Wired News: Putting a Price on Cyber Love

In these days of corporate belt-tightening, it's not the kind of news that pops up very often.

A small company with a lightly-traded stock on a low-profile exchange suddenly gets a buyout offer for more than triple its value from one of the biggest media companies on the planet.

To make it even odder, it's a company so seemingly passé that it still has a dot-com at the end of its name.

But online dating experts say the explanation for Thursday's announcement by USA Interactive (USAI) that it will shell out approximately $150 million in stock to purchase British matchmaking site uDate.com was simple:

While other industries falter in the face of a continuing economic slowdown, Internet personals sites are going gangbusters.