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Matchmaking service at EHarmony.com review: its originality, defects and advantages
By David Colker / Los Angeles Times
Quick notice from WTD experts: This article is mostly about Eharmony.com matchmaking
service, its history and secret matchmaking effectiviness. Perhaps you already heard about Eharmony unique matchmaking system, you have seen
tons of advertising as well as we saw but does it really work? It's difficult to find positive happy user testimonials about Eharmony in internet and it was very strange for
us. We hope that after reading this article you will get your own opinion about Eharmony.com online matchmaking service.
Neil Clark Warren, whose evangelical ties have helped the Pasadena-based eHarmony.com appeal to Christians, is seen at a TV ad taping. The couple
on the monitor met via EHarmony.
Neil Clark Warren, founder of the online dating site eHarmony.com Inc., does matchmaking by the numbers.
Subscribers fill in 436 answers on a questionnaire. The company's computers then use a secret formula to match people using what Warren calls the
29 "dimensions" of a successful relationship, a system based on his decades of experience as a psychologist.
Although the site plays matchmaker without human intervention, it's a personal ingredient -- Warren himself, known to millions for his folksy pitches
on television commercials -- driving the business.
In person, as on the air, Warren, 70, comes across as warm and encouraging. His ebullient persona has become so well known that it has been
parodied by a wig-wearing Jay Leno.
"At eHarmony.com matchmaking service," Warren says in an ad that has become a cable-TV staple, "we only match you with other singles who are compatible with you in
all the areas that matter most in life."
But as eHarmony becomes better known, Warren has had to tread a careful line: He has strong ties to evangelicals, who were overwhelmingly
responsible for the early success of matchmaking at eHarmony.
While maintaining that base, Warren now must ensure the service appeals to people of all religious persuasions.
EHarmony also faces more-mundane challenges: Although it attracted 2.7 million visitors in March 2005, according to ComScore Media Metrix, the
site lags far behind bigger, better-known sites such as Yahoo Inc.'s Yahoo Personals, which drew 5.9 million visitors, and IAC/InterActiveCorp's
Match.com, with 4 million.
Warren views it all with boundless optimism.
By the time eHarmony dating service debuted in 2000, Match.com and Yahoo Personals were already online with services that allowed visitors to post profiles and
optional photos, and browse through all others posted in search of casual dates or more serious matches. EHarmony distinguished itself by catering
only to people who were serious about finding a mate -- and willing to pay for the extra service. While its larger competitors charge users up to $30
a month, eHarmony charges as much as $50, depending on discounts.
Unlike its competitors, the Pasadena-based company does not permit browsing. EHarmony evaluates the questionnaires, makes matches based on
personality similarities and other factors and then sends the matches to subscribers for their review.
The subscribers can then choose whether they want to open online dialogues.
"EHarmony walked into a vacuum and created a brand that catered to serious daters," said Nate Elliot of Jupiter Research. "They did a great job of
differentiating themselves."
And in grabbing the attention of venture capital firms.
Last year, eHarmony received the largest single venture capital investment doled out to any company -- $110 million.
Now eHarmony faces competition in the niche it created.
Yahoo, for example, in November introduced Yahoo Premier, a service that offers
a more comprehensive personality assessment and suggested matches for an additional monthly fee.
While eHarmony is cagey about how it makes matches, it makes clear that one factor doesn't enter into the process: physical type.
But this leads to criticism. "Most people have a particular physical type they do or do not like," said Andrea Sandvig, 52, a legal assistant in New
York. A widow, she describes herself as "size 16 and quite fit."
After joining earlier this year, Sandvig was matched to about 15 men on eHarmony. But after her picture went up on the site, she heard nothing from
them.
"It was a little hurtful," said Sandvig, who had found two long-term relationships on other sites. "But mostly it was a waste of my time and money."
Yahoo Premier allows for searches based on members' self-described body types
and other physical attributes. And it does not limit browsing.
"People want to be empowered, not to be just a passive recipient," said Lorna Borenstein, a Yahoo executive in charge of the company's new
venture. She said the goal of the Premier questionnaire, taken online in a video-game-like format, is for users to get a better idea of who they are
looking for as a partner.
With an eye on the threat of competition, Warren is full of plans for expansion. He said eHarmony would launch an online marriage analysis service --
featuring exercises aimed at strengthening relationships -- by the end of the year.
One area into which they don't plan to expand is matchmaking for gay men or lesbians. "I don't know how to do these matches, the research has not
been done," Warren said. Yahoo and Match.com do accept homosexual subscribers.
EHarmony also rules out people who have been married more than twice, because, Warren said, statistics show their future marriages are likely to
end in divorce. They also do not accept people who are, judging from their questionnaire answers, severely depressed.
Warren does believe the company must continue to broaden its base beyond the Christian world that gave it early support. EHarmony still gets e-mail
from people who feel unwelcome because they believe the site is primarily for Christians.
Warren said the site is open to people of all religions, or no religion at all, but he acknowledges that his long association with Dobson -- a fellow
psychologist who is active in promoting conservative Christian political causes -- could be a liability.
Warren is negotiating to buy back publishing rights to his books from Dobson's organization, Focus on the Family.
"He wasn't political when I knew him," Warren said, picking up his own most popular book, "Finding the Love of Your Life."
Across the top of the cover was a prominent banner for "Focus on the Family."
Warren pointed at it: "That's a killer to us."
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