TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - Feb 11 - This year, Match.com celebrates its 20th anniversary. The site is responsible for 517K relationships, 92K marriages and 1M babies, according to Karl Gregory, Match.com UK manager. Its users are spread across 40 countries and exchange 415M emails a year. When Match.com launched in April 1995, there were only 25M Internet users worldwide, compared to 2.92B in 2015. Bill and Freddie Straus, aged 76 and 72, were among the first in history to have gone on an online date in 1996. Eric Klien created a 170-point questionnaire, covering users’ horoscopes, their preferred mode of transport, taste in music, etc. He called it the “Electronic Matchmaker” and uploaded to his private Internet database just after Christmas 1992. In 1993, Klien sold his questionnaire and the domain name Match.com so he could focus on a new mission. It was called the Atlantis Project and it aimed to build an independent city called Oceania in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Match.com’s buyer was Gary Kremen. He purchased Match.com for $2,500 and launched it as a dating service on the open Internet in 1995. In 1998, he argued with his board and the company was sold. Its current owner, IAC, bought it in 1999 for $50M. Officially called “Synapse”, but known by insiders as the “magic sauce”, the Match.com algorithm is based on a streamlined version of Klien’s original matchmaker. The results of the algorithm’s sums are shown in users’ “daily six”: a series of previously-unseen, tailored profiles that are sent to users' inbox each day.
by Sarah Rainey
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