Courtesy CBSMarketeWatch.com:
1. “Finding a soul mate is expensive.”
Nobody said it was easy. Roughly 30 million unique users, or about 10% of the U.S. population, visit dating sites every month, according to market researcher Nielsen. And many of them pay a hefty sum for that chance to meet their perfect match. At the two biggest subscription-based sites in the U.S., Match.com ($36 a month) and eHarmony ($60 a month), users can save by signing on for, say, a six-month bundle ($157 and $240, respectively). And some sites, like PlentyofFish.com and OkCupid, offer basic membership for free. But most subscription sites automatically renew until the customer cancels, and those fees can add up.
Indeed, for online purveyors of love, business is booming. While people used to meet mostly through friends, says Reuben J. Thomas, assistant professor of Sociology at the City College of New York, “that’s been sharply on the decline since the advent of the Internet.” The industry is now worth about $1.2 billion, up 4% from a year ago, broadly in line with the growth over the past three years, according to a report by research firm IBISWorld.
So perhaps it should come as no surprise that as the popularity of online dating has risen, so have prices. A decade ago, many sites were free or had minimal fees of around $20 a month. (Match.com charged $9.95 per month when it launched in 1995.) eHarmony, launched in 2000 and marketed toward people seeking long-term relationships, blazed a trail with its prices, charging some of the highest in the industry, says Mark Brooks, a dating-industry analyst and the editor of Online Personals Watch.
Of course, there was a business reason for charging low rates in the early days, some experts say: Sites needed to stock the sea of love with fish. The faster they attracted users, the more useful the sites would be, Brooks says. And paying fees, he says, can have an upside: People may be more likely to actually use a site if they pay for it.
2. “Everyone is single sooner or later.”
Not so long ago, if a couple met online, they’d accidentally on purpose fail to mention it in their wedding speeches. Nowadays? Online dating is not only mainstream, but the fastest-growing segment is baby boomers, experts say. In fact, 16% of online daters are over 50, says Caitlin Moldvay, an analyst at IBISWorld.
Just in January, the advocacy group AARP launched its own online dating service, AARP Dating, powered by dating site HowAboutWe.com. The number of HowAboutWe users over age 50 has spiked 173% in the past year, partly as a result of the deal, says a spokeswoman. It’s a good fit, says Brooks, the online dating consultant, especially given that 25% of AARP’s 37 million members are single.
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Another new site, OurTime.com (a subsidiary of InterActiveCorp, which also runs Match.com and OkCupid), likewise seems to be growing rapidly: Over 4 million have joined since its May 2011 launch — and 10,000 more join each day, the company reports. Why the skyrocketing membership? Compared with the general population, baby boomers are more likely to be single, divorced or widowed, Moldvay says. One in three single baby boomers has never even been married, according to a 2012 survey by Bowling Green State University’s National Center for Family and Marriage Research in Ohio. And while the overall divorce rate in the U.S. has declined slightly in recent years, the so-called gray divorce rate has risen sharply — from just one in 10 people over the age of 50 in 1990, to around one in four in 2009 — according to research by sociologists Susan Brown and I-Fen Lin of Bowling Green State University.
Of course, people over 50 aren’t the only growth market being targeted by online dating companies. Grindr, for instance, a free location-based app for gay men, has registered about as many members as OurTime: around 4.5 million since it was founded in March 2009. Those who face a smaller market for potential partners — like gay men, lesbians and middle-aged heterosexuals — are generally more likely to turn to the Internet, says Michael J. Rosenfeld, an associate professor of sociology at Stanford University.
3. “Cupid’s arrow often misses.”
When they met on Match.com, he was a real hoot. In real life? Not so much. Sharon Rosenblatt, an IT consultant in Washington, D.C., decided to go on a date with one of the men recommended to her by the site’s algorithms. During their meal, she says, he asked her whether it was too late to call a woman he dated two weeks prior. He then “friended” her on Facebook during dinner and, before the check arrived, asked, “Why couldn’t you have hooked me up with your hotter friends?”
Dating sites pride themselves on the wizardry of their algorithms, but even the most sophisticated dating site can’t always screen for jerks. “It’s very early in the online dating industry,” says Dan Slater, author of “Love in the Time of Algorithms: What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating.” Sites have gotten better at cross-referencing what people say and do, “but there’s still a lot of room for improvement,” he says.
Match.com CEO Mandy Ginsberg says the site does its best to suggest people based on the information they supply. The site cross-references users’ preferences and also tracks what profiles they click on, in an effort to ensure that their online habits jibe with their stated preferences. eHarmony, in turn, says its team of data scientists and psychologists look at multiple “points of compatibility” between applicants. Prospective members fill out psychological tests based on categories like emotional status, character, self-perception and conflict resolution.
The sites also point to the tools they’ve introduced in an effort to improve results: In one Match.com feature, for instance, a multiple choice question like “When it comes to style, I like a man who dresses like this” is followed up with a list of photographs of men with various styles. Other questions let members choose from a range of voices and photographs of celebrities.
4. “So many liars, so little time.”
Over half of U.S. online daters lie on their profiles, according to a survey global research company Opinion Matters commissioned by BeautifulPeople.com, a dating website where members vote on whether (or not) to accept new members. U.S. online daters lie more than their U.K. counterparts by a difference of 9 percentage points (53% versus 44%), the survey found. “There’s more emphasis on celebrity culture and being successful in the U.S.,” says Greg Hodge, CEO and co-founder of the site
Short of scanning each member’s driver’s license and cross-checking their height and date of birth, there’s not a lot that dating sites can do about the honesty of their members, experts say. “Bad data in means bad data out,” says Amy Webb, author of “Data, a Love Story: How I Gamed Dating to Meet My Match.” But the truth will out: Webb says online suitors should expect their dates to be a little taller or shorter than stated in their profile. And if people appear older when they’re sitting under the bright lights of Starbucks? Well, it’s probably because they are.
On the plus side, people who lie online tend be people-pleasers and very self-aware, says Jeffrey A. Hall, assistant professor of communications at the University of Kansas. Most people looking for love probably lie about something, he says. His estimate? “Closer to 80%, but not all lies are created equal when it comes to consequences.” If a person takes a year or two off their age and 10 pounds off their weight, he says, most people wouldn’t even notice.
5. “And you thought Facebook was nosy.”
Perhaps because of the big potential payoff and veil of anonymity, singletons online seem eager to overshare. eHarmony says it asks users as many as 147 questions, to increase the client’s chances of meeting someone with a compatible world view and personality. And OkCupid offers up to 4,000 questions at any given time, addressing an array of topics, from sexual proclivities to philosophy. Of course, the more people learn about each other before that fateful first date, the better, author Slater says. “But nothing is free,” he says, “you’re giving them a ton of data.”
For their part, the sites say they don’t sell data to third parties. Instead, they use the data to improve matches, and to attract more users. “We realize the value of our database,” says Noel Biderman, CEO of Ashley Madison, a site with 8 million U.S. members that’s geared toward prospective extramarital affairs. The site’s database is a rich source for surveys, which are picked up by websites, magazines and newspapers, producing free publicity for the site. One recent survey, for instance, revealed that IT and engineering workers accounted for 11% of members and, as such, were judged to be the most likely to cheat on their spouses. The financial industry ranked No. 2., with over 8%.
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