Online Dating 2.0: Thirteen Sites To Find Love

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1. Guk
   

   July 23rd, 2006 at 2:09 am

   In few years we will only see 3 or 4 of these still online.

2. The Body Remover
   

   July 23rd, 2006 at 2:11 am

   You forgot the “Plenty of Fish” site.

3. Alex
   

   July 23rd, 2006 at 2:17 am

   Don’t forget vast.com (previously profiled on Techcrunch I believe) offers a personals search, claiming to index “11.2 million people profiles across 10,369 sites”

   On a side-note, I’m surprised the number of male and female personals they index is so similar:
   female 5,268,471
   male 5,225,330
   unknown 800,435

4. Innovation Zen
   

   July 23rd, 2006 at 3:08 am

   I also believe that in a few years only 3 or 4 big players will remain on the market. But then you will have lots of “niche” players focusing on specific groups, regions and the like.

   A pattern that we can observe and several other segments.

5. Emre Sokullu
   

   July 23rd, 2006 at 3:45 am

   Link Correction: (Wikia Personals) http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Personals should be http://personals.wikia.com/wiki/Personals

   http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Personals is just a wiki entry.

6. Paul
   

   July 23rd, 2006 at 5:03 am

   I’m amazed that you haven’t included the only site that is 100% free throughout, and has been on the front edge of the business for ages AND has a better matching algorithm than any other site: okcupid.com

   I did a business analysis of dating sites when a client wanted me to help him get into the market, and my conclusion was that it was a hard-to-enter market anyway (you need profiles before you get anywhere, so it’s chicken and egg) and to be honest, I couldn’t see how we could build a system better at helping find matches than OKcupid.

7. Hakan
   

   July 23rd, 2006 at 6:17 am

   Hi,
   You could also compose a bouquet, consisting of your favorite flowers and send it family, friends and loved ones…all over the web…and for free.

   Check it out here:
   http://www.challenger.se/?webflorist

8. Andreas
   

   July 23rd, 2006 at 8:14 am

   There is also beautifulpeople.com - which is definitiv a niche dating site - you must be rich and famous to get into and you need to pay a montly fee. I read that they have only 63000 users but they are well selected and a very good target group for special companies and their products.

9. tpiddy
   

   July 23rd, 2006 at 8:18 am

   you left off okcupid.com

10. James Walch
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 8:43 am

    Here we go, now every one of the 10,000+ dating sites feels they are left out and is now spamming here to get a few more clicks. Funny thing about beautifulpeople - they rejected my profile but now won’t leave me alone with their spam emails asking me to try again. I’m not interested, but there seems to be no way to stop the emails!!!

11. John
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 9:11 am

    Just a quick note to Verbdate:

    Over 300 profiles live: Female 89 Males 218
    and approx 700 hidden and feeling out the site!

    Those 700 are mainly Indian and Asian and so we are localizing for them ASAP.
    Kindest from Canada!
    J

12. Adam
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 9:38 am

    So cynical, James ;). Is it not possible that Mike actually DID leave off some quite cool and/or innovative social / dating sites? I, too, think okcupid is pretty cool.

13. Markus
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 9:52 am

    Just a few comments.

    Plentyoffish has an IM, Video Chat, Anon Calling voice etc. Like most other sites plentyoffish uses the Userplane IM.

    Comscore says Plentyoffish had 200 million pageviews in the USA in may, For June they say 118 million. In march they said it had 20 million. Comscore is about as accurate as alexa, as they use the same distribution method. Comscore Canada reports huge numbers for plentyoffish though.

    The only wanna be dating site that is missing is Okcupid. They just closed a 6 million round of funding.

    Okcupid gets the vast majority of their signups come from people they force to register so they can take tests. There are over 20,000 blog links for this single okcupid test alone in google. “commonly confused words test” -site:okcupid.com

    http://www.google.com/search?q.....0&sa=N

    Okcupid is like emode 2.0… Of all the sites listed here I’d consider Okcupid the most serious contender, because they have funding, and they have big distribution, although the site doesn’t get that much real traffic.

14. Anthony Webb
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 9:58 am

    Paird.com will be launching next week and offers a bit of a twist on the whole online dating scene. A “hot or not” flare is introduced and peoples egos are put to the test as they post their pics to be “paird” with people of the opposite sex. They are compiling pics and putting final touches on design at the moment, but overall a pretty cool concept that will be available early next week.

15. chao
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 10:34 am

    Surprised no one has mentioned http://matchmake.us/

    It’s a really simple, fun site, and that’s its strength - it does one thing, and does it really well: allow random folks to matchmake any couple.

