Niche Dating Sites Up…Mainstream Sites Down

According to the latest U.S. numbers from Hitwise, the top niche dating sites are steadily gaining market share while their big mainstream counterparts stagnate. This report compared the overall market share of the top 5 dating sites; Singlesnet, Plentyoffish, TRUE, Yahoo Personals, and Match to the market share of some of the top niche categories (sexual preferences, race, and religions). The Black niche category included; BlackPeopleMeet, BlackSingles, BlackChristianPeopleMeet.

While mainstream dating websites declined in monthly market share (-7%), Black niche dating sites grew 14% from 5.26% to 6.01% of US market share.

This decline in market share for mainstream dating sites could be due to a number of reasons not examined by this article including; lack of space for mainstream sites to grow and an increase competition from mainstream social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook being just some them, but one thing’s for certain, the “one size fit all” sites are not meeting the needs of the entire population, creating opportunities for success in the niche market.

Source Tech Crunch via Online Personals