Online Dating

Online dating sites are facing some loneliness amid an industry wide slowdown.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Initially considered the last resort for the socially stunted, online dating has shrugged off its social stigma and emerged as a mainstream means for singles to find that special someone.

Time for the industry to celebrate, right? Wrong. Just when you’d think the industry would be poised to see its strongest growth, online dating is actually experiencing a slowdown.

The U.S. online dating industry is expected to climb 9 percent year-over-year with revenues of $516 million in 2005 coming from consumer subscriptions alone, said Nate Elliott, an analyst at Jupiter Research. That’s slower than the 19 percent growth in 2004. And when compared with a 77 percent jump in 2003, the latest revenue trends seem cause for real concern.

“It’s the natural growth curve of the industry,” Elliott said. “It took a while for it to gain traction, then we saw several years of explosive growth, and now it will slow down.”

The curiosity factor was one driver of business as intrigued browsers flocked to dating sites such as IAC/Interactive’s Match.com and Yahoo! Personals. But once the media picked up on the hype with films such as “Must Love Dogs” and Disney’s ABC Networks documentary/reality show “Hooking Up,” it became evident that the mystique was gone.

Blame some of that on the creepiness factor, in which users finally tired of the endless barrage of oddball suitors from various sites. One former online dater said the abundance of freaks that sent her e-mails — one resembled the Incredible Hulk while another said he preferred educated women who would spend their lives serving him — turned her off the online scene. She eventually met her current boyfriend through friends.

While growth has slowed down, online dating is too ingrained to fade away, said Bill Tancer, general manager of worldwide research at Hitwise, an Internet market research firm. There are currently nearly 1,000 dating Web sites, Tancer said, and online dating makes up 1 percent of all Internet usage — in other words one out of every 100 people logging on visits an online dating site.

But now enterprising singles are being slightly more select in the sites they visit. Niche sites, focused on religion or ethnicity — such as Spark Networks’ successful JDate.com for Jewish singles, or a number of sites aimed at Indians — are popular. There are even sites centered on specific interests, such as Cowboydating.com (yee hah!), that pull in more visitors and subscription dollars.

Meanwhile, social networking sites like Friendster.com and News Corp.’s MySpace.com have become increasingly popular among the younger demographic set — those between the ages of 18 and 24.

Social networking is a difficult genre to classify. While it can be argued that all dating sites are about social networking at some level, sites like MySpace.com allow users to make connections with friends of friends and provide access to music, games and other interactive content. Since the site is marketed to singles, families and even business people looking to network, users can chat with other users without the pressure of dating.

Under the guise of sharing interests or friendship, those who log on are more inclined to find compatible mates. And social networking sites generally don’t charge.

That’s giving traditional online dating sites a run for their money, said John Tinker, research analyst at ThinkEquity Partners.

Tinker said that in a more competitive environment, the Big 3 online dating sites — Yahoo!Personals, Match.com and EHarmony.com — will have to tweak their business models and create new innovative products to grow revenue.

One place to look is advertising. Date.com’s CEO Meir Strahlberg said that advertising revenues have doubled in the past few months to 10 percent of total revenue.

“There are 86 million single adults who control annual spending of $1.6 trillion,” Strahlberg said. “Online dating sites reach about 30 percent of that market currently.”

He said that the company can target an advertiser’s products to almost any demographic based on user profiles — an attractive point for an advertiser.

Tinker agreed that with the maturity of the Internet, online advertising has become more common and will be an increasing means of revenue growth.

Yahoo!Personals vice president and general manager Lorna Borenstein said the site, which currently leads the market, has the competitive advantage of being on a network with more than 380 million monthly visitors.

She added that the Yahoo! Personals was the first site to launch a customized approach to online dating last November.

“Today’s online daters are increasingly sophisticated,” she said. “You can’t just increase offerings; you have to help singles figure out their relationship goals and offer tools to help them find their version of success, whatever that might be.”

A representative from Match.com couldn’t be reached for comment.

source: CNN/Money

Sites offer way to track phonies He sounded like a prince.

”He said he was smart, witty, tall and handsome,” recalls the woman known as j29blonde on match.com. She asked that her real name not be used to protect the ego of the ”prince” she met. She thought she clicked with the gentleman when they chatted online. ”It was one of my most memorable dates.”

She doesn’t mean that in a good way.

When she finally met the so-called Prince Charming, all she saw was a hobbit.

