Several weeks ago I heard from a reliable source that IAC Has Acquired Another Top Dating Site. I’ve known who it was all along, and decided to do the right thing and not mention the name of the company being acquired on this blog. I just heard from Match’s PR team and the public announcement is happening shortly, the big news is that Match.com will acquire Singlesnet. Here are the important parts of the press release:

Match.com, an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire Singlesnet, one of the most visited online dating sites in the United States. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed.

“Singlesnet has built a heavily trafficked site with an active and dedicated community of users,” said Greg Blatt, CEO of Match.com. “While Singlesnet’s traffic is currently in decline, we believe that by applying our category expertise we can reverse that trend, increase the site’s profitability and improve the overall user experience. This is more of a value acquisition than a strategic one, and Singlesnet will predominantly be run as a standalone business. Nonetheless, the addition of the site’s considerable traffic to our existing aggregation of traffic in this single category should open new monetization opportunities for Match.com’s collective portfolio of domestic online dating brands.”

“Match.com has been the standard-bearer for the entire online dating industry, so we’re excited to team up with them,” said Singlesnet founder and CEO Quinn Lipin. “Singlesnet boasts a vibrant user community where members are constantly emailing and IMing each other, and I believe working with Match.com will enable us to re-start growth in the business.”

Adrian Ong, who joined Match.com from Soulmates Technology, a company acquired by Match.com in 2002, will assume responsibility for Singlesnet. Mr Ong has held various leadership roles within Match.com’s International business, primarily in the areas of product and technology, and most recently has led Match.com’s effort to transition its European business to Meetic in connection with its sale last year. Mr Lipin will continue to work for the company in an executive capacity.

Quinn Lipin is the guy behind the curtain at Singlesnet. Notoriously tight-lipped within the dating industry, the founder of the one-time most-trafficed dating site in the US has managed to sell the company as the serious decline in traffic continues.

No word on the pricing or other details, we’ll update you as our sources check in with us. For more about Singlesnet, read about thehive (website), its parent company. Search LinkedIn for people like Richie John, the Anti-Fraud guy at Singlesnet and other Singlesnet employees. Try searching for Singlesnet here at OnlineDatingPost.com and you’ll come up with a wealth of information about this secretive company that took the online dating industry by storm.

Congrats are in order to Match and Singlesnet. I’m sure there are champagne corks popping all over the place down in Texas with the marketing team all excited about the potential reduction in customer acquisition costs and other benefits that Singlesnet brings to the table.

When the dust settles, a few questions:

How Match is going to siphon off, I mean cross-sell, members from Singlesnet?

Are Singlesnet members a good fit for Match? It’s like going from a horse-drawn carriage to a Ferrari in terms of site functionality and membership base.

Will Match tone down the big boobs and hookup-style advertising that grew Singlesnet?

What was the sale price and how much of it is tied into earn-outs?

What do you think of the deal? Do you think Match should have acquired Yahoo Personals instead?

No related posts.

After receiving 50+ email alerts, I broke down and signed up for Singlesnet so I could email people and see how the system works for paid users. It’s arguably the dating site with the most traffic and I wanted to evaluate the experience and see what types of people use the site.

In short, Singlesnet has figured out a way to drive an incredible amount of traffic to a site which for the life of me that I can’t imagine anyone more serious than newbie casual daters actually using.

Let’s take a look at what’s wrong with Singlesnet.

We start with the first-of-its-kind dynamic registration process. Next, we feed your information into our sophisticated compatibility matching technology identifying traits and similarities to find your true love.

This means there is no search capability except for screen name or zip code. Based on the information gathered about members, there really isn’t much for their system to search on.

When I try to email anyone the system says my message is empty and won’t send it. It turns out the emails area actually being sent, which means people are sending multiple emails, thinking that maybe the next one will go through.

I’ve sent a dozen emails and my “Send email” remains empty.

Why is it called “My email” when the communication center contains email, flirts and “match notifications.”

Overall profile quality is low. I’d give it a 3 out of 10. They couldn’t have made it more difficult to understand what the other person wants and if you are a match.

Deleting one or more messages in the main message are displays the text “The selected message(s) have been removed, this may take a short period of time to update your inbox.” Clicking “ok” displays the profile you just deleted. Huh?

