If the claims of dating companies are to be believed, we are moving towards an age where meeting your significant other from behind a computer screen (or a mobile phone) is the norm rather than the exception! Facts and figures about the success of online dating services are not in short supply. For instance, EHarmony now claims credit for 5% percent of all new marriages in the US. Their main competitor, Match.com, together with research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey conducted a study which indicated that one in six marriages (17%) over the past three years was between couples who met via a dating website.

Just to put that into perspective, the findings of the Match.com study showed that twice as many marriages in the US took place between people who met online, than in bars, clubs and social events combined. Meanwhile, the world’s largest free site, Plentyoffish claims on its home page that 20,000 new singles are joining the site every day.

But just how realistic are these statistics?

Dating companies clearly have a vested interest in advertising the success and popularity of online dating. So just how realistic are these claims? Independent estimates of the numbers of visitors to online dating sites certainly seem to confirm them. With several thousand online dating sites in operation in 2011, and over 200 million active personal profiles, this means that about 1 in 5 (20%) of today’s internet users have a dating profile (excluding social networking sites which can also be used for dating).

However people have different motivations for joining a dating site. Not all are looking for a committed relationship, as a significant proportion of dating profiles are posted on adult oriented sites. Others sign-up because knowing other people still find them desirable makes them feel good about themselves. Even taking these cases into account, the findings of the dating companies do seem to be entirely plausible.

While internet dating is clearly a popular and growing phenomenon, we’ll have to wait a few more years yet before we find out how successful online marriages are in the long-term.

News & Views Dating Business, eHarmony, Marriage, Match.com, PlentyOfFish.com

Speed dating: It’s not just for singles anymore.

Taking a page from its social dating network, Zoosk is launching a new approach to speed dating that is designed especially to help entrepreneurs and startup companies make contact with and match up with venture capitalists willing to invest their money. This new concept debuted in San Francisco in early May at the Web 2.0 Expo, and the idea behind it is both unique and potentially a gold mine.

The approach is simple. Startup companies register with Zoosk for the event, during which they will have the chance to “speed date” with several venture capitalists just as singles do during speed dating events. Each startup is guaranteed to receive at least three minutes of uninterrupted, undivided attention from the venture capitalists in the hope of capturing their interest enough to convince them to pursue potential funding agreements in more detail.

Is it going to work? We’ll have to wait and see what kind of results come out of it, but early indications are this unique approach to matching startups and venture capitalists was extremely popular. If nothing else it’s a clever way to latch on to the online dating model of operation and put it to use in an entirely different way. And who knows, maybe the event will produce a profitable “match made in heaven”!

News & Views Dating Business, Facebook, Zoosk

Thousands of happy couples. Thousands of marriages. The highest success rate online. These are just a few of the claims we are constantly hearing from online dating sites, both the major ones and the smaller, more specialized ones. But really, how successful is online dating? Can you trust and believe in what these sites are telling you?

The answer is a very murky “yes” and “no”. The reality is that online dating sites generally rely on self-reporting of happy couples and marriages, which means they need their members to submit comments, letters, and other input sharing their own experiences. And while there are indeed many success stories from online dating this kind of self-reporting is by no means scientific or reliable.

So what is a single person to do? Is it worth looking at the so-called success rates promoted by online dating sites when deciding which one (or ones) to join and participate in? The answer to that one is really up to you, but in general you should take these kinds of claims with a grain of salt.

In the real world of online dating you’re going to have to expect to have a lot of not-so-great dates as you move along the path toward finding someone really special. That, it turns out, is the real meaning of “success” in online dating, the willingness to persevere, keep going, and working toward whatever dating goal you set for yourself. It probably isn’t going to happen overnight, and it may even take several years in some cases. But if you stick with it and have realistic goals you’re likely to have a great deal of fun along the way.

News & Views Couples, Dating Business, Marriage, Success, Trust