16. GP
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 11:10 am

    Michael, how about a post summerzing the web 2.0 companies which are actually making money and if possible the details?… I am not kidding you but this is a serious request.

17. DateRater
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 11:11 am

    As Plenty of Fish’s Markus has mentioned on many occasions, I think the dating site market will come under greater and greater pressure from social networking sites that continue to encroach on the singles market. Generating revenue through advertising and other ancilliary services will slowly push the paid subscription model into tiny boutique niche.

18. Otown
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 11:58 am

    I wonder how you picked your list of sites? You missed the two most profitable sites: eharmony.com and jdate.com. You also missed my favorite site: http://www.lovehappens.com - which is like engage but with 20 times the traffic.

19. cristinamarie
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 12:48 pm

    There’s also chemistry.com which is fairly new.

20. Michael Arrington
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 12:49 pm

    Otown - I picked new, young sites for the most part, or sites with an interesting twist. Eharmony is old school. And I can’t stand their patronizing tv ads.

21. Dan Tudor
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 1:02 pm

    No question that smart advertisers can reach a very specific, and coveted, target market by advertising on these websites.

22. Damien Mulley
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 1:28 pm

    Or you could just use Google: http://www.mulley.net/2006/07/.....-get-laid/

23. joy
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 2:57 pm

    While the whole Web 2.0 social bookmarking/matchmaking/figuring out a date thing may be cool, these sites still need profiles that aren’t necessarily in NYC or Silicon Valley.

    I’ve browsed these sites using criteria - well for the, uh, men who should be local to me - and, uh, I’ve been seeing the same few guys over and over again. (Unfortunately, some with pictures of themselves shirtless.)

    Snarkiness aside, I’m near Philly and there’s not enough profiles on these sites to make it worth my time - unlike match.com or Yahoo personals.

24. Nicolas Noben
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 4:40 pm

    http://weeeh.com/ is “another one” under development.

    We’re hoping to make a big difference.
    Work in progress.

    Thanks for the accurate comparison.
    cheers.

25. Phil Allen
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 5:40 pm

    After reading your blog, I decided to checkout all of the sites. I liked only two of them. I liked the MatchActivity.com site, because it’s a fresh concept to both online dating and social networking. I also really liked the Consumating site, because it is truly fun, cool and different. I just created a profile on MatchActivity and quickly got added to a bunch of hot girl’s buddy list (sweet).

26. Harley
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 7:21 pm

    And http://www.impersonals.com

27. system
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 7:50 pm

    I’m surprised these dating sites still exist with the growing popularity of myspace

28. Jason Purdy
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 7:59 pm

    well i have to say i think you saying only three or four will eventually exist doesn’t make sense. There’s many things like dating in which something like how cool and hip you are matters a huge deal. There will always be niche sites that grow beyond their core market and gain a critical mass. In the end, all i’m saying is the opinion of some that eventually there will only be three or four is crazy. There will always be many niche markets with the big players changing continually.

29. JC Lyons
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 8:41 pm

    Re: “I’m surprised these dating sites still exist with the growing popularity of myspace”

    Very few 30-somethings and up are on Myspace (outside of the “digerati”). I’m 36 and I can’t imagine using Myspace to find dates. There’s absolutely room for sites that are strictly for people who are interested in finding a relationship.

30. Simon
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 9:04 pm

    http://friendfinder.com/ is the biggest dating site hands down

31. StephenZhai
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 9:11 pm

    现在的交友网站多如牛毛，管用吗？I doubt it.

32. Sean
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 9:16 pm

    On behalf of RateOrDate, the bulk of the utility will come from twists on the standard user-review format, which does not really work for dating services.

    User Reviews 2.0, Radical Presentation, whatever the name… that is the next step in trying to bring real comparison shopping functionality to this category.

33. susan mernit
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 10:25 pm

    Interesting post, Mike. One of the advantages of a big player like Yahoo! Personals (disclosure: I work there), is the very large number of profiles and the sophisticated searching and matching tools. For many people, especially outside of bigger cities, or with more niche or specific interests,the smaller sites offer too few prospects, even though their communities and activities are really engaging. I personally don’t see social networking encroaching on online dating sites–I think SN helps build a market for online dating, actually. Why? Well, online dating users have hit a lifestage event–they want to meet someone better or different than the people they have in their expanded personal network and they want to take focused action and meet people within a limited period of time. This is quite a different impulse than using a social network to find people to have drinks with, or very casual meetings–You can be linked to thousands of people on a social network, but for most people over 30, that doesn’t mean you are going to find a great date, a lover or a soul mate.

34. Sherna
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 10:48 pm

    Thanks for the info Mike, this was really helpful. While we are on the subject, how is the love life?

