Comments on: Online dating, what’s next?

By: Nick M

Nick M — Sat, 26 Mar 2005 01:37:51 +0000

In my estimation, it seems that online free and paid dating sites are here to stay. I can see the industry refining itself and of course, like everything else, consolidating. But, I’d like to point out the differences people forget between many paid (not all) sites and the free ones… Advertisements!

The free sites make money by selling something – advertising, mailing lists, Email marketing, whatever. Often, paid sites (or paid areas of sites) will not subject the user to all those ads. Of course, this isn’t true of every site – but many.

By: Dave Evans

Dave Evans — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 23:37:37 +0000

Margins are down at some sites to $15. Free sites will always be there, but they cannot possible provide the next generation of advanced services that the large dating sites will be rolling out. There may be 800 dating sites, but it’s the top 10 that matter, and we can’t even decide what they are? Myspace and dating? Not likely, at least for the over 30 crowd. visitors might be skyrocketing for services like MySpace, but how long will that last? 7th most busy site last month, how high can they go?

By: Markus

Markus — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 23:25:56 +0000

I think most dating sites are going to have to start worrying if they can make it another year. I think all these experts that are claiming online dating is slowing etc, don’t know what they are talking about.

If you look in the plentyoffish forums most members use yahoo, match and myspace for dating. Basically paid services are flatlining and about to go into decline and free services such as myspace hi5 etc are skyrocketing. In the last 5 years hardware has really advanced, and costs have fallen so low that nearly anyone can create a dating site that serves millions for under $10 grand/month.

Dating is about to become a commodity with very little to no margin, sites like eharmony which are based on premium “relationship” services are the ones that will make the money in the end…

By: Yo

Yo — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:52:08 +0000

In my assessment, the number one issue for dating sites is conversion! How do you convert a free user to a paying member? Look at the numbers – they tell the story. We’re leaving 38 million people a month on the table. If you are a third party provider to the industry and cannot answer this question with your product or service, you might as well hang it up now.