Online dating reaches booming market
FAIRFIELD, Conn. — One winter evening, Priscilla Williams logged on to her computer and sorted through electronic photographs of men who had checked out her profile on the online dating site Match.com: An 80-year-old practicing lawyer, a retired professor, and a Floridian who resembled rocker Eric Clapton. “The sheer numbers mean that I might meet someone I’m not afraid to bring home,” says the 61-year-old widow.
After years of losing subscribers to racier rivals and new social-networking sites geared to young singles, Match has become the largest online dating site in the U.S. by subscriptions, with 1.3 million members. One big reason: older daters like Williams.
Match has been reaching out to singles over 50 and divorcees, pitching itself as a destination for mainstream daters who want serious relationships. It made its site easier to navigate for people who are not Internet-savvy, helping people find daters who meet their tastes. The site, owned by Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive Corp., features a free magazine with articles on single parenthood and the love life of Baby Boomers. Its TV ads feature a 71-year-old woman with the user name DanishBeauty22.
The success is a bright spot for Diller, who is trying to wring profits from IAC’s stable of Web businesses. His better-known brands include the search engine Ask, the loan exchange Lending Tree, the invitation service eVite, and the local search site CitySearch. Although Match made up less than 5 percent of IAC’s $6.5 billion in sales over the past 12 months, it contributed more than 10 percent of the company’s $464 million in operating profit. In the past two years, Match has boosted the number of paying customers by a third.
Match’s success in targeting older daters, as well as other overlooked markets such as divorcees and suburbanites, also reflects a maturing Web industry that is expanding beyond its fixation on the very young and tapping other demographics, including the wealthy market of boomers. That’s an especially promising strategy for a Web site that depends on fees, not the youth-obsessed ad industry.
AOL co-founder Steve Case this month launched RevolutionHealth.com, a Web site that aims to combine health information and social networking — particularly appealing to older Americans. Diller says he is looking at investing in other sites that cater to the over 50s segment online. “There is no question that they are, in size and spending, a very rich vein of opportunity,” he said
Older daters “spend more money per month and are more likely to subscribe for a longer period,” says Nate Elliott, analyst with JupiterResearch. At Match, 23 percent of subscribers are over 50, more than double the number two years ago. Yahoo Personals has seen double-digit growth in the number of users over 50 in the past two years, thanks in part to a new service that provides extra control, privacy, and security. EHarmony’s fastest-growing age group last year was the over-50 segment.
The growing attractiveness of the boomer market means Match may face growing competition as other sites vie for boomer daters. EHarmony, for example, advertises heavily and touts the way it guides communication between potential mates — a lure for boomers who may be out of practice in the dating market. Match, which powers the personals of the portals MSN and AOL, also runs the risk of spreading itself too thin as it expands overseas while Yahoo focuses on the U.S. market.