There’s a new player in the arena of matchmaking and connecting singles using Facebook. Littlehint is a startup company that claims to have a new and better way of collecting your Facebook friends, sorting them according to which ones might be best matched for dating, and then making it easy for those folks to connect with each other.

If it sounds a bit like Thread.com you’re right because the basic idea is the same. What’s different, though, is the Littlehint is setting itself up with more detailed questions to answer as part of your profile and is also working feverishly to allow users to submit their DNA profiles as well. DNA matching for singles is the hottest, newest, and most unproven method of matchmaking in the business right now so it’s not clear if this is really a selling point for Littlehint or not.

The way Littlehint describes its process is that they ask a series of questions to determine your sociological characteristics, assess your personality and psychological tendencies, and then use a function called “degrees of separation” to connect you with friends via your Facebook page. The catch? Your friends need to fill out a Littlehint profile, too, for the whole thing to work.

Is this the wave of the dating future? Who knows. But one thing is for certain, we’re going to be seeing more of these types of online dating tools so you need to stay as up to date as possible if you want to make the most of online dating opportunities.

News & Views Dating Applications, Facebook, Matchmaking, Personality Testing

Sometimes I think the whole world is possessed with smartphones, mobile browsing, and building thousands upon thousands of applications to make it easier to stay connected to just about anything via your mobile phone. It should come as no surprise, then, that online dating has “gone mobile” enthusiastically and deliberately. Mobile applications are the hottest ticket around and online dating sites are not about to be left behind.

Any online dating site that wants to compete in the marketplace absolutely must have a mobile “app” available for its users, and just about every major online dating service does indeed have one. SpeedDate, Skout, Radaroo, DateCheck, and Zoosk are a few examples of these rapidly growing and expanding types of services. Even the more mainstream dating sites like Match.com are getting in on the act, putting out apps designed to enhance the experience of their members.

But don’t for a moment think that these companies are doing all of this just to be nice; no, there is a huge amount of money to be made from mobile online dating. In 2007 the mobile dating market was valued at about $330 million, while in 2008 that number jumped to a whopping $550 million; the projection for 2013 is for the value to increase to approximately $1.3 billion. It’s no wonder, then, that online dating services are jumping headfirst into the mobile marketplace.

What does this mean for you? In general, the explosive growth of mobile online dating options works in your favor because it allows you even greater choice and access when it comes to dating. Where you need to be careful, though, is in the added costs. Some sites offer their mobile services for free, while others charge a fee; additionally, depending on your service plan you may get hit with big overage charges for the extra data usage you’ll rack up using these kinds of apps.

The best approach is to read the fine print on the service you’re interested in, check with your mobile phone company regarding your data usage plan, and then start taking advantage of the flexibility and fun of using online mobile dating apps!

News & Views Cell Phone, Dating Applications, iPhone, Match.com, Mobile Phone, Zoosk