US NEWS - Feb 12 - "It's a lot easier to sustain an online dating service if you open it up in the niche marketplace than if you open it up as a general online dating service," says Joe Tracy, publisher of Online Dating Magazine. People who belong to and are seeking out a particular demographic are often content to stick to these small, specialty outlets, even if a larger competitor might also have some potential matches. 99% of online dating sites that open up to compete with the Match.coms and the eHarmonies will fail within two years. The failure rate for niche sites is still high but still better than the general dating ones. One site that has thrived is Geek 2 Geek, whose owner says that the site had its most profitable and fastest-growth year in 2012. Currently, ~350K people have profiles on his site, ~100,000-150,000 are active users. Tracy says that vegetarian dating sites tend to be particularly strong, and single baby boomers are also a fast-growing demographic.
by Danielle Kurtzleben
The full article was originally published at US News, but is no longer available.
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