Online dating service
Encyclopedia
Online dating or Internet dating is a dating system which allows individuals, couples and groups to make contact and communicate with each other over the Internet, usually with the objective of developing a personal, romantic, or sexual relationship. Online dating services usually provide unmoderated
matchmaking
over the Internet
, through the use of personal computers or cell phones.
Online dating services generally require a prospective member to provide personal information, before they can search the service provider's database for other individuals using criteria they set, 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 webcast
s, online chat
, telephone chat (VOIP), and message boards. Some sites provide free registration, but may offer services which require a monthly fee. Other sites depend on advertising for their revenue.
Many sites are broad-based, with members coming 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.
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 growing by several large commercial services, including AOL
Personals, Yahoo! Personals
, Match.com
, and eHarmony
. By 2007, many prominent studies show that Baby Boomer
interest in online dating had soared.
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."
Most recently, it has become common for online dating websites to provide webcam chats between members. 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.
The most successful niche sites pair people by race, sexual orientation or religion. The 20 most popular dating sites in 2006 as ranked by Hitwise include JDate
(for Jewish singles), Christian Mingle, ChristianCafe, Manhunt
(same sex introductions), Love From India, Black Christian People Meet, Amigos (for Latino singles), Asian People Meet, and Shaadi
(for Indian singles). In March 2008, the top 5 overall sites held 7% less market share than they did one year ago while the top sites from the top five major niche dating categories made considerable gains.
In addition to niche sites, there are more general sites for the online dating beginner. Time magazine notes that leading the scene are Match.com and eHarmony.com. Match.com
bases its matchmaking on the Myers-Briggs personality test. Conversely, eHarmony pair people up using their "secret key dimensions of compatibility" which are grouped into core traits and vital attributes. Match.com has a more open policy, whereas eHarmony.com only pairs up straight matches.
One of the "hottest trends in online dating" is the babyboomers on the top dating sites. Around 30% of America's 80 million babyboomers are single.
Since 2003, several free dating sites, operating on ad based-revenue rather than monthly subscriptions, have appeared and become increasingly popular. Several newer sites such as OkCupid
are beginning to offer more full featured dating services for free, and are starting to compete with staples in the free dating site world such as PlentyofFish
. Due to the level of competition between free dating sites, as well as the overall drop in traffic to and revenue for dating sites generally, some sites are branching out into self service advertising. This represents a break from traditional externally sourced ads and is just one of the ways that the revenue models of free dating sites are evolving.
Especially popular in Eastern Europe, some sites offer full access to messaging and profiles, but provide additional services for pay, such as bumping profiles up to the top of the list, removing advertisements, making paying users' profiles appear several times in different places in the search results, and giving paying users a more advanced search engine to work with (in one real example, free users may only search for persons of specified age, gender, orientation, and city, while subscribers may search for any and all parameters listed in profiles, such as height, weight, interests, etc.). Also, this model generally allows users to switch between free and paying status at will and without having to do anything, simply providing advanced features for a set period of time whenever the according payment is received. Ease of payment is also generally higher, with such sites accepting a variety of online currencies, letting users charge the payment to their cellular phones, etc. Such sites earn revenue from a mix of advertising and sale of additional options.
Online daters may have more liberal social attitudes compared to the general population in the United States.
for people to 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. They can explore together, play games and take relationship quizzes to get a better, deeper understanding of each other. While online dating sites allows members to search on attributes such as education and income, virtual dating allows users to explore compatibility, sense of humor and rapport. Virtual dating sites include Weopia and Omnidate.
According to Scientific American
, virtual dating is "the next step in online dating" (Feb/March 2007, p. 35).
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.
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."
These three dimensional experience has reported more registrations from women than men. One explanation for this phenomenon is that virtual dating allows women to have complete control over who they select and how they interact. Virtual dating also eliminates large amounts of emails in women's inboxes and allows women to enjoy a friendly dating option.
that stimulates a real dating experience. Sites offering video dating allow 3-5 minute webcam
interviews with online matches.
.
Last June, 2010, The Washington Post
published an article on a new service Internet dating companies are offering: online dating assistants. Dating companies offer the services of ghostwriters
to help busy people find dates through Internet.
The services start by helping customers build their profile, a practice already offered by several online dating sites. However, the service continues with picking out potential matches, the writer then sends introductory e-mails to the possible matches and continues messaging back and forth until they can confirm the date.
Although the service was used at first mainly by men, this has changed with more ladies using this service as well.
