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Information about Online Dating Service

A Net dating service, also known as online dating or Internet dating, is an example of a dating system and allows individuals, couples and groups to meet online and possibly develop a romantic or sexual relationship. Net dating services provide un-moderated matchmaking through the use of personal computers, the Internet, or even cell phones.

Such services generally allow people to provide personal information, then search for other individuals using criteria such as age range, gender and location. Most sites allow members to upload photos of themselves and browse the photos of others. Sites may offer additional services, such as webcasts, online chat, and message boards. Sites sometimes allow people to register for free but may offer services which require a monthly fee.

Many sites are broad-based, with members from a variety of backgrounds looking for different types of relationships. Other sites are more specific, based on the type of members, interests, location, or relationship desired.

Trends

U.S. residents spent $469.5 million on online dating and personals in 2004, and over $500 million in 2005, the second largest segment of “paid content” on the web, according to a study conducted by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) and comScore Networks.

At the end of November 2004, there were 844 lifestyle and dating sites, a 38 percent increase since the start of the year, according to Hitwise Inc. However, market share was increasingly being dominated by several large commercial services, including Yahoo! Personals, Match.com, American Singles, and eHarmony. eHarmony CEO Greg Forgatch noted that despite the growing number of sites catering to specific niches, "to become a major player, it still takes a large number of people.". By 2007, many prominent studies show that Baby Boomer interest in online dating had soared. [1].

In 2002, a Wired magazine article forecast that, "Twenty years from now, the idea that someone looking for love without looking for it online will be silly, akin to skipping the card catalog to instead wander the stacks because 'the right books are found only by accident.' Serendipity is the hallmark of inefficient markets, and the marketplace of love, like it or not, is becoming more efficient"[2].

Mobile dating websites are gaining popularity. According to The San Francisco Chronicle in 2005, "Mobile dating is the next big leap in online socializing." [2] Some experts believe that the rise in mobile dating is due to the growing popularity of online dating. Analyst Brent Iadarola of Frost & Sullivan said, "I think people are more comfortable with online dating, and it's generally been accepted, the comfort people have with online dating in the wired world is now translating to the mobile world." [3] Others believe it is all about choice, as Joe Brennan Jr., vice president of Webdate [4] says, "It's about giving people a choice. They don't have to date on their computer. They can date on their handset, it's all about letting people decide what path is best for them." [5]

Of late, it is common to see online dating websites providing webcam chats between members to make dating even more convenient than ever. In addition, as the online dating population becomes larger, sites with specific demographics are becoming more popular as a way to narrow the pool of potential matches.

Virtual Dating

According to Scientific American, Virtual Dating is "the next step in online dating" (Feb/March 2007, p.35) [3].

Virtual Dating combines online dating with online gaming. Through the use of avatars, singles interact in a virtual venue that resembles a real life dating environment. For example, individuals can meet and chat in a romantic virtual cafe in Paris or on a Caribbean resort.

A Time Magazine article entitled "Internet Dating 2.0" was published on January 19, 2007 citing current and upcoming technologies and explains how people can now connect in a virtual dating environment. Time describes how websites are allowing people to meet for an avatar based, graphically enabled virtual date without leaving their homes. [4]

Researchers at MIT and Harvard have found that "people who had had a chance to interact with each other (by computer only) on a virtual tour of a museum subsequently had more successful face-to-face meetings than people who had viewed only profiles." [5]

