Love in the age of spam: online dating sites are slashing the sleaze to help grownups find mates

Japan, Inc., Feb, 2003 by Debbi Gardiner

Marketing tactics for the Japan site are still in their nascent stages. But MSN Japan and Soulmates Technology's Japanese staff have a brainstorming session planned to create press releases and events tied to Japanese holidays. Speaking from personal experience, this might be a great success. One of the reasons I left Japan for the US when I was 26 was that I'd bought into the theory that says unmarried 26-year-old women are like leftover Christmas cake on December 26. For online dating giants like Match.com to succeed in Japan, the key might be finding ways to make older singles feel less self-conscious about their status. Nobody wants to feel like a strawberry cream cake on the day after Christmas, and any site with promotions that undo that perception will do well. "We want to be in that different caliber," Cohen says.

Debbi Gardiner is a Miami-based freelance writer and a regular contributor to J@pan Inc. Her last story, Anime in America, appeared in our January issue.