmony the Certified Used Vehicle of the industry.

We so want to trust you, Dr. Neil. You brought Mary and Lyle together. You brought Darryl and Lisa together. If we were ever in the market for a relationship-which we never will be, because, well, let's just say we're maxed out-we'd like to think you could bring us and Salma together. (By the way, do you by any chance do three-part eHarmony? If so, we'd settle for zero dimensions of compatibility.)

In short, we've been darn near seduced by eHarmony's True Romance fantasy, which we mention because today's actual subject is the good doctor's biggest competitor, Match.com.

That's also an online dating service, and a big one, and it sure does take a different tack.

No cutesie-wootsie love cherubs here. Just the opposite-but not in the sense of, say, cleaving closer to online reality. There's no point for any of these services to dwell on the real e-yenta landscape, populated as it is with the discarded, the discouraged, the dysfunctional, the disreputable and often enough the disfigured. No, Match.com is different simply by virtue of the type of fantasy it portrays. Forget the cheerful, pleasant-looking, ordinary folks who can scarcely believe their low expectations have been marginally exceeded.

Match.com gives you a gallery of memorable singles wayyyyyy out of your class and invites you to gawk.

There's CuteBritChick, blonde and voluptuous, supine and giggly. There's Danishbeauty22, tall and Nordic, decked out in an evening gown and interrupting an imperfect opera scale to mutter eccentrically about her hem. She's Annie Hall with just a pinch of Christine Jorgenson. We also meet LaSirena7, a latter-day Holly Golightly, a ravishing free spirit skittering to and fro on wobbly roller blades. Salma, is that you?

The tagline: "It's OK to look."

OK, we're looking. These women are fascinating. But there should be a second line, too. Something like: "Results not typical."

Because, let's face it …

Sure, strictly speaking, the promise here isn't that you're going to get matched up with the impossibly enchanting, larger-than-life seductress of your dreams. The promise is merely that on Match.com, you get to browse for one, and you just never know. If eHarmony is pitching certified used cars, Match.com is showing lottery commercials. You've got to play to win.

But in the end, the problem with these ads is the same one that tragically undermines dear, sweet Dr. Neil: shameless puffery. The experience advertised has nothing to do with what will happen to you. You are pretty much destined not to have a lifetime of happiness with LaSirena. Most likely you'll get paired again and again with an unenchanting loser who herself resorted to puffery in her profile.

Which, in all probability, you did too.

Section: Case Study

Anatomy of a business decision Their online dating site was struggling

THROUGHOUT SAM YAGAN'S career, free had been the operative word. As a math major at Harvard in the late '90s, Yagan forever altered the market for student cheat sheets, then dominated by the iconic black-and-yellow CliffsNotes booklets, with his SparkNotes, a free Web-based copycat. Next, Yagan went after the music business, creating the file-sharing tool eDonkey. Before the company was litigated out of existence by a record-industry lawsuit, it boasted the world's most popular file-sharing software, bigger even than Napster.

Now Yagan had set out to bring free to online dating, a growing market dominated by a number of, as Yagan saw them, expensive and unsatisfactory competitors like IAC's Match.com. Yagan figured he could inflict serious damage on Match, the industry giant with 2007 revenue of $349 million, and other big subscription sites such as eHarmony and JDate by using the same strategy he employed with SparkNotes. "Take an existing business," he explains, "reduce the revenue that industry produces by offering a free product, and then claim the remaining revenue for yourself."

Date Guys. Sam Yagan (left) and Chris Coyne raised $7 million to start a free dating services.

He had spent three years building his dating site, OkCupid, with partner Chris Coyne and had raised nearly $7 million. But something wasn't working. The company needed a massive audience to make money. Instead, after two years of rapid growth, its Web traffic was flat-lining while competitors were growing rapidly. By early 2007, Yagan realized his window of opportunity was dosing. He needed to jumpstart his company or face a slow death.