Problems with Online Dating Services

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There can be a variety of problems when utilizing online dating sites.
  • Some sites expect members to sign up "blind," meaning that users have no preview of the profiles they will get to see. eHarmony is one example of this kind of site. On other services, some profiles are not actually real people, but "bait" that has been placed there by the site owners to attract new paying members. Both Yahoo Personals and Match.com have received several complaints of using this tactic. Some users spam sites with "fake" profiles that are in reality advertisements to other services, such as prostitution or multi-level marketing. A majority of dating sites keep profiles online for months or even years since the last time the person has logged in, thereby making it seem as though they have more available members than they actually do. Many sites offer the option to sort search results based on activity, however.
  • Most members are enticed to join dating websites with free or low-priced "trial" memberships advertised on many other websites. These trial memberships lack many of the features of the full membership, including the ability to contact other members or reply to e-mail from other members. On sites which require credit card information to join at all, these trial memberships may automatically become full memberships at the end of the trial period and charge the full monthly fee, without any additional action from the member, regardless of whether the member has actually used the services or not. For paying members, it is often unclear whether a potential contact has a full subscription and whether he or she will be able to reply at all. There are still, however, a few established free dating sites that allow users to reply to messages, PlentyofFish being the largest. Niche sites cater to people with special interests (e.g. sports fans, nerds), professions, political preferences, conditions (e.g. HIV+, obese), religions (e.g. Jewish), or even logistics (e.g. rural farm communities such as FarmersOnly.com).
  • Some members have expressed complaints about the billing practices of certain dating sites. In some cases, trial memberships that were canceled within the trial period were automatically re-billed even after canceling. To avoid these potential problems, some users have advised using a virtual credit card number which is offered by several credit card companies.
  • Even when members' profiles are "real", there is still an inherent lack of trust with other members. Many members misrepresent themselves by telling flattering 'white lies' about their height, weight, age, or by using old and misleading photos. Members can, of course, ask for an up-to-date photograph before meeting others. Matrimonials Sites are a variant of online dating sites, and these are geared towards meeting people for the purpose of getting married. Gross misrepresentation is less likely on these sites than on 'casual dating' sites. Casual dating sites are often geared more towards short term (and implicitly sexual) relationships.
  • Online predators find online dating sites especially attractive, because such sites give them an unending supply of new targets of opportunity for Internet fraud. A recent study, led by Dr. Paige Padgett from the University of Texas Health Science Center, found that there was a false degree of safety assumed by women looking for love on the internet, exposing them to stalking, fraud, and sexual violence.[1] Some online dating sites conduct background checks on their members in an attempt to avoid problems of this nature.
  • Unbalanced sex ratio in general, the total number of males seeking females on any given dating site are many times more than the number of females seeking males, creating an unbalanced sex ratio.
  • Disreputable sites such as Quechup may harvest users' personal information and contacts for use in e-mail spam.[2]

United States government regulation of online dating services

US government regulation of dating services began with the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) [6] which took affect in March 2007 after a federal judge in Georgia upheld a challenge from the dating site European Connections. The law requires internationally oriented dating services to conduct, among other procedures, sex offender checks on US customers before communication can occur with a foreigner.

Pop culture

  • You've Got Mail, a 1998 film in which the two protagonists conduct a relationship entirely over email before meeting each other.
  • Napoleon Dynamite, a 2003 film in a which one subplot involves a central character's online (and later physical) relationship.
  • Euro Trip, a 2004 film in which the central character has a relationship wholly via email with a girl from Berlin
  • Must Love Dogs, a 2005 film about two people trying to find love through online dating.
  • Another Gay Movie, a 2006 film where a student finds his high school English teacher online.
  • "Because I Said So", a 2007 film in which a mother creates a online dating profile for her daughter.
  • Jewtopia, a play which revolves around Jewish dating service, JDate.

See also

References

1. ^ [7] Look Who’s Googling: New acquaintances and secret admirers may already know all about you
2. ^ Social network launches worldwide spam campaign E-consultancy.com, Accessed 10 September 2007

External links

A dating system is any systemic means of improving matchmaking via rules or technology. It is a specialized meeting system where the objective of the meeting, be it live or phone or chat based, is to go on a live date with someone, with usually romantic implications.
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Matchmaking is any process of introducing people for the purposes of dating and mating, usually in the context of marriage.

In some cultures, the role of the matchmaker was and is quite professionalized.
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personal computer (PC) is a computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals.

