In the wake of the holiday shopping rush, Web surfers are heading online for a different kind of transaction: finding a soulmate, or at least a date for New Year's Eve.
According to data from the Atlas Institute, the research arm of online advertising agency aQuantive Inc., online personals and dating sites saw a major increase in action during the week between Christmas and New Year's last year.
Transaction volume -- which includes people registering and paying or renewing membership fees -- on dating sites climbed steadily through January 2006 to levels 50 percent higher than on retail sites.
"The assumption is that it's related somehow to the self-reflective time of the new year," said John Chandler-Pepelnjak, principal analyst for Atlas Institute. It might also be "the someone-to-kiss-on-New-Year's-Eve phenomenon," he said. "It's touchingly heartbreaking, but it is borne out in the data."
Some of the most-visited online personals sites have struggled with slowing growth over the last year, faced with challenges from sites that focus on niche groups, as well as the booming popularity of free social-networking sites such as News Corp.'s MySpace.
Unique visitors to the No. 1 personals site, run by Yahoo Inc., declined 14 percent in November compared with the previous year. IAC/InterActive Corp.'s Match.com had 12 percent fewer visitors in November, year-over-year. Match.com also powers Microsoft Corp.'s MSN dating and personals site, which saw monthly visitors decline by 20 percent from last year.
This year, Match.com plans to make the most of the year-end rush.
"I call Dec. 26 the start of Match.com's holiday season," said Chief Executive Officer Jim Safka in an interview Thursday. Traffic and registrations on the site pick up right after Christmas and continue at 30 percent to 50 percent above average through Valentine's Day, he said.
"For many people, a New Year's resolution for them is that they want to be in a relationship," Safka said.
Match.com started working on a redesign of the site over the summer, and launched with a fresh look and a major ad campaign on Wednesday. The new site features a way for users to call each other by phone without disclosing their telephone numbers, and step-by-step instructions on creating and uploading good portrait photos.
(Another IAC/InterActive dating site, Chemistry.com, acknowledged the season with a list of tips for holiday dating, such as, "Curb your generosity when buying your date presents or she/he may think you are more serious than you really are.")
When IAC/InterActive last reported earnings at the end of October, analysts were heartened by the performance of the personals businesses, which brought in more than $80 million in revenue, a 22 percent increase year-over-year, helped by higher pricing.
"The lending and real estate segments continue to face challenging macro headwinds and increasing competition," wrote Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto in a note to investors on Oct. 31. " It is increasingly important that solid trends continue in businesses such as Ask.com, personals, and ticketing."
Several other sites made moves ahead of the year-end crush. In November, Yahoo joined forces with Beliefnet Inc., a multi-faith content and community Web site to offer the Soulmatch personals site, aimed at Beliefnet's 9 million members.
Spark Networks PLC, which operates several dating sites including JDate, for Jewish singles, AmericanSingles and BlackSingles, added an anonymous calling feature of its own to some properties in November.
Analysts like Spark Networks for its strategy of targeting specific groups. Jordan Rohan of RBC Capital Markets wrote in a Nov. 8 research note, "The newer niche verticals (BlackSingles.com and Relationships.com) on the heels of site relaunches made solid contributions to offset the continued deterioration at American Singles."
In 2007, the company will start using DoubleClick Inc.'s online advertising services to generate more revenue from its sites, according to ThinkEquity analyst Stewart Barry. The site may be a gold mine for advertisers who are increasingly looking for targeted, niche audiences, the analyst wrote in a Nov. 8 research note.
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