Dating Options & Information...

Types Of Dating Services

Brick & Mortar Chains

Online Dating Websites

Speed Dating

Matchmakers

Print Personal Ads

Radio Station Datelines

Odds of Success

Consumer Protection Info

Industry News

Background Checks

 

Top Dating Service Reviews...

8 Minute Dating

American Singles

Big Church

Christian Mingle

Date.com

eHarmony

Friendfinder

Gay.com

Great Expectations

Hurry Date

Its Just Lunch

JDate

Lavalife

Match.com

Perfect Match

Quest Personals

Tickle

Together Dating

True.com

Yahoo Personals

 

Top Matchmaker Reviews...

Barbie Adler

      (Chicago)

Dianne Bennett

      (Los Angeles)

Janis Spindel

      (New York City)

Kailen Rosenberg

      (Minnesota)

Kelleher & Associates

      (Beverly Hills)

Leora Hoffman

      (Washington DC)

Lisa Ronis

       (New York City)

Matchmaking Institute

      (New York City)

Valenti International

      (Rancho Santa Fe, CA)

Zelda Fischer

      (Boston)

Types of Dating Services

 

Dating Niche Markets

 

With so many dating website now operating, many are finding it essential to differentiate themselves in some way in order to compete and survive. One way to do this is to develop a special focus, serving a specific group of singles instead of all of them. Some have become very successful with this strategy.

Some examples of how these websites and singles groups might be classified include the following areas:

  • the gay and lesbian market (i.e. Glimpse.com, others)

  • college students (collegeluv.com)

    •

  • Jewish singles (JDate.com)

    •

  • Christian singles

    •

  • Senior citizen singles

    •

  • Speed dating

  • Silicon Valley executives

    •

  • Millionaires, high income executives (many independent matchmakers cater to this group)

    •

There are many more potential classifications, everything from singles that like country and western lifestyles, swingers, skiers, by your astrological sign, you name it. A Scripps Howard study found that at least 41 dating services it examined had names with the words “Christian”, “Jewish” or “Catholic” in it.

One could also make the case that the dating services market can be segmented by TECHNOLOGY, or the method or model the dating website uses. Examples of this would include things such as psychological matching (a specialty of eHarmony.com), wireless phone matching (offered by Match.com).

Value of Industry Segments  ($ millions) 

 

2002

2003

2004

 

 

 

 

Dating websites

$304

$428

$514

 

 

 

 

Off-line chains

180

153

159

 

 

 

 

Independent matchmakers

200

222

229

 

 

 

 

Personal ads, radio station datelines

221

188

178

 

 

 

 

        Total:

905

991

1,080

 Source: Marketdata Enterprises estimates

Dating Websites

There is no question that the dating websites represent the fastest-growing segment of this industry, and that they have hurt many of the other competing introduction services in the process. However, even off-line competitors say that they have actually help increase the size of the pie for the entire market—bringing dating services into the mainstream. Many singles today start out using these low-priced websites and eventually migrate to higher-priced services with more personal service. Many soon realize just how much work it is to surf the Internet and how photos and information about potential mates can be unreliable.

 

The online personals business as been dominated for the last two years by Match.com, which is owned by InterActiveCorp, and the Personals division of Yahoo Inc. Lately, Spark Networks (formerly MatchNet), claims to have been quickly gaining ground. Those three companies as well as a few second-tier players and numerous smaller competitors, are expected to have generated a total of more than $300 million in revenue in 2004, according to Jupiter Research.

 

“Still years behind the United States, in Europe, online personals are expected to be the biggest category for paid content for the foreseeable future” stated Joe Shapira, MatchNet’s chairman and chief executive officer. Latin America and Australia are also seen as future growth markets.

 

Analysts say that online dating content is one of the few types of content that people are actually willing to pay for, so much so that companies are actually raising their prices.