It is unknown who coined the phrase with the intent of a small affordable computing device but John W.
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Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government
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mobile phone or cell phone is a long-range, portable electronic device used for mobile communication. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, current mobile phones can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching
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A webcast is a media file distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology. As a broadcast may either be live or recorded, similarly, a webcast may either be distributed live or recorded. Essentially, webcasting is “broadcasting” over the Internet.
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weasel words.
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Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. Internet forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups, discussion forums,
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Yahoo! Personals is an online dating service provided by Yahoo!.

Features

Yahoo! Personals editions are designed in local languages. Contacting a member through Yahoo! Personals requires a paid subscription to Yahoo! Personals.
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Match.com is an online dating service. The company reportedly has more than 15 million members and Web sites serving 37 countries in more than 12 different languages. Its headquarters is in Dallas, Texas and the company also has offices in London, Paris, Tokyo, Beijing, Munich,
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Kraft Singles is a pasteurized cheese food product manufactured and sold by Kraft Foods Inc, introduced in 1947. One of the more famous ad campaigns involved the claim that each slice contained "five ounces of milk" (with milk being poured into a glass next to Kraft Singles), which
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eHarmony.com

Private
Founded 2000, Pasadena, California
Headquarters Pasadena, California

Website www.eharmony.com

eHarmony is a venture capital-funded,[1] marriage-oriented matchmaking website.
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baby boomer is a person born between 1946 and 1964 in Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Following World War II, these countries experienced an unusual spike in birth rates, a phenomenon commonly known as the baby boom.
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20th century - 21st century - 22nd century
1970s  1980s  1990s  - 2000s -  2010s  2020s  2030s
1999 2000 2001 - 2002 - 2003 2004 2005

2002 by topic:
News by month
Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun
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Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical published in San Francisco, California since March 1993. Owned by Condé Nast Publications, it reports on how technology affects culture, the economy, and politics.
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Mobile dating services, also known as cell dating, allow individuals to chat, meet, and possibly become romantically involved by means of text messaging, mobile chatting, and the web.
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Scientific American is a popular-science magazine, published (first weekly and later monthly) since August 28, 1845, making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States.
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A Net dating service, also known as online dating or Internet dating, is an example of a dating system and allows individuals, couples and groups to meet online and possibly develop a romantic or sexual relationship.
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Time (whose trademark is capitalized TIME) is a weekly American newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. A European edition (Time Europe, formerly known as Time Atlantic) is published from London.
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Multi-level marketing (MLM, now sometimes called network marketing) is a business model that combines direct marketing with franchising.

Multi-level marketing businesses function by recruiting salespeople (also called Distributors, Independent Business
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Plenty of Fish

Private
Founded 2003
Headquarters Vancouver, Canada

Key people Markus Frind, Founder and CEO
Industry Internet
Revenue $5-10 million USD[1] (2007 estimated)
Employees 1
Website www.plentyoffish.
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worldwide view of the subject.
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Marriage websites or online matrimonial sites are a variation of the normal dating sites, with a focus on those wanting marriage rather than simply dating.
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An online predator is an Internet user who exploits vulnerable people for sexual or financial purposes.

Children and the elderly are most often the victims of online predators.
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The term "Internet fraud" generally refers to any type of fraud scheme that uses one or more online services - such as chat rooms, e-mail, message boards, or Web sites - to present fraudulent solicitations to prospective victims, to conduct fraudulent transactions, or to transmit
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Sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population. The primary sex ratio is the ratio at the time of conception, secondary sex ratio is the ratio at time of birth, and tertiary sex ratio is the ratio of mature organisms.
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Quechup is a controversial social networking website that used automatic spamming of invitations to the entire list of e-mail addresses in the address book of people who signed up to their service.
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E-mail spam, also known as bulk e-mail or junk e-mail is a subset of spam that involves sending nearly identical messages to numerous recipients by e-mail. A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE).
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IMDb profile

You've Got Mail is an American romantic comedy released in 1997 by Warner Brothers. It is a remake of the film The Shop Around the Corner
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IMDb profile
EuroTrip is a 2004 American comedy film produced by the same people as Road Trip and Old School. It tells a story of an American high-school graduate and his friends traveling around Europe.
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