To deliver to advertisers and turn a profit, Yagan figured he needed eight million users and two million regular daters, roughly eight times his current traffic. If those numbers weren't daunting enough, new free dating sites were popping up and beating Yagan at his game. PlentyofFish.com, a fast-growing Canadian site founded in 2003, surpassed OkCupid, attracting nearly 1.5 million unique viewers a month in the U.S. by early 2008. PlentyofFish.com, run by a solo entrepreneur with one fulltime employee, was also wildly profitable, earning some $10 million a year. Another looming threat: People were turning to social networking sites Facebook and MySpace as de facto dating services. By 2007, Facebook was attracting more than 30 million visitors a month and generating $150 million a year in advertising revenue.

Coyne and Yagan could try fighting back with an ambitious advertising campaign, but Yagan wasn't sure what it should look like. "Any place you might advertise to attract daters, someone's already there," he says. "You might think Times Square. But JDate's there. You might think Google, but Match is willing to spend well over $50 per subscription." A quirky dating site seemed like a perfect fit for a guerrilla marketing campaign, but a test run, in which Coyne and Yagan spent $10,000 to distribute 10,000 red roses in Boston, yielded few users. "It was a flop," Yagan says.

A second possibility was to embrace Facebook rather than compete against it. In May, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that outside software developers could build programs, called widgets, that would operate within his company's wildly popular social network. The problem, as Yagan saw it, was that operating inside Facebook would seriously constrain OkCupid's ability to sell advertising. Furthermore, he worried that OkCupid risked being seen as just another widget maker in a crowded marketplace.

As various promotional options were exhausted, Yagan found his thoughts turning back to a wacky idea he and Coyne had once tossed around: a dating site with "a blind-date button." What had been little more than a running joke suddenly seemed like a way to stand out from the crowd. At best, the novelty of instantaneous, face-to-face blind dates might catch on among users inundated with e-mails, phone calls, and IMs; at worst, it might at least generate buzz for OkCupid.

The Decision Yagan and Coyne decided that the potential rewards of press coverage and increased Web traffic from a blind-dating site outweighed the benefits of buying advertisements or developing more features for OkCupid. They began work on CrazyBlindDate.com in July 2007 and assigned three of the company's nine engineers to build the website.

The site made it easy for users to go on blind dates within hours of signing up. It severely limited the amount of information users could see about prospective dates. A blurred photo and a sentence-long description about one's expectations for the evening were required, with the option to answer three additional questions, including, "How will I recognize you?" Yagan knew that the site's appeal--the novelty of instantaneous hookups--might be off-putting to some users, so he instructed his software developers to add an option of arranging double dates, which would offer safety in numbers. "Men will look at this and say, 'Sweet; I can get a woman delivered to me,'" says Yagan. "But for some women it'll seem creepy. This way they'll only need to bring half a canister of mace." To further mollify wary users, he also set up a text messaging system that routed messages through his company's servers. That way daters could contact one another without exchanging phone numbers.

Yagan decided to kick off CrazyBlindDate.com in Austin because he thought people in a socially liberal university town would be more likely to seek blind dates. On the evening of the launch, in October, Yagan, Coyne, and their engineers gathered in the company's Manhattan office. They munched pizza and drank cheap champagne out of red plastic cups, waiting to watch CrazyBlindDate.com in action and standing by to fix software bugs. There were more bugs than dates. Each night for the next few weeks, only a handful of love connections were made online.

The problem: The media had more or less ignored the launch. With the exception of some blog mentions and a product placement deal with an Austin radio station, KROX, no media outlets covered CrazyBlindDate.com during the first month. Even the radio ad was a disappointment. Yagan says he paid the station $6,600 with the understanding that Deb O'Keefe, a morning deejay, would go on a blind date and endorse the website. But the station balked, citing an editorial policy that prevented O'Keefe from doing the segment.

What dates there were didn't always go well. Callie Snyder tried out the service, then blogged a review of one date gone comically bad with a young guy who professed a love for poker and pornography. "It's one of those bargain basement things where you just don't know what you're going to get," says Snyder, who tried to use the service two more times before giving up.

