17 million members? By what definition?

I did a little more thinking since yesterday's postscript...

As I've mentioned, eHarmony claims to have 17 million members.

Trouble is, they don't define what a "member" is. Most people (including eHarmony Blog and myself) assume that, when someone is a member of a paid service, they are active in the system, and paying membership fees.

And, more importantly to us, we assume that we can (potentially) meet any of these members.

Yesterday, after running some calculations, I expressed some skepticism about whether or not eHarmony was defining "member" the way that we assumed. And, at that time, I resigned myself to not knowing.

Well, there was a way to find out. Our old friend, Quantcast.com.

Sure enough, Quantcast estimates that eHarmony has 3 million unique visitors per month.

Leaving a minimum of 14 million "members" who don't even bother to log on once a month.

Taking that even further... Quantcast also estimates that only 50% of it's visitors visit the site more than once a month.

So, yes, that "17 million members" seems awfully inflated, if you're assuming that eHarmony is talking about active members.

So... why do I care so much about eHarmony's marketing claims?

Actually, I don't particularly care what eHarmony does to promote it's business... until it starts sending it's members messages that are harmful and counterproductive.

Yes, eHarmony, members get upset when they don't get matches. Especially when you imply that people who don't go through your matching protocol won't be "right" or have happy marriages.

Again, take my worksheet. Run the numbers. (I'll be revising my worksheet soon.) See if you're in a position to actually meet people on eHarmony.

And if you're already a member, and you're not getting matches... don't take it personally. eHarmony has never been honest in telling you how many people they had for you to meet.