Offline Events Losing Steam?

Online dating has, for some time, been going through growing pains. As the industry comes to engulf more and more of the traditional dating scene, there is an urgency to fold in the activities and techiques of old-fashioned dating world.

Over the past year or two, many of the larger players have taken to making use of offline dating events and activities to drum up membership and enhance the member experience. Some of these things are interesting, others bizarre. I can't say for sure that any one works better than the other, having attended several and observed people at them.

Three of the largest players in this business, as of late, are Match.com, True.com, and LavaLife.com. Match has operated MatchLive.com for some time now and performed a large array of events across the country for their members and curious non-members. True.com recently paired up with ClearChannel to do promotions at various concerts and events. LavaLife.com has brought back it's ClickAtAFlick Wednesday night movie-mingling events.

In the past couple of weeks, however, there's been a shakedown of sorts. SocialPeople.com has a great bit of news in this arena. Apparently Match.com has suspended all of its offline events. Strange behavior considering the events business was supposedly up 200%. True.com also chopped its business and laid off 90 of its 150 employees ("Some positions eliminated were in marketing and event coordination, which set up parties and speed dating activities."). The jury is still out on LavaLife.com's attempt (though $10 for a movie, drinks, and conversation is relatively cheap).

I'm curious what's happening inside the towers that's driving this recoil. Perhaps they grew their enterprises too quickly and lost too much? Perhaps there's no interest (I doubt). Time will tell.