Is dating online becoming the norm?

Long gone are the days when dating women or dating men used to be as simple as walking to a person in a pub. To all single people out there: if you are looking to be dating women or, given the circumstances, dating men, all you need is an internet connection and a dating website. Still not convinced?

Well, dating online has become an industry in its own rights. According to a study made by a dating website, the past five years have seen a clear rise in revenue incomes and it is estimated that the industry affiliated to dating online has reached the 2 billion$ mark in 2013.

It’s quite funny when you look at the early days of dating online. As David Dewan, a Harvard graduate who was among the first to focus on the needs of dating women and dating men remembers, there was a lot of randomness back then. Mind you, there was no internet back then thus, no dating online practices, not even a single dating website - just a basic algorithm with basic questions and answers. Here’s an example of how the algorithm would apply on dating men in search for dating women. Q: Do you like tennis? A: Me too!; Q: What is your favorite movie? A: Jaws; Mine as well! And that was it. Dating men or dating women seemed to have become a lot easier at that point. And so it was that the first stepping stones in dating online were laid, a prelude to what we know as a dating website.

Nowadays, when it comes to dating online, things changed a bit. For starters, we live in the internet age and this has opened up numerous possibilities when it comes to dating women or dating men. A dating website has become as common as a Wikipedia page. Companies are even introducing their dating website to smartphone devices in order to reach a wider consumer market. Moreover, as a dating website owner, companies are also making use of location services. And the fun of dating online does not stop here. There is also the option of a tailor made dating website such as “cougar dating” where dating men are only interested in older women, or “uniform dating” where dating women seek the company of people in the armed forces. There are endless possibilities when it comes to dating online!

With such a boom in dating website companies, the products have also expanded. IBISWorld estimates that the number of companies focusing on dating online has increased during the past 5 years at an annual rate of 3.1%. Taking Europe as a study case, it appears that Great Britain features the largest community of dating men and dating women, thus becoming the leading user of dating online services. Apparently more than 9 million Britons have tried dating men or dating women through the use of a dating website. In Great Britain alone, dating website establishments have reached the 1500 mark.

Metaflake, a company that specializes in the needs of dating men and dating women, estimates that a third of all new relationships have their inception on a dating website. And so it appears that dating online is becoming the new trend. Beware though! As Harry Reis suggests, as dating women or dating men, browsing through hundreds of potential dates can create a ‘shopping mentality’.If you are either looking to be dating men or in search of dating women, dating online might be the right answer.