Making the moves on eHarmony?

The Pasadena-based dating service (I know they want to be called a "relationship service") was among several online sites mentioned as buyout possibilities by Tolman Geffs, managing director of investment bank Jordan, Edmiston Group. YouTube, Bankrate.com and Gawker were the others cited by Geffs during a presentation. There's been lots of online dealmaking over the past three months - many of them involving existing media players. Backgrounder: Revenues at privately held eHarmony are estimated at $100 million, but growth in the online dating arena has been sluggish, especially with social sites like MySpace doing much the same thing - for free. There's another problem with sites like eHarmony: complaints. They're totally unverified, of course, but every disappointed member seems to be whining on some site. Doesn't seem like such a great buy.

But wait just a second... eHarmony has just released the results of a nationwide online survey showing that more than 60 percent of those surveyed say that the Internet is the least stressful way of meeting someone. No details on which sites they're referring to. Here's the release.