Excerpt from the MSNBC article:
A REAL RETURN ON ROMANCE
Market leader Match.com now has over 1 million subscribers customers forking over about $25 a month.
uDate.com, which also operates Kiss.com, had $1.5 million in revenue in June 2001; last month alone, the company took in $4 million, according to president Martin Clifford, and the company has just enjoyed its fourth straight profitable quarter.
Yahoo, No. 2 in the online personals category, is much cagier about its growth, but the company beat its chest about its love site at its most recent quarterly earnings announcement, saying personals made a �very significant contribution� to revenues.
�I don't know if you'll continue to see the current mad growth,� said Jupiter analyst Stacey Herron. �But online personals will still grow at a healthy rate.�
The key, Match.com president Tim Sullivan says, has been marketing efforts to �legitimize the category� during the past 12 months.
�My own sister got married last month to a guy she met on Match. It's very mainstream now,� Sullivan said. �Anywhere I go, if I'm in a crowd of more than 6 people and say what I do, invariably someone comes forward and says that they have been using Match.�
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