This kind of service has been considered as misrepresentation and, thus ethically questionable, by those against it.
, which uses the personal homepage genre, the message board genre, the weblog and directory genre, as well as utilizing the Circle of Friends. The second highest scoring, Second Life
utilizes virtual worlds, message boards, chat groups and profile pages to allow people to contact in a three-dimensional environment.
criticized pay-dating as exploiting users and as "fundamentally broken", and noting that "pay sites have a unique [financial] incentive to profit from their customers' disappointment". The post analyzed the business model used for pay dating and noted that it gave rise to "strange incentives [because] the only way they don't make money is to show subscribers to other subscribers." (emphasis in original)
Instead it creates an incentive to show profiles of lapsed and non-paying members (described as "ghosts" in the analysis) in the hope that site visitors will wish to contact these profiles and will subscribe to do so, or that once contacted by new or existing users some of these "ghosts" will wish to respond and will re-subscribe in order to do so. This causes a low response rate, which in turn encourages respondents to become desperate and formulaic, reducing their chances of meeting people.
eHarmony
was sued in 2007 by a lesbian
claiming that, "Such outright discrimination is hurtful and disappointing for a business open to the public in this day and age".
Singapore's government has actively acted as a matchmaker for singles for the past few decades, and thus only 4 percent of Singaporeans have ever used an online dating service, despite the country’s high rate of internet penetration. Singapore's Social Development Network is the governmental organization facilitating dating activities in the country.
New Jersey became the first state to enact a law requiring the sites to disclose whether they perform background checks.
There are several sites that already offer the option for users to request background checks including True.com. Match.com is now offering screenings for sex offenders to their users.
revenue, using tools such as Google Adsense, affiliate marketing
. Since advertising revenues are modest compared to membership fees, free dating sites require a large number of page view
s to achieve profitability.
Some "free" online dating services offer free registrations and search but are not truly free, since they charge users to communicate. Some websites offer a free trial period, yet require a fee for continued use. Truly free online dating services offer free communication and obtain their revenue from advertising or other sources. Other dating sites operate upon a mixed or "freemium
" model, where basic features are free of charge, but advanced features such as virtual gifts are available to paying users only.
Moderation system
On Internet websites which invite users to post comments, a moderation system is the method the webmaster chooses to sort contributions which are irrelevant, obscene, illegal, or insulting with regards to useful or informative contributions....
matchmaking
Matchmaking
Matchmaking is any process of matching two people for the purpose of marriage or a sporting contest.-Practice:In some cultures, the role of the matchmaker was and is quite professionalized...
over the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, through the use of personal computers or cell phones.
Online dating services generally require a prospective member to provide personal information, before they can search the service provider's database for other individuals using criteria they set, 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 webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
s, online chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
, telephone chat (VOIP), and message boards. Some sites provide free registration, but may offer services which require a monthly fee. Other sites depend on advertising for their revenue.
Many sites are broad-based, with members coming 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
The United States generated $957 million in revenue in 2008 from online dating services The U.S. online dating market is expected to increase spending to $932 million in 2011.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 growing by several large commercial services, including AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
Personals, Yahoo! Personals
Yahoo! Personals
Yahoo! Personals was 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...
, Match.com
Match.com
Match.com is an online dating company which reportedly has more than 20 million members, made up of a 49/51 male/female ratio, and Web sites serving 25 countries in more than 8 different languages. Its headquarters are in Dallas, Texas and the company also has offices in West Hollywood, Tokyo, Rio,...
, and eHarmony
EHarmony
eHarmony is an online dating website grounded in relationship science that matches single men and women for long-term relationships. To optimize the matching process, eHarmony operates eHarmony Labs, a relationship research facility, and publishes eHarmony Advice, a relationship advice site...
. By 2007, many prominent studies show that Baby Boomer
Baby boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...
interest in online dating had soared.
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."
Most recently, it has become common for online dating websites to provide webcam chats between members. 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.
The most successful niche sites pair people by race, sexual orientation or religion. The 20 most popular dating sites in 2006 as ranked by Hitwise include JDate
JDate
JDate is an online dating service aimed at Jewish singles. The service is one of a number of demographically focused online match-making websites operated by Spark Networks plc.JDate offers two tiers of service: free and premium...
(for Jewish singles), Christian Mingle, ChristianCafe, Manhunt
Manhunt.net
MANHUNT.net is a social networking website operated by Online Buddies, Inc., that facilitates same-sex introductions. It is owned by its founders, Jonathan Crutchley and Larry Basile. The site has over 4 million profiles worldwide, over 1 million of which are in the United States...
