No more lonely Polish nights
Well, for all those people who are interested in walks in the rain and romantic comedies, a new website offers to find them the perfect partner. One of the most successful online dating sites, Meetic, is to open its site, or should that be its heart, to Polish people who are looking for love.
Despite its youthful appearance, Meetic has been very successful on the European dating scene. Since it was founded in 2002 by Marc Simoncini, it has built a massive customer base and formed meaningful unions with many major European players, including Lycos, France Telecom and Eurosport. The French company, with support from its new shareholder AGZ Allianz, has extended its services to four European countries: Poland, Ireland, Greece and Portugal. This broadens its client base to 15 countries.
This month, it launched a new ad campaign to boost its profile, and hopes to float on the French stock exchange in 2005. The company's turnover in 2003 was around ?23 (zł.95) million but this is expected to grow to ?45 (zł.187) million in 2005.
The company says it has received more than 50,000 testimonials of successful dates. According to statistical firm comScore, more than 27 million people across Europe- nearly one in five Internet users-log in to an online dating site each month.
Meetic.com is one of the more sophisticated dating sites around. It currently has more than nine million members and there are typically around 12,000 people on the site at any one time. The service is free to search and users can look for partners under a variety of headings and view profiles and photos.
However, to take advantage of the site's more advanced features, users have to pay a monthly fee, and they can then directly chat to other users using instant messaging, or e-mail them. Those of a more forward nature can flirt directly using the site's 'tease' function, which let's your love interest know about your intentions by e-mail, or they can use its 'meetshake' compatibility calculator to find people who match their own individual tastes.
A simple search reveals that it is the men that look set to benefit the most from this new service. While just 360 men in Poland aged 18 to 35 are up for grabs on the website, more than 630 women of the same age group are looking for love. However, this journalist's profile failed to set hearts racing; after a few hours 'teasing' our e-mail inbox remained empty. Maybe if I change my occupation to "doctor" ...
Despite its youthful appearance, Meetic has been very successful on the European dating scene. Since it was founded in 2002 by Marc Simoncini, it has built a massive customer base and formed meaningful unions with many major European players, including Lycos, France Telecom and Eurosport. The French company, with support from its new shareholder AGZ Allianz, has extended its services to four European countries: Poland, Ireland, Greece and Portugal. This broadens its client base to 15 countries.
This month, it launched a new ad campaign to boost its profile, and hopes to float on the French stock exchange in 2005. The company's turnover in 2003 was around ?23 (zł.95) million but this is expected to grow to ?45 (zł.187) million in 2005.
The company says it has received more than 50,000 testimonials of successful dates. According to statistical firm comScore, more than 27 million people across Europe- nearly one in five Internet users-log in to an online dating site each month.
Meetic.com is one of the more sophisticated dating sites around. It currently has more than nine million members and there are typically around 12,000 people on the site at any one time. The service is free to search and users can look for partners under a variety of headings and view profiles and photos.
However, to take advantage of the site's more advanced features, users have to pay a monthly fee, and they can then directly chat to other users using instant messaging, or e-mail them. Those of a more forward nature can flirt directly using the site's 'tease' function, which let's your love interest know about your intentions by e-mail, or they can use its 'meetshake' compatibility calculator to find people who match their own individual tastes.
A simple search reveals that it is the men that look set to benefit the most from this new service. While just 360 men in Poland aged 18 to 35 are up for grabs on the website, more than 630 women of the same age group are looking for love. However, this journalist's profile failed to set hearts racing; after a few hours 'teasing' our e-mail inbox remained empty. Maybe if I change my occupation to "doctor" ...
