Niche Dating - A Crowded Space

A few years ago, the niche space was the Wild West; a free for all, gold rush if you will, for sites to gain critical mass for their respective niche(s) with little competition. The Black vertical is an example of a lucrative niche that was, a few short years ago, up for grabs. BlackPeopleMeet ran away with it, and now Sparks’ BlackSingles.com is now playing catch up. Years of aggressive cpc bids, little competition and a strong platform has BackPeopleMeet as the leading Black dating community and probably as the major earner in People Media’s portfolio of niche sites.

While there are still opportunities out there for getting in the niche dating game, it’s fast becoming a crowded/competitive space *give me some elbow room pls* with increasingly little that differentiates one site from the next.

A Good Fit:

I still think that an AOL/People Media partnership makes sense and will happen. AOL’s BlackVoices.com, the industry leader for Black community news, is a great fit with one of the leading Black dating sites. Not sure how much AOL makes from their Match.com partnership, but I bet that they can earn more revenue by partnering with a niche focused Black dating service.

Lost Opportunity:

BlackPlanet.com, the leading Black social network that was recently bought by RadioOne (more on this later), really lost out on an excellent opportunity to be the Black dating leader. For starters, they were late launching a dating service (currently called BlackPlanetLove) and secondly, their platform, while improved over time, was clearly not built by seasoned dating industry minded folks. Personally, I would separate their dating section from BlackPlanet.com – less clutter, more focus on dating and better conversions.

Roll Up:

So when are we going to see someone clean up the dating space and do a roll up of leading niche sites? People Media and Spark are two of the largest niche dating players, but I don’t think that they can afford a significant roll up - in fact, both would probably love to be acquired by a larger player. Time will tell…

Life is good!