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American Morning

Interview with Brian, Christina Stanton, Trish McDermott

Aired April 03, 2002 - 09:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: If you've been looking for Mr. or Ms. Right, maybe the right place to look is online. There's are a number of services out there that you might call search engines for love. The leading site for computer couplings is Match.com, which claims it has matched 1,300 couples.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Meeting Mr. Right, a chance in a million, or a million and one chance? Increase the odds with Match.com. Just browse around and pretty soon, you are finding people you like looking for people like you. Match.com. Click here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: And joining us now from San Francisco, Trish McDermott with Match.com. She is, believe it or not, the company's vice president of romance. Great title. Did come up with that yourself?

TRISH MCDERMOTT, VICE PRESIDENT OF ROMANCE, MATCH.COM: I think I earned that title after having worked in the dating industry about 12 years.

ZAHN: You did earn it.

Joining us here in New York as well, Brian and Christina Stanton, a couple that actually met on the site, and they have now been married for two years. Wedded bliss for two years?

CHRISTINA STANTON, MET HUSBAND ON MATCH.COM: Yes. Absolutely.

BRIAN STANTON, MET WIFE ON MATCH.COM: That's right.

ZAHN: Good morning.

C. STANTON: Good morning.

B. STANTON: Good morning.

ZAHN: Nice to have all three of you with us.

B. STANTON: Thanks. Nice to have us.

ZAHN: Before we get back to Trish, had you ever tried to find a date online before hooking up with this service?

C. STANTON: No.

ZAHN: Did you think it was kind of a kooky thing to do?

C. STANTON: No, no, not at all. I had been in New York for a while, and I always considered it kind of a hard place to meet people, and I had -- I have lots of friends who had met people online, so actually it seemed very natural. I think it's very popular here.

ZAHN: It's popular, but weren't either one of you concerned about the quality of people you might meet online?

B. STANTON: Yes, I was a little bit.

ZAHN: Or did you think it was the same crap shoot as meeting someone at a bar.

C. STANTON: Yes.

B. STANTON: Yes. You know, I was a little bit. And I looked at what Match.com had, and because you can go through and you can read about the person that you might ask out on a date, and you can put in some information about yourself.

ZAHN: You can lie, Brian.

B. STANTON: You could. You could,

ZAHN: If you wanted to.

B. STANTON: But one of the things when Christina and I talked, we said, well, let's meet at a place that is, you know, innocuous, that is, you know, it's a place that's -- either of us could leave if we decided we didn't like the person, or we couldn't trust them or that kind of thing.

ZAHN: And was that the only match-up either of you ever made with the two of each other, or did you try dates from the service before?

C. STANTON: No. I was his -- the first match for him, but I had gone on about six dates before.

ZAHN: And how were those dates? Were they disasters, or they were OK?

C. STANTON: No, they were fine. None of them were a match, but they were all fine, because when I finally met them, I had actually e- mailed them and talked to them probably for, you know, a month and tons of e-mails, so when I finally met them, I really did know them. I had seen their pictures, because the photos are scanned on Match.com, so you see who you are going out with, you talk to them for a long time. It is not such a crap shoot. You really do know a lot about the person on the first date.

ZAHN: And you found the information pretty accurate the people gave?

C. STANTON: Yes. Actually...

ZAHN: Because you could tweak that stuff pretty easily.

C. STANTON: But why would you though? Because there are so many people in the pool of men and the pool of women in Match.com, you're much less likely to lie because, why lie? There's plenty of people who would go for you.

B. STANTON: And I think what people find is that you find somebody that might lie about a little thing, like their age or that type of thing. You can probably be assured they're going to be lying on other things too, and then you just -- don't e-mail them back.

ZAHN: So when they come to the date and they are 70 years old, you know, pretty much know that everything that they told you was false up to that point.

Trish, is there any way you can control that, or do just expect that most people will, in fact, try to be honest because they are spending some money to do this, and they really do want to find Mr. and Ms. Right.

MCDERMOTT: I think that's the point exactly, is that people come to Match.com not to, what I call geek out on the technology, not to go into chat rooms or spend time online, but to actually find dates in the offline world, so they're really compelled to tell the truth. You know, we call it truth in advertising, because you are going to sit down and have a cup of coffee or have dinner with this person. Very apparent, I think, immediately if you haven't been very honest.

ZAHN: Well, the truth seems to be in these numbers, too, Trish. At a time when a lot of online sites don't make any money at all, you have seen -- your revenues go up from 29.1 million in the year 2000 to 49.2 million in the year 2001. How do you explain that?

MCDERMOTT: I think the category itself in terms of online dating has become very accepted, and Match.com is the most well-loved and well-known brand in this industry. We register about 800,000 new members each month. Those are essentially potential dates for the 2.75 million people who now have profiles on the site. So the opportunity is very profound, and whether you're looking to date someone around the corner or really around the world, the Internet, and Match.com in particular, allows you to very efficiently and affordably and conveniently from home, from work, 24-7, no matter where you are, find potential romantic partners. And the upside, too, is that it really a lot of fun. It is very entertaining to browse and search and to flirt online.

ZAHN: Was it fun?

C. STANTON: A blast.

B. STANTON: It absolutely is.

C. STANTON: It was fun meeting my husband.

ZAHN: You lucked out.

B. STANTON: Well, I think it is fun, and I think I lucked out too. But I think it is fun reading about other people, and you really can find out a lot about the other person before you go out with them, which isn't something that you always have on a date, especially first date.

ZAHN: Well, Trish, I think you need to be congratulated here. Brian and Christina seem the picture of happiness here, and I guess they have you to thank for that.

MCDERMOTT: Well, you know, we have a nice business because we have a financial bottom line, but we also have this other bottom line, which is all these very happy couples and families that go on.

ZAHN: Yes. I guess 50 babies have come into the world as a result of the couplings you have helped make happen. Trish McDermott, continued good luck with your work, and Brian and Christina, congratulations.

B. STANTON: Thank you.

C. STANTON: Thank you.

MCDERMOTT: Thank you very much.

ZAHN: Thanks for sharing your story with us this morning. They are off the market, for the record, OK? No e-mails to either one of them.

C. STANTON: Absolutely.

ZAHN: All right. Thanks again.

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