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eHarmony.com
Company typePrivate
Founded2000, Santa Monica, California
HeadquartersSanta Monica, California
Websiteeharmony.com
Previous eHarmony headquarters in the OneWest Bank building in downtown Pasadena

eHarmony is an online dating website grounded in relationship science that matches single men and women for long-term relationships. To optimize the matching process, eHarmony operates eHarmony Labs, a relationship research facility, and publishes eHarmony Advice, a relationship advice site. eHarmony, which was launched on August 22, 2000, is based in Pasadena, California; it has members in more than 150 countries and operations in the U.S., Australia, Canada,the U.K., and Brazil. The company is privately-held, with investors that include Technology Crossover Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Fayez Sarofim & Co.

History

eHarmony was founded by Neil Clark Warren, a psychologist and author of relationship advice books,[1] and Greg Forgatch. In the late 1990s, after more than 35 years of work as a clinical psychologist and marriage counselor, Warren decided to test his theory that certain characteristics can predict compatibility, and lead to more satisfying relationships. After three years of research, working in collaboration with Dr. Galen Buckwalter, Warren developed a model of compatibility that is now the basis of the company’s matching system.[2]

The service was financed with a $3.0 million investment from Fayez Sarofim & Co. and individual investors.[3] In 2004 eHarmony received the fourth largest venture capital infusion of that year from Sequoia Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures.[4] With its subscription model, the service has been profitable since then and reached a milestone in 2009 as it exceeded $1.0 billion in cumulative revenue.[5]

eHarmony launched its matching service for singles in 2000.[6] Since then, the company has had about 33 million members,[7] and as of 2008, about 15,000 people take the eHarmony questionnaire each day.[8] After finding a match on eHarmony, Harris Interactive states that an average of 542 eHarmony members in the U.S. marry every day.[9]

Methodology

eHarmony advertises that compatibility is the core tenet at eHarmony. Former CEO Greg Waldorf stated, “It's not about matching people who like certain hobbies ... it's about compatibility. You go on to the site and tell us about you, rather than about what you want."[10] eHarmony seeks to differentiate its matching service by what it calls a scientific approach to a deeply personal and emotional process.[11]

Prospective eHarmony members complete a proprietary questionnaire that purports to determine characteristics, beliefs, values, emotional health and skills. Matching algorithms – the basis of the matching system Warren and Buckwalter developed, which the company believes matches people's core traits and values to replicate the traits of happy couples – use these answers to match members with compatible users.[12] A new, complex software technology not only evaluates the answers to the questionnaire, but also each user’s behavioral data such as average time spent on the site.[13] The software analyzes six hundred variables to further optimize the matches and, as a result, there has been a 34% increase in communication between users in the past year.[14]

In 2004, eHarmony's research director, Dr. Steve Carter, presented a paper at the 16th Annual American Psychological Society (APS) meeting. In the paper presented, Carter compared eHarmony couples married for more than five years with a control group, using the Dyadic Adjustment Scale(DAS), a measure of couple satisfaction. His results showed that "over 90% of eHarmony couples had marriage quality scores which were above average when compared to couples who had begun their relationships elsewhere. eHarmony couples were more than twice as likely to be in highly successful marriages than non-eHarmony couples. Not only are eHarmony couples 35% more likely than other married couples to report that they enjoy spending time together, but we found they are nearly twice as likely to report that their marriages are 'extremely happy' or better versus other recently married couples."[15]

Current board of directors

Current executives

Criticism

After answering a 258 question profile, some would-be customers are frustrated when they are not accepted for the matching process. About one in five people are not suitable for the service for reasons including that the user is currently married or has been married more than four times, is under the minimum age of 21, provides inconsistent answers in the profile, or fails its "dysthymia scale."[17] eHarmony has also been criticized for not publishing their customer support phone number on their website.[18] Finally, there have been complaints that the procedure to unsubscribe from the service is unfair or misleading, as well as reports of credit cards continuing to be charged following subscription expiry.[18]

Misleading advertising

On November 18, 2009, in response to eight complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority requested that a UK television ad for eHarmony be amended for two reasons. Firstly, the ad used a statistic generated from results of an online survey of 7,000 people, carried out in 2007, which seemed to show that 2% of Americans who married in that year met on eHarmony. The ASA acknowledged that the evidence appeared to back up that statistic,[19] but they ruled that the ad implied a definitive figure of marriages between people who met via eHarmony in the past year, rather than an estimate based on an online survey in 2007. Secondly, the ASA ruled that the ad did not make clear that in 20% of cases it was unable to find a match for people who registered.[20] Therefore, the ASA asked eHarmony to clarify these two points in their advertising.