Deleting a message while reading the message is just painful, reloading the main messages window along the way.

Match clearly has the best messaging system in the business. It couldn’t be any easier to get an immediate snapshot of who you’re talking to, have added to you favorites list, has winked at you, etc. I wish more sites would learn from their design.

I’m not sure there is a user experience designer at Singlesnet. Did anyone who is not a developer ever look at the site? Looks like user testing didn’t make it into the budget.

What is a “One to one match notification?” What are we matching on? There is so little information captured in profiles, no wonder the only search option is zip code.

The Help section doesn’t come close to providing any value past logging in.

Photos display in improperly-sized pop-up windows powered by javascript. Why is there even a pop-up window? To increase pageviews?

“There are 15 members in your area that we think are interested in you.” Can they be more ambiguous? Is this different from match notifications? How does Singlesnet “think” people are interested in me? What is this assumption based on? Again, back to the paltry amount of information in profiles to base level of interest.

Someone is interested in me. “You can respond back to the user by flirting (for free) or upgrading to a featured member to send patty156 an email.” I’m a paying member, why am I seeing this and why can’t I send a message?

Finally, it appears that 100% of the emails I’ve received have been from scammers.

What Works

About the only thing that works on the site is the credit card processor. They have their priorities straight.

Summary

If my seat of the pants analysis is in any way indicative of the quality of the site, the Singlesnet motto should be, “Where singles remain single.” I’m being harsh because the company is doing such a disservice to its members. They have absolutely no idea what they are doing, instead focusing on driving a lot of traffic to the site and making as much money as they can. That’s capitalism, but it still smacks of inauthenticity and I hate to see people being taken advantage of.

The site will not rank in the top 10 for much longer, save your effort and money and join a site that works that is focused on providing a high-quality experience and members.

No related posts.

Match is sending out emails telling me that someone has viewed my portrait. Does that mean they’re going to send me an email every time someone looks at my profile?

My Match account has ended, no wonder. I never got an email from them. Monthly resub is $34.99 a month,talk about a price hike. Dating sites are making more money, but not gaining subscribers. CFO’s run the industry now, squeezing every last drop of revenue from existing subscribers.

Match subscription option page has link to non-promotional rates. The regular rates are exactly the same as the promotional ones, huh?

Match says they have inspired twice as many matches as any other dating site. How can they possibly know that? I love the freedom marketers have to play with numbers.

Online dating is now officially a business, and that sucks for singles. Nobody cares about you, not Dr. Phil, or Dr. Ruth or the worker drone making it near-impossible for you to cancel your account. Look at how they market to you. Besides Match and Yahoo, the rest are borderline porn. Sure, they respect you, really.

Yahoo Personals is offering me a free week. I think I’ll take them up on it. I’ve tried to join a few niche sites, but nothing works for me besides having fun on OCupid, I’m sticking with the majors.

Perfectmatch is offering a free month. Who else?

What’s with Singlesnet? Literally hundreds of emails received telling me women want to talk with me, which is actually a sly form of begging me to upgrade. That’s the problem with these sites that rely completely on massive traffic deals. Game the system and get to the top of the Hitwise list. But then what? Completely unprepared to deal with hyper-growth. How many people in customer service at Singlesnet?

Do you think that Singlesnet is a better service because it ranks higher than Match or Yahoo? Of course not, they may temporarily have more traffic, but that in no way indicates a successful dating site. And what is success? Money in the bank or thousands of happy couples? Who’s doing the measuring?

Singlesnet is too much of a skunkworks project. They are right here in Boston and never return calls or requests for interviews. Keeping a low profile banking a lot of cash while they can.

Prediction: Singlesnet will be out of the top 10 in six months due to unsustainable advertising spend.

All this as we go into the dating industry busy cycle. Remember the double-digit growth back in 2004? All we have is the memories.

Related posts:

1. Plentyoffish “Destroys” online dating business model
2. Is eHarmony Launching a New Dating Service?
3. SinglesNet Ads, Instant Messenger

Check out this SinglesNet ad on Facebook. Totally tricked me into thinking it was one of those “how to score with women” e-books. I’m all for experimenting with new types of advertising but this doesn’t sit right with me. Then again, they are probably getting a ton of traffic from it.

No related posts.