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overview
This page considers internet dating or match-making services.
It covers -
The
following pages discuss business models and demographics,
guides and law relating to online matchmaking sites.
 introduction
Online matchmaking services predate the web, with bulletin
boards on networks such as Compuserve and AOL featuring
lonely hearts advertisements modelled on those found in
newspapers from at least the 1760s and some entrepreneurs
promoting electronic profiling services in the epoch before
the browser. Internet dating
services took off from 1993, with around 2,500 web-based
services in existence by mid 1999.
Typically, services are run on a commercial basis (with
revenue from subscription fees and advertising). Participants
are able to publish a profile and view the profiles of
other participants.
A profile generally features a profile name - offering
the participant with some anonymity - along with information
about defining characteristics (age, height, weight, sexual
preference, musical taste, location and so forth) and
a service-specific email address. Searching of profiles
(particularly searching that embraces several characteristics)
and contact with the owner of another profile is generally
dependent on online payment of a subscription fee.
Most services feature collective chat
rooms and often have facilities for more intimate one
to one chat. Many also allow participants to post photographs.
Publishing and/or accessing multiple images or those of
an adult nature often involves payment of the subscription
fee or a charge for 'premium' services. Some allow audio
and video content, although that is largely of interest
to participants with a broadband
connection.
Some services are essentially passive: participants publish
their advertisements and are found through mechanical
searching by other participants on the basis of location
(eg all profiles in Canberra or Los Angeles) or newness.
Others offer active searching, with the subscriber for
example able to search for all gay divorced Caucasians
with blue eyes, blond hair, aged between 30 and 40, and
with a taste for Maria Callas, leather and pasta.
Some have sought differentiation from competitors by emphasising
automated matching that is based on psychological modelling
of varying degrees of sophistication (from Myers-Briggs
upwards), leveraging profiles that are input by participants
over a period of 45 to 60 minutes rather than five minutes.
Others might be regarded by jaundiced observers as emphasising
packaging. DoubleSign.com specialises in "astrological
matchmaking, including both Western and Chinese astrology".
US service Panspective announced
the
launch of Your Zona, a personality matching system.
The Zona test is one of the few personality tests based
on a three-dimensional integral model. This three dimensional
model assesses static personality traits as well as
personal traits that are more fluid, such as evolution
of consciousness. Two dimensional models, such as Jung,
Myers-Briggs, Freud, Enneagrams and Astrology measure
only static traits.
The Your Zona system separates personalities into nine
zonas, relating to objects found in nature. The nine
zonas are: Coral, Moon, Pearl, Quartz, Silver, Sun,
Topaz, Water and Wind. Each zona consists of five z-factors,
defined from 1 to 5. Once someone learns their zona
the system recommends the most compatible zonas in the
areas of romance, personal growth and professional partnerships.
The Zona test is comprised of 26 questions and should
take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. The test
is free and available online at www.yourzona.com. Once
users take the test and obtain their zonas and compatibility
criteria, the website also offers additional tools to
help locate other compatible zonas in their local area.
The Your Zona system intends to become the de facto
personality classification and matching system worldwide.
"What's your zona?" may soon be the most commonly
overheard question at dinner parties, health clubs and
singles bars.
We
have not encountered the Topaz or Water zonas; obviously
we don't move in the right circles, astrological or otherwise.
DateMyPet.com eschews magic crystals in favour of "if
you want to date me, you have to date my pet", claiming
"If you knew first hand that a person was a pet lover,
it would make things a lot easier" and noting that
for many people
when
the decision came to choose the partner or the pet -
it was a no brainer for the majority. The pet won.
Nicely
put. Using the companion animal for quality control strikes
us as more effective than motoristmail.com
-
You
can find your soulmate just looking for her/his license
plate.Here is the novelty: your search is no longer
based on an email address, on a picture or on a phone
number! What you need now is to recall the license plate
numbers of someone interesting you saw around and once
you have logged in to Motorist Mail, type the license
plate numbers in the free search service area: this
way you can find out if she/he is a Motorist Mail member
and then send her/him a message
One
cynic characterised online dating thus -
e-Dating: The odds are good, but the goods are odd.
meatmarket.com?
Online services initially shared the stigma attached to
newspaper lonely hearts or 'personals' advertisements
and offline introduction services, traditionally beset
by criticisms regarding dubious billing practices and
underwhelming performance.
That stigma appears to have diminished with normalisation
of the web in North America, Australia and New Zealand
from 1997 onwards. Digital dating was seen as hip and
- perhaps a reflection of what David Rieff characterised
as The Lonely Crowd - was seen as legitimate
a way of identifying and screening a potential partner
as using a grandmother, relying on friends, visiting a
bar, a coffee shop or a sauna.
The 2001 Love Online: A Report on Digital Dating in
Canada (PDF)
by Robert Brym & Rhonda Lenton suggested that participants
used services because they
- created
opportunities for meeting people
- offered
"privacy and confidentiality"
- were
more convenient, especially to the 'time-poor'.
That is consistent with the emergence of phenomena such
as 'speed dating', where a group of singles gather in
one place to "meet and mingle" in accord with
a strict time schedule and specific rules.
Typically a pair of participants gets seven minutes to
talk face to face before moving on to the next 'date',
with around eight such interactions in one evening. Sounds
much like the 'show and tell' sessions endured by some
seekers of venture capital at major industry events.
Speed daters are allowed a restricted range of questions
(eg no queries about age, occupation and place of residence)
in order to focus on "what the person is really like'.
At the end of the event participants provide the organisers
with a rating about their interactions; those whose ratings
match are provided with the potential partner's contact
details.
Variants include 'The Quiet Party', where participants
are not allowed to talk but instead rely on pen and paper
(and presumably the odd smile, grimace or raised eyebrow)
and Bingo Dating, with a prize to the first couple to
find matching numbers.
A cross-over between speed dating and online venues became
apparent in the second half of 2004, with the emergence
of online-to-offline services. Users register online,
identify a potential match and then meet those people
at events arranged by the site operator. Some services
correlate online questionnaires before providing the lucky
subscriber with an agenda of 15-minute dates for the evening.
As with the purely offline model, only dates requested
by both parties feature on the dance card.
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