Looking for a slender, single, non-smoking, white female who believes in angels, God and capitalism — and who struggles with only three of the seven deadly sins?
You just might be able to find her some day soon on a new dating service from popular multi-faith Web site Beliefnet.
Beliefnet's new service, Soulmatch.com, will compete with thousands of others dating sites, from general-interest Tickle Matchmaking and Match.com to niche sites including Jdate.com for Jewish daters.
Last month more than 25 million people — about 17% of the U.S. online population — visited dating sites, says traffic tracker Nielsen/NetRatings.
Soulmatch is hoping to draw people interested not just in general parameters such as looks, career and hobbies but also religion, spiritual beliefs and values.
Soulmatch daters will fill out a detailed questionnaire asking, for instance, which of the seven deadly sins they struggle with most and whether they believe in God, astrology or a host of other systems. They also can specify the way they practice established religions.
"Anyone who's been in a relationship where they liked the way the person looked, and it seemed like they had similar interests but found out that their values were really different — and that was a fatal flaw — should be interested in something like this," says Steven Waldman, Beliefnet founder.
Beliefnet filed for bankruptcy two years ago but has since been profitable, Waldman says.
Nielsen says about 668,000 people visited Beliefnet in April. Waldman says 4 million subscribe to various e-mail lists, from prayer of the day to religious jokes.
"Online dating is a moneymaker," says Nate Elliott, an analyst for Jupiter Research. "If you run an online dating site correctly, it will make money for you. That's not to say that all these sites are making money, because I'm sure they're not. But when you've got millions of users paying for something, that's going to be attractive to Web sites."
Elliott says Americans last year spent $313 million on online dating, more than any other subscription service on the Net — even adult entertainment, which brought in $258 million.
Niche dating sites are a smart idea, because subscribers know they already have something in common. Online, you can exclusively search for Democrats or Republicans, Ivy Leaguers, even tall people. If you are gay, there's dating on PlanetOut. If you're black, there's BlackPlanet.com.
"If you're going to break into the market, a niche dating site is the way to do that," Elliott says.
But merely having a big — or even loyal — audience does not guarantee success.
America Online, the nation's largest online service, "is having a very hard time breaking into this market, if that tells you anything," Elliott says.