(same sex introductions), Love From India, Black Christian People Meet, Amigos (for Latino singles), Asian People Meet, and Shaadi
Shaadi.com
Shaadi.com is an Indian matrimonial website and the world’s largest matrimonial service. Shaadi.com claims to have the highest number of users and successful matches in the online matrimonial market and competes with BharatMatrimony.com and Jeevansathi.com4.Shaadi.com was founded by Anupal Mittal...
(for Indian singles). In March 2008, the top 5 overall sites held 7% less market share than they did one year ago while the top sites from the top five major niche dating categories made considerable gains.
In addition to niche sites, there are more general sites for the online dating beginner. Time magazine notes that leading the scene are Match.com and eHarmony.com. Match.com
Match.com
Match.com is an online dating company which reportedly has more than 20 million members, made up of a 49/51 male/female ratio, and Web sites serving 25 countries in more than 8 different languages. Its headquarters are in Dallas, Texas and the company also has offices in West Hollywood, Tokyo, Rio,...
bases its matchmaking on the Myers-Briggs personality test. Conversely, eHarmony pair people up using their "secret key dimensions of compatibility" which are grouped into core traits and vital attributes. Match.com has a more open policy, whereas eHarmony.com only pairs up straight matches.
One of the "hottest trends in online dating" is the babyboomers on the top dating sites. Around 30% of America's 80 million babyboomers are single.
Since 2003, several free dating sites, operating on ad based-revenue rather than monthly subscriptions, have appeared and become increasingly popular. Several newer sites such as OkCupid
OKCupid
OkCupid is a free dating and social networking website that features member-created quizzes. The site supports various modes of communication, including personal blogs, public forums, instant messages, emails, and "winks." OkCupid was listed in TIME's 2007 Top 10 dating sites.-Overview:OkCupid...
are beginning to offer more full featured dating services for free, and are starting to compete with staples in the free dating site world such as PlentyofFish
PlentyofFish
PlentyofFish is an online dating site, popular primarily in Canada, the UK, Australia and the United States. The service, based in Canada, generates revenue through advertising. While it is free to use, the site recently started charging for some services, such as message tracking. Members pay for...
. Due to the level of competition between free dating sites, as well as the overall drop in traffic to and revenue for dating sites generally, some sites are branching out into self service advertising. This represents a break from traditional externally sourced ads and is just one of the ways that the revenue models of free dating sites are evolving.
Especially popular in Eastern Europe, some sites offer full access to messaging and profiles, but provide additional services for pay, such as bumping profiles up to the top of the list, removing advertisements, making paying users' profiles appear several times in different places in the search results, and giving paying users a more advanced search engine to work with (in one real example, free users may only search for persons of specified age, gender, orientation, and city, while subscribers may search for any and all parameters listed in profiles, such as height, weight, interests, etc.). Also, this model generally allows users to switch between free and paying status at will and without having to do anything, simply providing advanced features for a set period of time whenever the according payment is received. Ease of payment is also generally higher, with such sites accepting a variety of online currencies, letting users charge the payment to their cellular phones, etc. Such sites earn revenue from a mix of advertising and sale of additional options.
Online daters may have more liberal social attitudes compared to the general population in the United States.
Virtual dating
Virtual dating combines online dating with online gaming. Virtual dating involves the use of avatarsAvatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
for people to interact in a virtual venue
Virtual world
A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create objects. The term has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of...
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. They can explore together, play games and take relationship quizzes to get a better, deeper understanding of each other. While online dating sites allows members to search on attributes such as education and income, virtual dating allows users to explore compatibility, sense of humor and rapport. Virtual dating sites include Weopia and Omnidate.
According to Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
, virtual dating is "the next step in online dating" (Feb/March 2007, p. 35).
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.
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."
These three dimensional experience has reported more registrations from women than men. One explanation for this phenomenon is that virtual dating allows women to have complete control over who they select and how they interact. Virtual dating also eliminates large amounts of emails in women's inboxes and allows women to enjoy a friendly dating option.
Video dating
Video dating is a form of virtual dating that allows all users to use live dating services with actual realityReal life
Real life is a term usually used to denote actual human life lived by real people in contrast with the lives of fictional or fantasy characters.-Usage online and in fiction:On the Internet, "real life" refers to life in the real world...
that stimulates a real dating experience. Sites offering video dating allow 3-5 minute webcam
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...
interviews with online matches.
