NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
When Guillermo Fernandez's four-year relationship came to an end last year, he wasn't discouraged from searching for a new true love.
He turned to the Internet, where he found some promising matches and along the way got introduced to a well-connected pal named Friendster.
You may have heard of Match.com, the most popular dating site, followed by MatchNet and Yahoo! Personals, according to Media Metrix, which measures Web site traffic. But these days, the king of online matchmaking is keeping a close eye on Friendster.com, the new red-hot dating site based in Sunnyvale, Calif.
The newest kid on the block
Friendster may not ring a bell with older folks, but if you're a single under 30 there's a chance one of your friends already has sent you an invitation to join.
Membership offers a reservoir of opportunities for users to meet friends through friends online, and the site now boasts 1.8 million users -- spectacular growth, since it launched only last March.
"The number is unprecedented," said Jeetil Patel, senior analyst at Deutsche Bank North America. "We've probably never seen anything like this."
When Match.com opened its door to singles back in 1995, it took almost a year to register its first 60,000 members. But Friendster's success is coming a lot faster, partly because most people are more Internet-savvy today and more are open-minded about online dating.
Friendster's popularity also has caught the eye of some wealthy investors.
Just last month, Friendster, privately held by founder and president Jonathan Abrams, welcomed aboard some new friends with deep pockets.
Former Yahoo! CEO Tim Koogle, former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel, and Google board member Ram Shriram collectively have invested more than $1 million, Abrams said.
Koogle has also joined Friendster's board of directors, he confirmed through an e-mail to CNN/Money.
Does this friend have what it takes?
Some 40 million Americans visited personals/dating sites in August, according to a report published by the Online Publishers Association and comScore Networks.
And consumers spent $214 million to use online dating services in the first half this year, more than double the comparable period in 2001, the report said.
Match.com, a unit of Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp (IACI: Research, Estimates), reported $125 million in revenue in 2002, just 3 percent of its parent company's total revenue of $4.6 billion, but more than double the year before.
Abrams noted the trend, which helped convince him to turn part of Friendster into a fee-based site.
"We don't have a date set for when it will start," he said. "Most of the site will remain free, but if you want to contact someone you don't know, that would require a small fee."
Abrams said a monthly charge will be minimal and under $10, but Match.com President Tim Sullivan said that is when Friendster's true popularity will be tested.
A subscription-based service on Friendster will not be perceived well by his peers, said Fernandez, the 33-year-old single who has used both Match.com and Friendster.
Friends in doubt
Most Friendster users are in their 20s or early 30s, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings, while Match.com attracts more affluent 34- to 49-year olds.
"Younger people would be less likely to pay for this type of service," said Abha Bhagat, senior Internet analyst for Nielsen/Net Ratings.
Match.com's Sullivan agreed. "Friendster is sort of a fun and very free voyeuristic service, and that's a very different value proposition," he added.
But Abrams said Friendster's method, which offers opportunities for people to meet through friends and not random strangers, will work better than the traditional method.
"I found most online dating to be very creepy, because it is random and anonymous," Abrams said. "But by meeting people through friends, it's less creepy," he said.
But the brand name and credibility is what drives Match.com to success, Nielsen's Bhagat said. "When you think of Match.com, you don't really think of anything sleazy about it," she added.
"We knew online dating even just two, three years ago, had some stigmas attached to it," Sullivan said. "So we made a very conscious decision to invest heavily in mainstream advertising, like television, radio and outdoor advertising. Now we just wish those who think it's OK to give it a try."
Even though Match.com currently charges $25 a month for its services, Fernandez said he would use Match.com when it comes to serious dating.
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"I don't think I would pay to meet people my friends already know, " Fernandez said. "But I would pay to use a real dating site for dating."
"Some folks at Friendster speak somewhat negatively about the traditional concept of going online and meeting other people, but I think 8 million people using Match.com would beg to differ," Match.com's Sullivan said.
Abrams said Friendster has no immediate plans to go public.
Meanwhile, Fernandez thinks his chances of finding love online are good, but for now he's still single.
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