Despite the lukewarm trial run, Yagan and Coyne persevered. "There's this idea that you leak something to The New York Times, and it magically appears on the front page," Yagan says, "but that doesn't really happen." He spent $43,000 on radio placements to launch in New York, Boston, and San Francisco in November. This time, the radio stations went along with the plan. In New York, "Goumba Johnny" Sialiano and "Hollywood" Sean Hamilton, hosts of the afternoon rush-hour show on dance station WKTU, repeatedly praised the site, claiming that even their "loser" producer had wrangled a week's worth of blind dates. The lovesick responded, logging on in greater numbers, and the site was organizing 50 dates per night by January.

Finally, the media took notice. From November to March, the site garnered dozens of mentions--including in the New York Daily News and Boston magazine and on CBS's The Early Show and Fox's The Morning Show. Though OkCupid was not mentioned in the TV segments, many of the newspaper articles and blog entries noted the existence of CrazyBlindDate.com's less crazy parent company. "It's been a real media phenomenon," says Yagan.

That may be a stretch. But OkCupid now attracts two million users a month and 550,000 active daters--roughly double the numbers of a year ago. Revenue surpassed $1 million in 2007, and Yagan expects it to double in 2008. Thanks to links from blogs, including the popular TechCrunch, OkCupid's rank on Google's results page for the search online dating has jumped from fourth place to first place. Yagan says the attention should make it easier to raise money and hire more engineers. "This project reaffirmed us as the leading innovator in the space," he says.

The buzz hasn't come cheaply. The tab for CrazyBlindDate.com has been about $60,000, not including salaries for three engineers or the more than $100,000 paid to OkCupid's PR firm. Still, Yagan figures the PR payoff has been worth the cost. "At this point, any future growth is going to be driven by where we can get PR," he says. "Ultimately, whatever we pay out has to come back to OkCupid, or we'll shut it down, but it's hard to quantify. The jury's still out."

THE EXPERTS WEIGH IN SAM EWEN, CEO, Interference New York City

Try a live event

I like the way they put a new, slightly off-the-wall spin on blind dating. But I think CrazyBlindDate is more interesting as a product than as a media strategy. When we do guerrilla-marketing campaigns, we absolutely want PR, but the campaign has to live on its own. I would have focused on doing something in front of a lot of people, either by organizing a public event where two people went on a blind date or using social media to document the dates. That way the company wouldn't be dependent on a journalist's writing about it.

GARY KREMEN, FOUNDER, FORMER CEO Match.com San Francisco

Focus on women

A dating site can succeed only if it attracts a lot of women, and that's the problem with CrazyBlindDate. For any dating site, women, not men, are the customers. Women don't want a crazy blind date; they want safety and security, and they don't want to feel embarrassed. I would take the money they're spending on PR and put it toward affiliate marketing to women. Yagan and Coyne are clearly Smart guys: They should start thinking about how to lower the cost of customer acquisition and build a differentiated audience.

THERESIA GOUW RANZETTA, GENERAL PARTNER Accel Partners, Palo Alto, California

Get beyond free

They have come up with a novel angle in a truly crowded space. From an investment perspective, spending $100,000 to $200,000 to double your traffic sounds pretty cost effective. But they need to be more creative about monetizing CrazyBlindDate. Free, ad-supported online dating is hard. Instead of thinking of this as a PR stunt, they should look at it as a possible new business model. For instance, they could let people go on online "blind dates" for free and then make them pay five bucks to meet up in person.

What do you think?

Was launching CrazyBlindDate.com a smart move? Or could Yagan and Coyne have come up with a better way to promote and build OkCupid? Write to us at mail@inc.com and tell us what you would have done.

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By Max Chafkin

An Algorithm for Mr. Right

Enhanced Coverage Linking

Online-dating sites get stood up by consumers

Why Mr. Right can't find you

Too bad online dating is really nothing like Match.com spot

Contents

WAS A BLIND-DATE STUNT REALLY THE ANSWER?

Try a live event

Focus on women

Get beyond free