Are Dating Web Sites Past Their Prime?

THE BIG MONEY - June 27 - Most subscription-based sites have been battling a downward trend for a while. And since last year, Match.com's traffic has been flat at best. As Techcrunch notes, Match.com does most of its growing these days by buying competing Web sites, rather than reinventing the world's oldest dance. Match.com is also becoming Yahoo's official personals service. In the same vein, eHarmony found itself last summer trying to explain how a 20% increase in registrations led to a 33% drop in traffic. The numbers suggest that while singles in search of a match may post a profile, they're not finding who they're looking for. The true threat is "noneconomic" competition that steals market share and has no interest in selling out. Markus Frind created Plenty of Fish as a coding exercise in 2003. Primarily supported by advertising, Frind this year introduced a paid membership level for users who are "serious," but the site still has free access. But as in any good arms race, even Frind is now promising that his site can predict whom its users will end up marrying, so he is taking the fight to paid sites' intellectual turf. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST

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As Techcrunch notes, Match.com does most of its growing these days by buying competing Web sites, rather than reinventing the world's oldest dance. Match.com is also becoming Yahoo's official personals service, with the portal ditching its homegrown brand. In the same vein, eHarmony found itself last summer trying to explain how a 20 percent increase in registrations led to a 33 percent drop in traffic.