A dot-com date with success

BREAKING FREE: Mike Fitzgerald THE dot-com bubble may have burst for some, but one online operation has succeeded where others haven't.

Dating-Central.com, set up by directors Graham Hampson and Mike Fitzgerald with 7,500 of their own money, specialises in one of the few areas which makes money - dating sites.

The company was launched in February 2001, during the tail end of the dot-com collapse, and Graham Hampson believes that has been invaluable.

He said: "A negative time to set up a company can be beneficial because you are more careful. You don't just believe you will make a fortune because everyone else believes it - you make sure the business model and structure are sound."

And the company's philosophy has worked with turnover now approaching 85,000 per month.

Affiliates
Dating-Central works with more than 1,400 affiliates whose websites are aimed at particular sectors of society.

Director Mike Fitzgerald explained: "For example, TV programme The League of Gentleman has a dating section on its website, under fun stuff, and there are other dating websites catering for every type of group of people you could mention.

"The e-business market still hasn't fully recovered, but it's widely accepted that dating sites are one of the select few internet services that really make money.

"A conservative estimate is that the combined turnover of all on-line dating services is around 500m a year with a global membership of over 35 million people."

Each of the affiliate websites share Dating-Central.com's massive database of almost 420,000 people with the company's customised software sorting people into particular sectors or interest groups to suit the website concerned.

"We expect to have at least half a million people on our database by Christmas, which will be boosted to two to three million during 2003," added Mike Fitzgerald