Online Dating

 The market for online dating is enormous with online dating generating more revenue and than anyother type of online content. Online dating has become an increasingly popular way for people tomeet as a high percentage of younger internet users now use the internet and date online. Somedating websites now allow users to score other site users by attractiveness, free of charge.Research has shown that the significant factors in online success, that is the number of firstcontact e-mails received, are attractiveness, income, education, and occupation, withattractiveness being the most important single factor, and income also being important, althoughmore so for men than women. Many people now search for partners via the Internet. Only a proportion of people can use internet dating- those with internet access. Internet dating involves using website(s) that list potential partners with a charge usually being made for contact information. It is a form of social networking but unlike many of the social networking sites, online dating agencies and websites usually charge fees to site users for this contact information. In the early days of the internet, users would meet for free in chat rooms. Finding love is important and that is what internet daters are looking for. The internet dating business is massive, and in the early 2000’s it was shown that one in four singles in the USA had used Internet dating services in theirsearch for a potential partner. Dating on the internet was already a $1 billion industry by 2008and is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 10 percent. As the internet speeds up withfaster and more accessible services, and web users in general become more familiar with internettechnology and as internet dating is becoming more and more the social norm, the numbers of peopleusing internet dating services will only continue to grow.