In response to the ruling, Sean Cornwell, eHarmony's Vice President for International Markets, said: "We believe the TV ads accurately portrayed the eHarmony service, but we respect the ASA’s request for more detail. We are amending the ads to indicate that eHarmony does have some eligibility requirements for users and to clarify that the claim that an average of 236 eHarmony users married each day in America is based on a study conducted by Harris Interactive for eHarmony in 2007. The ASA did not disagree with the results of the research."[20]

Same-sex couples

Initially eHarmony did not offer same-sex matches, but now it does through its separate service, Compatible Partners.[21] Warren originally explained that he had done extensive research on heterosexual marriage but does not know enough about homosexual relationships to do same-sex match-making which "calls for some very careful thinking. Very careful research."[21] He also noted that eHarmony promotes heterosexual marriage, adding that same-sex marriage is illegal in most states, "We don't really want to participate in something that's illegal."[21]

eHarmony's lack of same-sex matching options prompted lawsuits claiming that eHarmony violated laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.[22] As part of the settlement of a New Jersey case,[23] eHarmony launched a partner website called Compatible Partners providing same-sex match-making "for serious couples"[24][25] Theodore B. Olson, an attorney for eHarmony, said that even though the company believed the complaint was "an unfair characterization of our business," it chose to settle because of the unpredictable nature of litigation.[26] In 2010, eHarmony settled a separate class-action lawsuit filed in California that alleged illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation. The company, which did not admit wrongdoing, agreed to allow access to both its gay and straight dating sites with a single subscription, to display its gay dating services more prominently and to establish a settlement fund to pay people who can show they were harmed by the company's policies.[27][28]

Compatible Partners has attracted over 200,000 registrants.[29] Garcia also notes that, like, eHarmony, Compatible Partners attracts high-quality customers: "Because of the price tag and the emphasis on long-term relationships...Compatible Partners' users are seen as quite desirable." [30]

Matching paying members with non-paying members

After approval by the questionnaire, eHarmony begins to match members regardless of their subscription status. Any member's list of matches does not indicate which members are paying or non-paying[31] or which members are active or inactive, [32] moving some paying members to request communication with non-paying members who cannot respond to requests until subscribing to the service.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Dr. Neil Clark Warren". Redbook. 2008-09-19. Retrieved 2008-09-19.
  2. ^ "About eHarmony". eHarmony. 2008-09-19. Retrieved 2008-09-19.
  3. ^ "History of eHarmony". Online Dating Magazine. 2008-09-16.
  4. ^ Lee, D. (2004). "Matchmaker site lands $110 million". Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. December 22, 2004.
  5. ^ Geron, Tomio (2010-07-12). "The $100M Revenue Club: eHarmony Captures the Hearts of VCs". The Wall Street Journal's Venture Capital Dispatch.
  6. ^ "History of eHarmony". Online Dating Magazine. 2008-09-19. Retrieved 2008-09-19.
  7. ^ Dating Site Plans Ad Campaign to Mark 10 Years, New York Times
  8. ^ Kirkpatrick, David (2007-09-14). "Fast Forward: eHarmony Publisher=Money.cnn.com". CNN. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
  9. ^ http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4324601/eharmony-celebrates-10-years-of-online-relationships-/
  10. ^ Make Me a Match
  11. ^ Palmer, Jason (2008-10-07). "How to Live and Love Online". BBC News. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
  12. ^ Georgina Prodhan (2008-10-07). "Brits value sex and in-laws, Web dating company finds". Reuters. Retrieved 2010-05-04.
  13. ^ Jessica Shambora (September 23, 2010). "eHarmony's algorithm of love". Fortune. Retrieved February 5, 2011.
  14. ^ Courtney Humphries (December 27, 2010). "Dating Sites Try Adaptive Matchmaking". Technology News, MIT Press. Retrieved February 5, 2011.
  15. ^ eHarmony press release on customer satisfaction study, Mar 15, 2004, results from an in-house clinical survey of former customers
  16. ^ "eHarmony's Waldorf Departing"
  17. ^ Farhi, Paul (2007-05-13). "They Met Online, but Definitely Didn't Click". The Washington Post. pp. D01. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
  18. ^ a b "Consumeraffairs.com eHarmony complaint log complaints lodged since 2004-03-19". Archived from the original on 2009-02-23. Retrieved 2006-06-05.
  19. ^ "ASA rules eHarmony's UK TV ads are 'misleading'". Asa.org.uk. 2009-11-18. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
  20. ^ a b Johnson, Branwell. "Online dating site rapped for misleading ads". Marketingweek.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
  21. ^ a b c Kornblum, Janet. "eHarmony: Heart and soul", USA Today, May 18, 2005
  22. ^ Egelko, Bob (2007-06-01). "EHarmony sued for excluding same-sex matches". The San Francisco Chronicle.
  23. ^ Miller, Joshua Rhett. "eHarmony to Provide Gay Dating Service after Lawsuit", Fox News, November 20, 2008
  24. ^ eHarmony agrees to provide same-sex matches Beth DeFalco / Associated Press, 19 Nov 2008[dead link]
  25. ^ "Gay Dating for Relationship-Minded Gay & Lesbian Singles". Compatible Partners. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
  26. ^ [1]
  27. ^ Rachel Gordon (January 27, 2010). "EHarmony settles lawsuit over gay matchmaking". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 3, 2010.
  28. ^ Associated Press (January 27, 2010). "eHarmony Settles Gay Discrimination Suit". CBS News. Retrieved September 3, 2010.
  29. ^ The Advocate, "The Online Dating Game"
  30. ^ The Advocate, "The Online Dating Game"
  31. ^ eHarmony? More like tone deaf 08.11.04 Joel Keller blacktable.com
  32. ^ Bonny Albo (March 10, 2009), What to Do with Non-Active Dating Site Members?, about.com
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