Online dating assistants
Not a long time ago, various websites were available on the Internet with access to valuable tips on how to find a partner, and especially focused on how to find women. Dating Internet services have expanded and are now offering many more services to make it easier for people to find a partnerSignificant other
Significant other is colloquially used as a gender-blind term for a person's partner in an intimate relationship without disclosing or presuming anything about marital status, relationship status, or sexual orientation, as it is vague enough to avoid offense by using a term that an individual...
.
Last June, 2010, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
published an article on a new service Internet dating companies are offering: online dating assistants. Dating companies offer the services of ghostwriters
Ghostwriters
-Singles:* "Someone's Singing New York New York" Virgin Records * "Runaway Bay" Virgin Records* "World Is Almost At Peace" Virgin Records* "Second Skin" Mercury Records* "Impossible Shame" Mercury Records...
to help busy people find dates through Internet.
The services start by helping customers build their profile, a practice already offered by several online dating sites. However, the service continues with picking out potential matches, the writer then sends introductory e-mails to the possible matches and continues messaging back and forth until they can confirm the date.
Although the service was used at first mainly by men, this has changed with more ladies using this service as well.
This kind of service has been considered as misrepresentation and, thus ethically questionable, by those against it.
Social networking
The role of social networking services in online dating has been explored in a book dedicated to the subject. The findings of the study reveal that the online dating services driven by subscriptions offer the least amount of social networking opportunities, as they often only utilize the personal homepage genre of online community, which only makes them effective for the bonding and encoding stage of the relationship. The dating services modeled on the free-at-the-point-of-use model scored much higher as many of them utilized the Circle of Friends social networking method and a wider number of online community genres. The highest scoring dating service was FacebookFacebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, which uses the personal homepage genre, the message board genre, the weblog and directory genre, as well as utilizing the Circle of Friends. The second highest scoring, Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
utilizes virtual worlds, message boards, chat groups and profile pages to allow people to contact in a three-dimensional environment.
Pay dating business model
In an editorial post titled "Why you should never pay for online dating", a founder of free dating site OkCupidOKCupid
OkCupid is a free dating and social networking website that features member-created quizzes. The site supports various modes of communication, including personal blogs, public forums, instant messages, emails, and "winks." OkCupid was listed in TIME's 2007 Top 10 dating sites.-Overview:OkCupid...
criticized pay-dating as exploiting users and as "fundamentally broken", and noting that "pay sites have a unique [financial] incentive to profit from their customers' disappointment". The post analyzed the business model used for pay dating and noted that it gave rise to "strange incentives [because] the only way they don't make money is to show subscribers to other subscribers." (emphasis in original)
Instead it creates an incentive to show profiles of lapsed and non-paying members (described as "ghosts" in the analysis) in the hope that site visitors will wish to contact these profiles and will subscribe to do so, or that once contacted by new or existing users some of these "ghosts" will wish to respond and will re-subscribe in order to do so. This causes a low response rate, which in turn encourages respondents to become desperate and formulaic, reducing their chances of meeting people.
User problems
There can be a variety of problems when utilizing online dating sites.- Some sites expect members to subscribe "blind," meaning that users have little or no ability to search or preview the available profiles before they pay the subscription fee.
- A majority of dating sites state profiles as online for months or even years since the last time the person has logged in, thereby making it seem as though there are more available members than there actually are. In addition, a site will often advertise the number of "registered members" while having only a fraction of that many active users.
- 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. Some sites prevent a potential contact from even reading a paying member's messages unless the contact has also paid to subscribe. There are still, however, a few established free dating sites that allow non-paid-up users to reply to messages.
- Some sites require that both the sender and recipient of messages be subscribers before any off-site communication or contact can be arranged, and will filter messages to remove email addresses, telephone numbers, web addresses and surnames. Subscribers who attempt to circumvent this restriction may lose their membership and be removed from the site.
- Some profiles may not represent actual daters, but are "bait profiles" that have been placed there by the site owners to attract new paying members. Both Yahoo Personals and Match.com have received several complaints about this tactic. Some users spam sites with "fake" profiles that are in reality advertisements to other services, such as prostitution, multi-level marketingMulti-level marketingMulti-level marketing is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they recruit, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation...
, or other personals websites.
