Total Members: 12 million (with over one million of them paying subscribers).
Prospects online at review time: Not available.
Cost
1 mo./$24.95 3 mos./$44.85 6 mos./$65.70.
Quality of Prospects
Ease of Use
Features & Extras
Match.com is a big fricking site, with numerous prospects of all ages, sizes, personalities, and body types. This site does not allow you to state the orientation of the people you are looking for, only the gender, although it does allow you to specify more than one gender, if desired. They have a fairly thorough questionnaire (insofar as that's helpful); the site is colorful without falling into the graphics pit, and uses tasteful graphics when needed.
Wired magazine says "[Match.com pitches] tests formulated by PhDs. Personality descriptions flash on the screen, and users click those that fit. Follow-up questions change based on responses. Michael Georgeff, former head of Australia's Artificial Intelligence Institute, weighed in on the search system." When you find a hot prospect, the site lists shared interests and potential snags.
The site also includes advice on dating safety and creating a good profile, but don't bother to read it, because I'm sure it's not nearly as good as my advice here.
Subscriptions automatically renew at the rate you initially chose.
I interviewed T.A., a 42-year-old hetero man in HI. He found it "an enjoyable site to use and cruise. They have good material on dating safety (sets the standard for thinking about this early and often)."
T.A. recommends at least the three month trial; he has used match.com twice now in his dating life, and "while success is likely, it may take time, and your price is less if you assume at least six months of time will be required. It usually is, whatever your criterion of 'success' may be."
T.A. has used several dating sites. "This one has earned my personal 'Best of the Web' rating for interesting, well done quizzes on personality and body type preferences (not always right, but thought provoking)."
T.A.'s personal online dating success stories have all been with Match.com; he has met "women who are friends, some who were lovers, many who were not, but were fun to be with, even if only for a single date or a few dates. This site has done an excellent job of marketing itself so that the mix of people is wide. A more minimal interface for those with narrow bandwidth connections might be appropriate, but this is a quibble--the interface used now is not very bandwidth-intensive."