35. james
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 11:15 pm

    Susan: goes to show how behind Yahoo are. Social Networking sites are a threat to the traditional personals model. And who would you rather date - someone a friend of a friend knows, that you might be able to get direct information about, or some random guy who could well be seriously messed up?

    I’ve tried dating sites ’searching and matching tools’ and lets be honest, life isn’t quite so black and white. My number 1 match is consistently a good friend who I’d NEVER date. She’s a bit nuts - Yahoo can’t determine that.

    Whereas, I could ask on a SN site if she’s nuts to one of her other friends… and find out. That way, avoid the problem.

    Realistically, the best way to meet partners is through your friends network. That, followed by college, work, hobbies etc. You can test the waters without offense.

    james

36. Michael Arrington
    

    July 23rd, 2006 at 11:28 pm

    Hi Sherna - fancy seeing you here.

37. Jesse P
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 12:45 am

    Craigslist definitely has some share in this space, right?

38. Peter
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 1:14 am

    adultfriendfiner is by far the biggest dating service globally, thanks to their extremely sucessful affiliate program. plentyoffish rules, okcupid is a great service too. The services featured here (besides plentyoffish and google base) will probably only have a short life…

39. HOTorNOT James
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 1:35 am

    Adding to the list of “hey, what about us??”…

    Maybe it’s a good thing that we (HOTorNOT.com) are not labeled as a “Web 2.0″ company, or as a dating website, but frankly, both situations have confused me for the longest time..

    To give my cofounder Jim and our engineers their due web 2.0 props, I’ll be the business guy and brag a bit: we’ve had tagging since 2000 (in my mind, true props on tagging as well as the first decent implentation of friending go to Brad at Livejournal), we have done webservice integrations since 2003 and have a public Webservice API out there (which the guys at frozenbear seem to keep doing cool things with). We’ve had RSS feeds for a while too, like this one where you can see our daily top rated people.

    I’m not sure exactly what the definition of Web 2.0 is, there seem to be a lot of them out there, but I think we definitely qualify for most of them. By many of the definitions i’ve seen, some of the sites listed above don’t even qualify.. So i’m guessing web 2.0 might just mean “brand new”?

    There is the question of whether HOTorNOT is a dating site, since ours is a more casual “meeting” site.. but we do hear about marriages on a daily basis, and we’ve had over 3 or 4 million people create accounts in the “meet me” section of our site. From a business perspective, as far as we know from the data we’ve seen, we are also more profitable than all the web 2.0 dating sites listed, although our revenue and earnings are purely from subscriptions. (Of course when it comes to subscription based businesses in our space, there are tons of people who stay below the radar that are even more profitable, the wunderkind really being andrew conru at friendfinder..)

    In any case, there are a lot of cool innovations being done by a lot of cool companies/people out there, and I wish them all the best of luck. I agree with susan above that social networking does not destroy online dating (heck, sometimes it’s better to date OUTSIDE your network.. in reality, as a user, i don’t really care how i meet the right person, as long as i meet her… anywhere.).. but i would not sit quite as comfortably as susan implies yahoo can.. lots of these smaller competitors have lower cost structures than the big sites, and if they executed perfectly (with a dating context), they could someday hurt the bigger sites. Friendster certainly could have threatened the larger dating sites had they been able to scale their technology properly, but they lost their momentum and now it’s (probably) too late. All the current major SNS sites don’t really have a dating context, so they probably won’t impact the Matches and Yahoos of the world, but that’s not to say another one won’t come along..

40. Seo Sites
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 1:57 am

    Dating sites are never ending sites and will always grow irrespective of present sites.
    Everyone feels they are young.

41. TonyT
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 2:43 am

    I say the best way is the free way, as http://www.livedatematch.com is on my top 10 list, just put your picture up, get rated, and hookup, pretty cool site for anyone.

42. Keith L. Dick
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 2:44 am

    I really thing if “I ever get this desperate”… I’ll pay one of my close friends to drive me to the “Back 40″ and basically shoot me…

43. Sara Anne
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 5:08 am

    Don’t forget the startup trying to make online dating less stressful by empowering members to keep each other honest in their profiles….

    http://www.honestyfirst.com

    Click on the cartoon dude at the bottom to see a funny animation on the truth about online dating.

44. John Lynch
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 6:48 am

    Before I joined a dating website I went to http://www.friends2meet.com to discuss which site I should join with others the same situation. They have an online forums which provides support for like minded indivuduals.

45. Itsnotreal
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 6:53 am

    Love is an illusion anyhow. You can be a great person in life and still wid up with a lying cheater who has no regard for you or who you are. Online dating is no different. women are evil and most of us guys are no better.

