• by Ross Fadner , December 10, 2003

To hear some people talk, you'd think America Online was having a difficult time getting dates. To make sure that's never the case, AOL Wednesday entered the singles scene. No, the online service hasn't gone through a much rumored divorce with parent Time Warner, but it has launched a new online dating service.

The service, aptly named Love.com, also represents a new realm for AOL's advertisers, who will have an opportunity to expose their brands to consumers during some of their most intimate online moments.

While that may raise some delicate new consumer marketing issues, it also represents a new window for online marketers and their agencies.

"We certainly believe in dating sites for our clients," says Jeff Lanctot, vice president of media for Avenue A. "We found Match.com to be a successful property for a number of advertisers, and Yahoo's IM has also worked for us - particularly the entertainment sector."

In fact, Love.com has been built around AOL's 50 million strong instant messaging service, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), although it will be managed as a distinct entity, separate from both AOL and AOL's existing dating service, provider Match.com.

Love.com will be available to all Web users like the AIM service, not just AOL's members. Initially the service is being offered free of charge, but according to a company executive, AOL will begin charging for the service by Valentine's Day.

Avenue A's Lanctot acknowledged he's "a little skeptical" about an instant messaging/dating service combo, noting that Avenue A's instant messaging campaigns have only met with success in certain cases.

"There may be some advertisers who jump right on the opportunity - like an online florist, for example," says Lanctot, suggesting that many advertisers will probably adopt a wait-and-see attitude. "Advertisers may want to do some testing, evaluate usage patterns, see how many hits the site generates before committing to anything," Lanctot predicts. AOL is not expected to unveil its advertising sales strategy for Love.com until January.

But the crossover prospect of an instant messaging enabled dating service is an intriguing one, as both mediums have independently proven to be lucrative media buys for advertisers and their agencies.

Another potential thorn in the side of the new AOL service could be the fact that the service will be free to users only until Valentine's Day, and some industry analysts believe this could be a tough sell.

"To get people to pay for Love.com will be challenging," predicts David Card, vice president of Jupiter Research. "Flirting in real-time anonymous conversation mode is well established," he notes, "but usually you can do it for free."

And let's not forget that there already are a ton of dating and social networking sites out there. Many of them, most notably Friendster, are free. In addition, AOL could in effect be competing against itself with Love.com. It has a long-term partnership deal with Match.com, which currently powers AOL's relationship channel for its members.

Match.com President Tim Sullivan vehemently denied any claims that the competing love services could possibly step on each other's toes. "It has no impact on our deal with AOL," he said, adding that AOL was one of Match.com's largest contributors of new members. "We expect our business with AOL to continue to be very important to them, and important to us as well."

An AOL spokesperson echoed Sullivan's certainty, stating, "We're very happy with our Match.com relationship," adding that Love.com would not be advertised on the AOL service. "We feel strongly that Love.com will add a different kind of cache to the AIM service," the spokesperson added.

Once fees are charged, AOL expects Love.com to add to earnings immediately, but history shows that AOL has had a rough go of turning out profits despite its large consumer base.

Love.com is the second consumer business project designed specifically for the AIM service since AOL launched AIM as a separate entity in 1997. The other AIM consumer product is an online gaming feature that was launched in September of this year. AOL refused to discuss how that service has prospered.