Susan Mernit (Yahoo! Personals) responded to an overview of new online dating sites by Mike Arrington. She is asserting that personals sites will operate side-by-side with social networking sites. I’m a big believer in online personals, but I don’t agree with her. Heavy social networking users are not the same folks that are heavy personals users. Social networkers, who tend to be younger, are getting by without personals. As these folks age into what Susan refers to as a “lifestage event,” it remains to be seen whether or not these users will find the need to use personals sites. This is complicated even further by the likelihood that social networking sites will improve their dating functionality over time. The personals sites need to find a way to work with the social networking sites to get to these younger users. It will likely mean new revenue models and having to share a bigger piece of the pie.