46. Tyler Jones
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 7:19 am

    I used to really enjoy http://www.datecam.com and I actually did get alot of dates, but the site hasn’t been updated in quite some time which is too bad, because they are missing out on some cool features. I thought they would be bigger than friendfinder.com or match.com and I could date forever.

47. belg4mit
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 8:15 am

    Someone just showed me gottaflirt.com the other day. I can’t say that I “get” or like it, but I suppose somebody might/must (damn millenials). It’s sort of a self-administered dating game show, except that you have to schedule a time (since it’s the sole activity of the site and is featured on the fornt page) and any interested suitor can participate. Wahoo.

48. Eric
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 12:32 pm

    Let us not forget the most bizare of all the new dating 2.0 sites… http://www.MyFreeImplants.com/ where couples meet based on the common theme of breast implants!

49. PreZ
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 12:33 pm

    I think the new big dating sites to come are those that do “8 minute dating” type of deal. Where you sign up to an event through the site and go to an event and meet lots of people in one night.

50. pireland
    

    July 24th, 2006 at 10:20 pm

    another one you left out… true.com. It says its endorsed by “Pscyhology Today”… which must mean a lot.

    I know a lot of late teens on the site. They advertise a lot on MySpace

51. lifeknot
    

    July 26th, 2006 at 5:28 am

    I’d like to add my site, lifeknot.com, to the list. 12,000+ members, 51% Women, 49% Men. Completely free and free of advertisements. I’ve also recently launched a mobile version of lifeknot for cellphones.

    I created lifeknot after doing much online dating myself and wanting to find a more natural way to meet people online. To accomplish this, lifeknot members may create detailed Activity Profiles, listing any of over 1,000 activities across 45 categories; member-suggested activities are added all the time and are as diverse as sled dog racing, sailing, home brewing, hiking, beekeeping, and photography (see more activities).

    Surf by and take a look (did I mention it’s completely free). “Share your interests and passions in any activity imaginable. Live your life. Let love follow.”

52. Randy Weber
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 12:10 pm

    I’m a big believer in online personals, but I don’t agree with Susan Mernit’s comment. Heavy social networking users are not the same folks that are heavy personals users. Social networkers, who tend to be younger, are getting by without personals. As these folks age into what Susan refers to as a “lifestage event,” it remains to be seen whether or not these users will find the need to use personals sites. This is complicated even further by the likelihood that social networking sites will improve their dating functionality over time. The personals sites need to find a way to work with the social networking sites to get to these younger users. It will likely mean new revenue models and having to share a bigger piece of the pie.

    I’ve cross posted this comment on my blog and on Susan’s blog.

53. David Thomas
    

    August 6th, 2006 at 2:55 am

    I’ve just launched a new dating service, and it seemed appropriate to plug it here. It’s completely different than any other as I have written the software for it from scratch.

    Cheeky monkey dating is supported by advertising; I have to make money with the service or I won’t be able to continue to run it. The advertising is low-key; I’ve no intention of using pop-ups or anything evil like that. To add your profile is a relatively fast, one-page sign-up process, and I’m offering a free online dating guide to anybody that does so.

    RSS feeds are available to be added to My Yahoo etc, and you can choose the feed you want, filtering profiles by location, sex and/or age range.

    You can publish your email address at the service, and it will be shown as an image to help prevent spam harvesters from automatically gathering it. You can also publish your Skype ID, and viewers of your profile will see “Call me” and “Chat with me” Skype buttons. The owner of the profile decides whether to make these details public to everybody, to members only, or to keep these details private.

    Any member of the public can view your profile directly from the search listings.

    As I said, the service is new. It literally went live two days ago. I’ve posted a profile so that people can see how profiles look. Other than that, there are no profiles on the service at present. Every service has to start somewhere! Of course, the good thing about this is that the best names are not yet taken. If you’re using online dating, signing up with us is done by filling in a quick, one-page form, and as you need to write a profile anyway to use any dating service, why not list your profile on my new site as well?

    Thanks.

54. Young Engineer
    

    August 12th, 2006 at 5:19 am

    Anyone with good programming background and determination can get one dating site up. As always. the hardest part is promoting and maintaining user base.

    I heard that match.com is losing money as they are advertising heavily but coudn’t maintain their user base.

55. DATEXPECTATIONS
    

    August 20th, 2006 at 2:29 am

    Helpful list.

56. Keely
    

    August 20th, 2006 at 8:31 pm

    You look like you know a lot about online dating? Do you know if this website is any good?
    http://www.matchamateur.com/

57. Bobby
    

    September 5th