Once thriving, these sites are facing tougher times as social networks online and flirting over mobile devices catch users' fancy
Among the pumpkins of the dot-com boom, one of the few Cinderella stories had been online dating. While many Internet startups ended up with bottom lines scarier than a date from hell, searching for love online has became the largest category of paid Web content, after porn -- for which statistics are difficult to get. Until this year, revenues for Match.com and Yahoo! Personals (YHOO ), two of the biggest players, had been doubling annually. Profits had been piling up even though fewer than 20% of these sites' users had paid to seek their mates.
BusinessWeek