IAC and Meetic, the leading European online dating site have come into an agreement for Meetic to acquire Match.com ’s 100% European operations.

But in what looks like a big move for Meetic, it seems that actually Match.com is doing a big move with now a 27% stake in Meetic. And Match could acquire the French Company founded by Marc Simoncini in 2 to 3 years from now.

IAC, Match’s Owner have 35 companies in Portfolio: Ask.com, Bloglines, Down to Earth (new free dating site by Match.com), Chemistry (rencontre), Excite.com, Vimeo, Reference.com, CollegeHumor.com, etc..

Meetic, n01 french dating site is established in 15 European countries and in Latin America. Website is available in 12 languages. In 2007, Meetic had 113.8 million euros in sales and a net profit of 14.2 million euros.

Match .com going Free online. This seems incredible but true.

Match launched Free dating website Downtoearth.

The site is under direction of Jacob Solotaroff, Director of Product Management and Member Integrity at Match.com.

Markus Frind, CEO of Plenty of Fish, writes on his blog: “It looks like match.com realizes they are losing marketshare fast and paid sites don’t really have a future.  15% of my users in the US pay on other dating sites every month,  but they all say if there was another big free site like plentyoffish they wouldn’t pay elsewhere.”

So 2009 will be very interesting to watch regarding the Free Business Model in Online Dating.

Match experienced its best November since 7 years.

November 2008 had 400,000 More Connections in November thanks to its new service Daily5.

Daily5 sends 5 new matches each day to Match.com members.

Online Dating site Match.com said its members have exchanged over one billion winks.

The company said 735,000 winks are sent every day.

“Match.com has transformed the way people meet and connect, and the idea of a digital ‘wink’ has been a big part of that,” says Mandy Ginsberg, senior vp and general manager of Match.com North America.

The List of the top five past and present winkers:

1. Marilyn Monroe tops our list as the most iconic and notorious winker
2. Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin comes in second after generating a fair share of attention recently with her eye-catching wink
3. John Travolta used his wink to entice Olivia Newton-John’s “Sandy” in Grease
4. Zac Efron’s character in the hit movie Hairspray served up plenty of heartthrob winks
5. Samantha from Bewitched showed us that you can never underestimate the power of a wink or nose-twitch

Askmen, a website dedicated to male just launched Askmen Dating in partnership with Match.

The section is called Askmen Dating & Sex.

The partnership will allow Ask men visitors to browse profiles before registering.

AskMen.com was founded in August 1999 by Ricardo Poupada, Christopher Bellerose Rovny and Luis Rodrigues.

It is the largest men’s lifestyle website with 7.2 million unique visitors in 2007 according to comScore.