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Finding Love Online: Digital Dating Through Dallas-Based Match.com

It is all about connections. 

Tangled wires take you from your computer to the world of digital dating.

It is a world that moves lightning fast.

Mandy Ginsberg, CEO of Dallas-based Match.com, knows better than anyone.

"A lot of love happens here," Ginsberg said, laughing.

What started as an online classified ad 21 years ago is now a multi-billion dollar company, headquartered off of North Central Expressway in Dallas.

Match Group owns many of the dating sites you’re likely familiar with: Plenty of Fish, OK Cupid, Black People Meet, even the app Tinder.

"For each one of these apps, particularly Match, we have to constantly innovate," Ginsberg said. "The stigma is completely eroded."

One in three relationships begin online, and digital dating, for millions of people, is the new normal. 

Just ask Beth and Brad Stavinoah.

"It’s hard to meet people, we’re just so busy," Beth said.

She was a single mom juggling work and caring for her twins. She was on Match.com for about a year before she connected with Brad.

Brad, a father of three, had just recently signed up.

"I paid for a year and only used it two months, go figure," he said, laughing.

But on their first date, Beth dropped a bombshell.

She told him she was wearing a wig.

"I had just gone through nine months of treatment for breast cancer," Beth said.

The wig didn't’t phase him one bit –- the couple went on more dates and a year and a half later, the two were married.

Before meeting on Match.com, the pair lived within two miles of one another, but their children attended different schools. They used different grocery stores and went to different gyms.

"We never would have met otherwise," Beth said.

Success stories like Beth and Brad’s line the hallways at the Match offices: engagement announcements, wedding invitations, even baby photos.

But it isn't’t always an instant match online.

Ginsberg said the website uses algorithms to custom-tailor your matches so you're connected to people and personalities that you may not necessarily put down on paper.

"Oftentimes, we break the deal-breakers," Ginsberg said. "There are lots of deal breakers people break all the time –- religion, height, education."

One that never gets broken, Ginsberg said, is smoking.

For Beth and Brad, it didn't’t take long before an online conversation led to a real meeting and marriage.

Two families, his three children and her twins, became one.

And it all started with a simple question.

"He asked me to be his girlfriend!" Beth said, laughing. "So that’s when we, you know, went off Match."

The company has close to 60 million users on their various dating sites combined, nearly 5 million of whom pay for the service. Match has sites in 25 countries and spans 5 continents. 

One way Ginsberg said they are innovating is through a new location-based technology called "missed connections," debuted in late January. Through the Match app, users are connected to people that they crossed paths with throughout the day -- at the gym, the grocery store or your regular coffee shop.

Match.com usually sees a 42 percent spike in people signing up between December 25 and February 14.

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