Match.com has launched a free dating service. They picked a damn good domain name and the site looks really good.
Downtoearth is headed up by Jacob Solotaroff, the former Director of Product Management and Member Integrity at Match.com. He also writes on this blog… http://thefraudczar.com/ On the marketing side its headed up by Steve Hammer It looks like the project was started back in June 2008.
It looks like match.com realizes they are losing marketshare fast and paid sites don’t really have a future. 15% of my users in the US pay on other dating sites every month, but they all say if there was another big free site like plentyoffish they wouldn’t pay elsewhere. This has already happened in Canada where plentyoffish is pretty much the only dating site people use, and eharmony a distant second.
Looks like 2009 will be the battle of the business models, Free Verse Paid…. I wonder if Match.com will now pay me $7.50 like everyone else for writing about downtoearth ? If you are looking to get a job at Match.com’s latest startup you can see the openings here