”Upon three double takes it turns out he was 5-feet-6-inches [tall] and far from handsome,” she recounted in an interview. ”He also had a twitch. At the end of each sentence he would make a snorting sound with his nose. I think the only thing that was true was that he was in grad school.”

Bostonians who click their mouses in hopes of clicking with someone know firsthand the mismatches of online dating. Like the women on ABC’s ”Hooking Up” summer series or Diane Lane in the new movie ”Must Love Dogs,” they learn that sometimes reality bytes when you log on for love.

But there is help a few keystrokes away. In the past year, several websites have sprung up to help cyber daters discern what is fact from fantasy on someone’s profile. The sites allow users to post feedback about the person they met online, including whether the profile the person posted is true. Users can also rate their dates here. Call it Cupid’s cyber consumer protection.

Officials from these websites tout their service as a best friend looking out for another friend on a date.

”We are waving the truth flag. The intent and the creation of the site was to provide a truthful and positive attitude for online dating,” says Jamie Diamond, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based truedater.com which launched last January. Visitors can browse reviews from five dating services the company works work with — American Singles, Match.com, Yahoo Personals, Nerve.com, and Jdate, the Jewish singles site.

The site’s basic premise is to help determine whether the person reviewed is a ”true dater,” meaning he or she was honest in their description. Among the reasons for failed first cyber encounters is the person on the other side of the computer used a Kodak moment that was 10 years old and the physical descriptions were way off.

”In a perfect world, their profile is completely accurate,” says Diamond. ”You know how old they are or whether they have kids. But on occasion, you go to Starbucks and their cellphone might be ringing off the hook or they have a significant other or they may be married.”

The truedater.com postings take browsers on a journey through the good dates and bad. Some postings appear bitter. Other reviewers seem smitten by the date after meeting him or her.

Continued…on The Boston Globe website

Bill1852 has a “very middle-aged body topped with a fat balding head,” which may be true but seems almost cruelly over-descriptive.Emiss2004, on the other hand, is not only not “a spiritual student from Sweden,” she is, according to someone who dated her, “actually an escort who will con you out of your cash for her ‘tuition.’ ”

The world of online dating and Internet personal ads has never been known as a bastion of honesty. It’s more a place where voluptuous is considered a fair synonym for obese, and where that pesky wife and kids somehow never make it into the ad.

A new Web site, truedater.com, serves as a self-styled truth squad for the estimated 40 million to 60 million Americans who have dabbled in online personals. Since nearly all sites use anonymous names, anyone who has dated, say, Maninthemood_200 from match.com can post a review of what he is really like, as opposed to what his personal ad says.

Registration is free, and the site tracks personals from a variety of sites, including match.com and Yahoo Personals.

Since launching in January, the site has received about 1 million unique visitors, says Jamie Diamond, director of community relations. He would not say how many subscribers are registered, nor how many reviews are posted.

Truedater.com was started by Mark Geller, a single tech worker in California’s Silicon Valley who kept hearing horror stories about people posting 15-year-old photos and magically shedding 50 pounds in their Internet dating profiles.

Surprisingly, about half the reviews are positive.

“I figured it would all be negative,” says Jacqui Chew, 37, a Duluth marketer who’s a Truedater subscriber. “I was surprised to see some good reviews. But then I wondered, ‘If he’s that great, why aren’t you still dating the guy?’ ”

If someone posts a review that is itself false, Truedater will review the complaint and in a handful of instances, it has pulled a false review, Diamond says.

“We’re not asking if they are a good dater, did they take you to Sizzler instead of a nice restaurant?” says Diamond. “We’re trying to get to the facts — were they honest in their profiles?”

Despite that intent, sometimes reviews can capture succinctly an entire evening gone horribly wrong.

“If you go to karaoke, play it safe,” one man wrote about a woman he liked. “She’s not too keen on wacky uninhibited guys cutting loose to Whitesnake in front of her friends. At least not on a first date! Oops!”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The women here – these daters – look familiar. You know the type. Trim, breezy, frank, supremely at ease making confessions to cameras. They’re recognizable anywhere now: reality-show Jens and Amys, spirited representatives of that plucky work force that dutifully fills the girls’ slots on offerings from “Blind Date” to “The Apprentice” to “Beauty and the Geek.” Oh, but not quite. With cutie graphics, a catchy name and a setup that maximizes the chances that characters will have sex, “Hooking Up” sure looks like reality Frappuccino. But it’s billed as hard news. Described as a “documentary series from ABC News” that “goes inside the unpredictable world of online dating,” “Hooking Up,” which starts tonight with the first of five parts, is brought to you by the same serious-minded journalists who created multipart documentary programs like “Hopkins 24/7,” “Boston 24/7″ and “N.Y.P.D. 24/7.” This time, their dispassionate quest for the truth about the human condition has led them to shine a bright light on the lives of single women who, desperate for love, date many men and sleep around.

