OPW - Feb 17 - Match acquired 27% of Meetic in February last year and then acquired People Media for $80 million in July, 2009. They took a piece of the German market last week by partnering with Neu.de. Diller showed interest in Yahoo Personals back in April 2009. Sometime soon, perhaps Match will announce a deal to power Yahoo Personals USA. Match already powers Yahoo Personals in key European markets.
The real question is, how can you possibly compete with the behemoth Match? Its has niches with People Media, Europe with Meetic and Yahoo Personals, and growth this season is looking very strong. I hear concerns about growth stalling for second tier dating sites. However, Piper Jaffray predicts U.S. spending on online dating will reach $1.7 billion by 2013, with $1.2 billion being spent in 2008. Meanwhile, Forrester expects the market to reach $1.6 billion by 2013, up from an estimated $957 million in 2008. - Mark Brooks
Hello Mr. Brooks:
The graphs you need to show is "active members" and "paying members" and not "unique visitors".
Match buying Yahoo!Personals ?
They are going to buy what they already have in a great percentage.
Online daters belong to 3 or 4 online dating sites at the same time, most probably a great percentage of Yahoo!Personals users are now using Match / Chemistry, or PlentyOfFish or PerfectMatch or they had used Match / Chemistry, or PlentyOfFish or PerfectMatch in the past.
When Jack Welch was the CEO at the General Electric, he lasted 20 years bolted to his chair.
Now CEOs are lasting 20 / 30 months, not years, so the pressure to show progress / success is quite high and furthermore, they receive the "heritage" (mistakes / pitfalls) from the previous CEOs.
During the tenure of Tim Sullivan, Match entered the compatibility matching era with WeAttract's test.
During the tenure of Jim Safka, the IAC (Match) launched Chemistry.
During the tenure of Thomas Enraght-Mooney, the IAC (Match) acquired 27% stake in Meetic but lost the war in Europe.
During the tenure of Greg Blatt, the IAC (Match) acquired PeopleMedia's Communities and he will need to show some kind of success if he is earning USD 3,000,000 per year.
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
[email protected]
The 2010 is the year of Online Dating Fatigue!
Daters leaving in droves from old paid sites like Match, Chemistry, True, eHarmony, PerfectMatch, Be2, Parship, Meetic and others.
Posted by: Account Deleted | Feb 17, 2010 at 01:28 PM
Fernando, please qualify the ways in which Match 'lost the war in Europe'!?
Posted by: Matt Drewry | Feb 18, 2010 at 06:34 AM