- Even when members' profiles are "real", there is still an inherent lack of trust with other members. Married people seeking affairs will often pose as singles. In addition, many members misrepresent themselves by telling flattering 'white lies' about their height, weight and age, or by using old and misleading photos. Members can, of course, ask for an up-to-date photograph before arranging a meeting, but disappointments are common. 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 (potentially sexual) relationships.
- Online predatorOnline predatorAn online predator is an adult Internet user who exploits vulnerable children or teens, usually for sexual or other abusive purposes.Online victimization of minors can include child grooming, requests to engage in sexual activities or discussions by an adult, unwanted exposure to sexual material ,...
s find online dating sites especially attractive, because such sites give them an unending supply of new targets of opportunity for Internet fraudInternet fraudInternet fraud refers to the use of Internet services to present fraudulent solicitations to prospective victims, to conduct fraudulent transactions, or to transmit the proceeds of fraud to financial institutions or to others connected with the scheme....
. 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 stalkingStalkingStalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person and/or monitoring them via the internet...
, fraudFraudIn criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
, and sexual violenceSexual violenceSexual violence occurs throughout the world, although in most countries there has been little research conducted on the problem. Due to the private nature of sexual violence, estimating the extent of the problem is difficult...
. Some online dating sites conduct background checks on their members in an attempt to avoid problems of this nature.
- Most members are enticed to join dating websites with free or low-priced "trial" memberships advertised on many other websites. 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.
- 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.
- On any given dating site, the sex ratioHuman sex ratioIn anthropology and demography, the human sex ratio is the sex ratio for Homo sapiens . Like most sexual species, the sex ratio is approximately 1:1. In humans the secondary sex ratio is commonly assumed to be 105 boys to 100 girls, an assumption that is a subject of debate in the scientific...
is commonly unbalanced. A website may have 2 women for every man, but they may be in the 35+ range, while the men are generally under 35. Unfortunately, little is known about the sex ratio controlled for age. eHarmony's membership is about 58% female and 42% male , whereas the ratio at Match.com is about the reverse of that. When you get into the specialty niche websites where the primary demographic is male, you typically get a very unbalanced ratio of male to female or female to male. Niche sites cater to people with special interests, such as sports fans, racing and automotive fans, medical or other professionals, people with political or religious preferences (e.g. Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, etc.), people with medical conditions (e.g. HIV+, obese), or those living in rural farm communities.
- There is some evidence that there may be a difference on how women online rate male attractiveness as opposed to how men rate female attractiveness. The distribution of ratings given by men of female attractiveness appears to look like a standard bell curve (normal distribution), while ratings of men given by women is highly skewed with 80% of the men rated as below average. This shows women are genuinely more picky than men when it comes to online dating. It could also potentially arise from women assessing other profile characteristics besides appearance, like their occupation for example.
- Disreputable sites such as True.com and QuechupQuechupQuechup is a social networking website that came to prominence in 2007 when it used automatic email invitations for viral marketing to all the e-mail addresses in its members address books...
may harvest users' personal information and contacts for use in e-mail spamE-mail spamEmail spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
.
- Consolidation within the online dating industry has led to different newspapers and magazines now advertising the same website data base under different names. In the UK, for example, Time Out ('London Dating'), The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
('Encounters'), The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
('Kindred Spirits'), all offer differently named portals to the same service—meaning that a person who subscribes through more than one publication has unwittingly paid more than once for access to just one site.
- In December 2010, a New York State Law called the "Internet Dating Safety Act" (S5180-A) went into effect that requires online dating sites with customers in New York State to warn users not to disclose personal information to people they do not know.
Discrimination
Gay rights groups have complained that certain websites that restrict their dating services to heterosexual couples are discriminating against homosexuals. This has taken place mostly among Christian dating sites, but major dating sites are generally heterosexual oriented. In addition, many sites require members to specify what sex they are looking for without having the option "both", which complicates things for bisexuals. Many sites also require members specify themselves as "male" or "female", complicating matters for transgendered as well as intersexed individuals.eHarmony
EHarmony
eHarmony is an online dating website grounded in relationship science that matches single men and women for long-term relationships. To optimize the matching process, eHarmony operates eHarmony Labs, a relationship research facility, and publishes eHarmony Advice, a relationship advice site...
was sued in 2007 by a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
claiming that, "Such outright discrimination is hurtful and disappointing for a business open to the public in this day and age".
Government regulation
US government regulation of dating services began with the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) which took effect 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.Singapore's government has actively acted as a matchmaker for singles for the past few decades, and thus only 4 percent of Singaporeans have ever used an online dating service, despite the country’s high rate of internet penetration. Singapore's Social Development Network is the governmental organization facilitating dating activities in the country.
