Month: February 2006

BUSINESS WEEK — Feb 20 — EHarmony is now celebrating its sixth year.  Traffic rose 8% in December, to 1.3 million visitors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.  Subscribers pay up to $59 a month for the service, which Warren claims resulted in 16,000 marriages last year.  eHarmony's has an $80 million annual advertising budget. The half-a-billion-dollar-a-year online dating industry has slowed to 6% annual growth from 70% a few years ago.  On Feb 6, he introduced a new online service designed to help married couples stay that way. EHarmony's "marriage wellness program" has a 310-question quiz designed to determine the relationship's strengths and weaknesses and 20-minute follow-up exercises, for $239 per couple. Plans include an IPO to provide funds for international expansion and the launch of new products such as counseling for parents. Warren is not a big believer in the idea that opposites attract (even if they do, he argues, they won't last). No one under 21 can join, because marriages between younger people are twice as likely to fail, he says. Nor will he allow people on his site who have been divorced more than three times. Warren won't match taller women with shorter men, because he believes that's a difference difficult to overcome in a relationship. And he won't fix up same-sex couples.

The full article was originally published at Business Week, but is no longer available.