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Dating Industry > History > LavaLife
History
 Company: LavaLife
Startup in Online Dating: 1997
Private/Public: Private
Parent Company: None
Employees: 320
Revenue: $90 million annually
History
of LavaLife
In 1996, LavaLife– formerly
known as the Interactive Media Group (Canada) – bought the URL Webpersonals.com
where it started a free online dating service in 1997. In July, 2001, www.lavalife.com was
launched and Webpersonals.com, which
was now charging for memberships, was combined into the new service.
LavaLife's foray
into online dating was profitable within its first
five years. The company says, “this was accomplished
by marrying marketing insight and leading-edge technology.
We kept expanding and refining our services, adding
new services to our mix, and expanding our market
coverage across the US, Canada, and Australia.”
LavaLife is
not just an online dating service. It has also had
success in offering telephone services in over 65
markets. It uses what it calls “Interactive
Voice Response (IVR)” telephone technology
to help singles come together through a voice medium.
One
change LavaLife's online
dating service had resisted for a long time was moving
from a credit system to a monthly system, like the
majority of the industry. LavaLife users
used to pay a “per transaction” fee.
Want to email someone? Pay “six credits” and
you can email that one person unlimited. Want to
chat with someone? You will have to pay a certain
amount of credits per 20-minute session.
In 2007, LavaLife caved and switched from a credit
system to a monthy fee.
LavaLife's Webpersonals.com
used to keep track of how many new users signed up “in
the last 10 days” and the stats paint a picture
of how popular online dating sites were becoming.
For example (factual quotes):
January
18, 1998
"5926 new members in the past 10 days!"
January
25, 1999
"Over 150,000 people have become a member of one of webpersonals' three
communities, and this number has grown by 9445 in the past 10 days."
March
1, 2001
"42,393 new members have joined in the last 10 days!"
The
below image, from February 2000, gives you a look
back of what would later become LavaLife.
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