Facebook meets its Match with dating site

By Sarah Butler

Dating site Match.com makes a move on social networkers with Facebook liaison. Sarah Butler reports

Online dating is entering the web 2.0 era as Match.com cosies up with networking site Facebook ahead of the New Year rush to find romance.

The world's largest internet dating site will today launch Little Black Book, an application which puts Facebook users who are looking for a date in touch with other single members of the networking site or with Match.com's members.

The move comes as matchmakers come under pressure from social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, where singletons can meet potential partners for free. Networking sites have only been around for less than five years but they already dwarf dating sites, with Facebook claiming about 58m members compared with Match.com's 15m built up since 1995.

Jason Stockwood, Match.com's managing director for international business, says Little Black Book is part of a strategy to step up the dating site's expansion.

He says: "Match.com has a lot of the characteristics of social networking sites such as peer-to-peer communication and visitor-generated content. This bridges the gap between what social networking does well - a large network of people staying in touch - with our additional functions on top."

Match.com wants to build relationships with other social networking sites and Mr Stockwood says the Facebook launch is a test to examine how such tie-ups can work.

Little Black Book will also be a trial for a new style of payment system under which members pay per contact made rather than via subscription.

Mr Stockwood, a Grimsby boy who claims to have met his girlfriend of two years in a pub rather than online, was poached from Travelocity, the travel website, nine months ago to help drive expansion and raise the profile of Match.com's brand in Europe.

The firm, which is owned by US-listed InterActiveCorp (IAC), wants to launch new niche brands and is also seeking acquisitions in the UK and Europe to help encourage a wider public to have a go at online dating.

The firm already has sites in 37 countries worldwide, including 15 European nations, and sees this side of the Atlantic as the engine of growth over the next few years.

"IAC is very acquisitive and has a huge amount of cash on the books," Mr Stockwood says. "We are looking at acquisitions in the UK and for potential targets to really help us consolidate the market."

Match.com, which bought UK-based rival Udate in 2003 and also runs unbranded dating sites for MSN and Yahoo, is no doubt hoping to harness Mr Stockwood's experience at the highly acquisitive Lastminute.com to help it find ideal partners. The online travel agency, where Stockwood spent five years, bought 16 companies over a two-year period.

Mr Stockwood says: "I think we are at the start of a hockey stick of growth for online dating. The concept is right, people understand it, but it has not reached a critical mass in being everyone's choice of how to meet people. I feel the opportunities are the same as at Lastminute.com - it is the start of something."

At present only 6pc of internet surfers use online dating sites and the paid-for dating market in the UK is only worth between £60m and £70m.

However, it is growing rapidly. The number of single people in the UK is expected to rise from 10m at present to 16m by 2012 and across Europe total revenues from online dating are expected to more than double to €549m (£395) by 2010 compared with €243m last year.

Match.com, which faces increasing competition in the UK from French-owned DatingDirect.com as well as Sarah Beeny's Mysinglefriend.com, launches a major TV and billboard advertising campaign this week as well as its new Facebook site.

The moves are intended to grab as big a share of the market as possible during the peak dating season. Boxing Day and the day after New Year's day are among the top 5pc busiest days for dating services as singles look for a new start after a lonely Christmas.

But the main challenge for dating sites is to encourage more people to overcome their shyness and seek a partner online.

New gimmicks such as video dating and the involvement of friends and family on sites such as Mysinglefriend.com are all being used to encourage singles to sign up. However, there is still a certain resistance to the concept of meeting a partner online.

Mr Stockwood says: "People in urban areas like London understand the benefits and there is a wide audience. The whole social stigma has gone, but many people still think it is not for them. People say it takes the romance out of meeting someone, but people over the age of 30 find it increasingly difficult to meet a partner."

A philosophy graduate who casts himself as a socialist, Mr Stockwood says he is "evangelical" about the power of the web as a way to build social groups and help like-minded people to find one another.

He says the link-up with Facebook is just part of his plan to make Match.com more accessible.

Also on the agenda are big events that will follow on from this year's world record snogging attempt at the Glastonbury festival which involved 400 couples.

"I want to bring the brand alive off-line beyond the ads and the TV," Mr Stockwood says.

The mind boggles.