New Jersey became the first state to enact a law requiring the sites to disclose whether they perform background checks.
There are several sites that already offer the option for users to request background checks including True.com. Match.com is now offering screenings for sex offenders to their users.
Online introduction services
In 2008 a variation of the online dating model emerged in the form of introduction sites, attracting a large number of users and significant investor interest. Introduction sites differ from the traditional online dating model, where members have to search and contact other members, by introducing members to other members whom they deem compatible, thus claiming to eliminate much of the mayhem of traditional online dating. Although the two introduction services operate differently and offer different features, both claim to be more effective than traditional online personals.Free dating
Most free dating websites depend on advertisingAdvertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
revenue, using tools such as Google Adsense, affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts...
. Since advertising revenues are modest compared to membership fees, free dating sites require a large number of page view
Page view
A page view or page impression is a request to load a single HTML file of an Internet site. On the World Wide Web a 'page' request would result from a web surfer clicking on a link on another 'page' pointing to the 'page' in question. This should be contrasted with a hit, which refers to a...
s to achieve profitability.
Some "free" online dating services offer free registrations and search but are not truly free, since they charge users to communicate. Some websites offer a free trial period, yet require a fee for continued use. Truly free online dating services offer free communication and obtain their revenue from advertising or other sources. Other dating sites operate upon a mixed or "freemium
Freemium
Freemium is a business model that works by offering a product or service free of charge while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related products and services...
" model, where basic features are free of charge, but advanced features such as virtual gifts are available to paying users only.
In popular culture
- You've Got MailYou've Got MailYou've Got Mail is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Nora Ephron, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. It was written by Nora and Delia Ephron based on the play Parfumerie by Miklós László. The film is about two letter-writing lovers who are completely unaware that their sweetheart is in...
, a 1998 film in which the two protagonists conduct a relationship entirely over email before meeting each other. - Napoleon DynamiteNapoleon DynamiteNapoleon Dynamite is a 2004 comedy film co-written and directed by Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess and stars Jon Heder as Napoleon Dynamite. The film was Jared Hess' first full-length feature and is partially adapted from his earlier short film, Peluca....
, a 2004 film in a which one subplot involves a central character's online (and later in person) relationship. - Euro Trip, a 2004 film in which the central character has a relationship wholly via email with a girl from Berlin.
- Must Love DogsMust Love DogsMust Love Dogs is a 2005 romantic comedy film based on the book written by Claire Cook. It is the third film directed and written by Gary David Goldberg. The film, starring Diane Lane and John Cusack, was produced on a budget of $30 million...
, a 2005 film about two people trying to find love through online dating. - Because I Said SoBecause I Said So (film)Because I Said So is a 2007 romantic comedy film directed by Michael Lehmann and starring Diane Keaton, Mandy Moore, Lauren Graham, Piper Perabo and Stephen Collins. It was released on February 2, 2007.-Plot:...
, a 2007 film in which a mother creates an online dating profile for her daughter. - JewtopiaJewtopiaJewtopia is a comedic play by Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson.It focuses on two friends, Chris O'Connell and Adam Lipschitz, both approaching their 30th birthdays. Gentile Chris is interested in dating Jewish women because he feels that they will make his life easier by making all of life's decisions...
, a play which revolves around Jewish dating service JDateJDateJDate is an online dating service aimed at Jewish singles. The service is one of a number of demographically focused online match-making websites operated by Spark Networks plc.JDate offers two tiers of service: free and premium...
.
See also
- Dating
- International marriage agency
- Comparison of online dating websites
- List of social networking websites
- Matrimonial websites
- Mobile datingMobile datingMobile dating services, also known as cell dating, cellular dating, or cell phone dating, allow individuals to chat, flirt, meet, and possibly become romantically involved by means of text messaging, mobile chatting, and the mobile web....
- Online identityOnline identityAn online identity, internet identity, or internet persona is a social identity that an Internet user establishes in online communities and websites...
- Romance scamRomance scamA romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigned romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining their affection, and then using that goodwill to commit fraud...
- Stranger chat
- Romance toursRomance toursRomance tours, are tours usually arranged by a mail-order bride agency or other cyber matchmaking service, that men take in search of a relationship, girlfriend or even a marriage. Upon arrival at their destination, the men and potential brides are thrown a large "meet-and-greet" social to get to...