Which means the women are real – realer, say, than reality stars. ABC’s news producers did not stage a casting call, cull their stars from a group of telegenic SoCal runaways, and pay them to run wild on Internet dating sites like Match.com and Lavalife. That’s what entertainment divisions do. Instead, they contacted the sites directly and asked for lists of women who were already sold on online dating, thus keeping things real. In somber interviews, they determined who among these women were willing, in addition to going out with men they knew only from Internet profiles, to have their dates and deliberations filmed and broadcast. Presto: sufficient exhibitionism and fizz to attract reality viewers with just enough credibility to count as news.

Look, I’m just pointing this out. I’m not the Columbia Journalism Review. If ABC News wants to go supersoft for the lady viewers who prefer lifestyle stuff to guns and ammo, that’s fine by me; I like reality television. And thus I find “Hooking Up” comical, sad, entertaining and enlightening. Its verité patina – in a format uncluttered by the redundant tribal-council-like rituals of many reality competitions – allows the characters a decent range of action and expression. And it’s illuminating about the marvels and shortcomings of online dating.

In brief narration in the voice of a dater we learn, “With 40 million Americans hooking up online, there’s got to be someone out there for me.” But that statistic is the end of the program’s pedantry. After that, we’re up close and personal with a dozen successful, attractive New York women, ages 25 to 38, as they condemn men, idolize men, tire of men and try again.

It’s a lively group. First there’s Amy, a baby-faced 28-year-old ingénue from South Dakota who wants both to marry and breed and to flex her considerable sexual power. Something in her giggle and forthright eccentricity makes her the program’s star. Cynthia, who is 34, is a grating, self-absorbed hair-salon manager; her stagy declarations of who she is – tough, sexy, choosy, take-no-guff – ring false, and her truest moment of emotion comes when she savors the prospect of an evening with the man the program calls her “occasional lover,” a guy she calls when she wants to have duty-free sex.

Lisa, a 36-year-old gynecologist, seems sane with a charming kittenish side, until she insists on giving a false name to a surgeon she meets, and refuses to disclose that they share a profession. This is coyness passing as self-protection or professional responsibility (she doesn’t want her patients or colleagues to recognize her online), and she seems a little too excited about it. (“If they know you’re a doctor, forget it. They’ll bring an engagement ring to the first date.”) Twenty-six-year-old Claire, whose job has something to do with selling Viagra, comes across as cute and kind; her rejection by one sad sack in mutton-chop sideburns seems unfounded.

A nasty 29-year-old photographer named Maryam prods irritatingly at her dates until they leave in bewilderment. (Dating tip: Don’t tell a guy he seems gay.) By contrast, Kelly, a 35-year-old grade-school teacher, seems unaware of the appeal of her sunny athleticism and guy’s-girl good nature. She has spasms of self-consciousness about her class background that lead her to sabotage herself.

Watching these women, and several others, as they date men they find online offers as much insight into the Internet as it does into romance. A big deal for online daters is how honest people are in the profiles they post, and in their pictures, which often seem so enhanced as to qualify more as painting than photography. The clumsiest online daters often greet would-be soul mates with angry accusations of false advertising. Others pride themselves on their ability to detect standard sleights of hand, including waist-up photos of women (“She may be hiding what’s called junk in the trunk,” a man shrewdly notes). And they earnestly explain to the cameras how much they despise online liars.

But the best of these daters, like the best of all daters, are also forgiving. Finding moments of tenderness and amusement in “Hooking Up” requires some equally forgiving attention to this infotainment series, but it’s well worth it. The players here are on quests to determine, of all things, what love means and where, if anywhere, it dovetails with technology and consumerism. That’s a worthy quest. When they’re honest with themselves, they discover in the vanity of others’ online portraits only the vanity – and longing – of their own.

Hooking Up

ABC, tonight at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.

Terence Wrong, producer and executive producer; Brad Hebert and Bryan Taylor, co-producers; Rudy Bednar, senior executive producer; Phyllis McGrady, executive-in-charge.